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Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Highly Overrated But Still Good

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Powerful, and i would say even more so, when it first came out drama. A ll the more remarkable in that for most of the time, it takes place on one set, a police station. Almost like a filmed play, which it was based upon.The acting from almost every one in the cast is good, especially Kirk Douglas who gives one of his ultimate trademark " Angry young man"portrayals and Eleanor Parker is nearly as good as his wife with a secret or two. I may be a little biased as i am a big Kirk Douglas fan, nobody could do the " simmering anger bubbling beneath the surface" part like him.A very under rated actor,a very good film, that can still pack a punch.

William Wyler brings his famous sensitivity to this film adaptation of a successful Broadway play of the time. The mores around 1950 are so different from ours, that the main conflict seems overwrought in 2015. Lee Grant debuts in a role so utterly unlike what she played in the rest of her career. If you look carefully at the supporting players, you'll see actors you remember from great TV and high-end movies performances in the 1970s. This movie was made before the inundation of cop shows we have to day, and those tropes look fresh here. Eleanor Parker gives a great performance that will not remind you in any way of the Duchess in The Sound of Music. William Bendix plays a tough cop straight-- not for laughs in any way. Frank Faylen (Dobie Gillis's TV father and the cab driver in It's a Wonderful Life) gives a refreshing turn as a detective.

I am a big fan of film noir from the 50s, and so I picked this for a Sunday evening watch. However, Detective Story does not really fall in that genre. This movie is much more than stylish - it has oodles of substance. The story unfolds largely within the confines of a police station and much of the action occurs within one large room. The pacing is brisk, and most of the characters are introduced fairly early. Kirk Douglas turns in an intense performance as Jim McLeod - a ruthless crime fighting cop who has a stark view of the world as made up of good guys and bad. He and prosecutes all crime, no matter how minor, with a brutal zeal. He does not believe in extenuating circumstances. The first half of the movie leads you to think that you are watching an entertaining crime drama where McLeod is the upright cop who, whilst chafing at the bounds of permissible legal conduct, seeks to bring an influential, wealthy, and well-lawyered crook to justice. In his mind, McLeod has convicted and damned the crook with a ferocious loathing. It is the sudden mid-story twist that brings this film into its own. McLeod's relentless persecution precipitates a personal crisis that will alter his own life forever. In the second half, the movie grapples with surprising emotional intensity with eternal questions - who are we to judge, in damning others do we damn ