Detective Story : GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER

GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER

*Avoid all the IMDB reviews of this film!*

It's late and I don't have the time to write anything more extensive than this - the reviews of this film here on the IMDB are some of the most poorly thought out pieces of witless 'writing' I can ever recall reading.

Aside from the fact that many of them contain critical spoilers, but do not say so up front, they also contain summations of meaningless plot points, invalid or incorrect assumptions of why characters take certain actions while at the same time containing supremely monotonous recountings of the basic plot as they illustrate their inability to master the art of listening and watching at the same time

Everyone thinks they can review a film, it seems.

In short - they can't.

Normally, I would not care, but all there was to read here was reviews which contained little or no insight into the story or into the film.

My version - in short -

"Detective Story" is a brilliant film, perfectly cast from top to bottom and with great performances by the entire cast.

It is a grim, hard-hitting, relentless film, almost merciless in its presentation.

The film depicts many levels of humanity. (Ask any real cop about what they confront on a day-to-day basis.) The film depicts, too, various levels of lawlessness and inhumanity, as well.

It's intense from beginning to end. Just pay attention. Riveting!

With many people caught up in the whirlwind of their own problems and lives, some manage to see beyond themselves at critical moments in the film....and it makes for a great picture.

That's all from me for now. If anyone cares to discuss the picture, meet me back here some day.

Re: GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER

I totally agree, This movie is so good, so alive and powerful it felt like my TV had an earthquake or something.

Re: GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER

Yeah, I agree too. I also think a lot of the posters in this message board are the same way. So many of them keep ranting about how much they wanted Jim to die and how glad they were when he died because in their views he was a bad man and a bad cop. Talk about hypocritical! They're viewing the character in black and white and not even bothering to look deeper -- much like how Jim acted throughout the movie.

There were plenty of poignant things said that allowed for a deeper look into the character of Jim. Somehow people manage to ignore this totally.

Re: GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER

I agree. This film is one of the greatest produced.

Re: GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER


I forgot I had posted about this film 20 months ago and I came to IMDB looking for the quotes between Douglas and George McCready in the back of the paddy wagon which are not on this site. I saw the thread heading and I thought - "These people are idiots". The I saw this thread and thought, "Hey! That's guy's right!". The I saw it was my own thread. HA!

Glad you guys posted and agree.

Now to se if the threads got stupider or if any mature comments made their way on to here.

"My name is karl schneider. I live in oaklawn, new jersey"

Re: GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER

Please don't kill me, but I really did not think that much of this film. And I was really looking forward to seeing it! Wm. Wyler! Wm. Bendix! Eleanor Parker! and even Kirk Douglas. And I live for a good detective story and anything that smacks of film noir, so I couldn't wait to see this!

I really was disappointed. I thought Kirk Douglas just chewed up all the scenery and then started to gnaw on the paint on the floor. I just couldn't appreciate this burning mania that drove Kirk Douglas' character to behave the way he did. I could not believe the extent to which Kirk Douglas chose to over-act his part.

I loved some of the supporting players, like good old Frank Faylen and of course the wonderful William Bendix. The other detectives, there, in the bull pen I thought were all interesting and believable. Eleanor Parker was wonderful, but sadly under utilized in this particular story. But her character's big issue was handled very intelligently and with much believable emotion.

The one set did become claustrophobic and tiresome and not in a way that I think served the story being told. It just seemed like a low-budget solution, or a way to literally translate a stage piece onto film.

I couldn't believe that this was considered for any Oscars, except for Eleanor Parker's nomination. This might have made a good play, but I really didn't care for this version on film.

Re: GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER

I first viewed DS when I was about 14. At the time, given the age coupled with my immaturity, it's fair to say that I thought that it was terrific.

But the years have not been kind to it, in my view. I don't think it worked well as a theatrical transplant. I doubt that it accurately reflected the culture of the Fifties. It rings very false indeed.

Anyone who is as flawed and rent by such obvious internal contradictions as Mcleod could never have survived, even in the mid-Twentieth Century. Massively melodramatic and campy by turns he belongs in a Nineteenth Century farce. It is not just that the Mcleod character is, by turn, charming or contemptible, it is that he is utterly unbelievable. And as portrayed by cleft-chinned, perfect teethed Kirk Douglas, whose idea of rage is to emote strangulated roars at his antagonists, the whole thing is reduced to perfect camp.

Literary license frequently compels the telling of great stories under very compressed circumstances; it would be impossible to tell the story on stage without a similar set but apart from the likelihood that it couldn't have worked very well on stage it utterly fails when the same stagecraft is used on screen.
I suspect that any career cop, even one who might have been active in the Fifties or Sixties, could have sat through this without being outraged by these cartoonish depictions of their own, never mind the incredibly sloppy and naive procedures displayed for securing suspects or the way they are allowed to loiter about in one another's presence. How is it possible to pay attention to the story when one is constantly distracted by these false notes?

Apart from the Douglas performance, Lee Grant's shoplifter offered a New York accent that seemed to be mouthed from someone who started out in Arizona and provided a character that was too cute and silly by turns. Cathy O'Donnell was too sticky-sweet to be true. How is it possible that the guy she defends, only just realizes, after 5 years, that he really doesn't love the women he stole for, when he has been living in proximity to her sister, who has loved him, for all this time? As they fall into one another's arms it is small wonder that the air-headed Italian thug does a "hearts and flowers" routine. This massively phony archetypal characterization of an Italian-American by a non-Italian who must have watched too many Warner Brothers Thirties mobster movies is as false at it is disrespectful.

I would agree with a previous commenter that the performance of Eleanor Parker's character, especially as she is stripped bare by the questions of the lieutenant as portrayed by Horace McMahon (who was in the habit of portraying just this sort of role throughout his career) in a fine, understated way.

There is so much else that rings untrue but the worse is yet to come: Mcleod's death scene. Has anyone seen an early silent when a cowboy gets bumped off by the bad guy and the victim spins in a tight circle, falls down, then staggers to his knees, falls down again, then his legs bolt out and then, finally, he stops moving? Well, this is a masterpiece when compared to the Kirk Douglas performance. Here's a guy that is gut-shot, not once but 3 times, and somehow manages to have a conversation with his buddy, tear up a criminal complaint against a hapless and inept thief, instruct his boss not to call for a medic (in the best tradition of a Thirties "I'm done for" C grade cowboy movie) and then give himself the final benediction before keeling over dead. Anyone who knows anything about gut-shots would be aware that the victim would go into shock (at best) or would be curled up in a knot on the floor writhing in desperate agony; no speeches apart from screams of pain.

Incredible! Literally, unbelievable. This is not tragedy, it is farce.

Finally, it is unfortunate that a great director, the major force behind one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces of cine-dom, "the Best Years of Our Lives" should have stumbled this badly. Such is the perfidy of art, I guess.

On a 5 star rating system, I would give it a 1 and a half - but only because students of our species might want to see an example of a work that effectively trivializes the complexities and contradictions of the human condition.

Kingacres0@gmail.com

PS: You can catch a high quality airing of the film at the following Youtube link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZYPvq4MTF8&feature=PlayList&p=EF37CC5B52B26BCB&index=0

Press the HQ button for a surprisingly sharp, clear print with very good audio.

PPS: Tell you what. As someone who grew up in Manhattan, in the Fifties, who was familiar with the 19th Precinct Police Station (both inside and out), who could tell a Bronx accent from a Brooklyn accent, who had lots of Italian-American friends - this film's inaccuracies really pissed me off, right down to the jerk cop who indifferently crashes his car into 2 other vehicles at the end of a minor collar of a shoplifter. 'Nuff said.

Re: GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER

Here! Here! Well said!

I lived in New York for eight years, during the nineties, until 9-11. I didn't have quite the intimate familiarity with all things New York, as did yourself, but I can appreciate all of your remarks.

Thank you for mentioning The Best Years Of Our Lives, that is one of my very favorite films.

Re: GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER

Boy, that's a mouthful. Wish I could defend this film more, but except for the fact I love gritty NY cop dramas in THE NAKED CITY mold (and DET. STORY is filmed on the Paramount lot for that matter), there's not a lot to defend. Oh, I know, I liked the wise-guy banter between Horace McMahon and the gangster with the $20.00 hat. Laughed (probably inappropriately) when Douglas interrogates his own wife. Can't think of anything else.

Re: GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER

farley, I don't think there's much to defend here. It's a blot on Wyler's otherwise wonderful career.

Naked City is a wonderful film!! If you like that, you should look up (also available from criterion) "Blast of Silence" 1961 http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054687/, which is about as gritty as you can get for a NY crime drama, filmed on a shoestring budget and all on location in the city. It's a pearl of a film!!!

Re: GREAT FILM, MOST INEPT IMDB REVIEWS EVER

Your review sucks.



"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
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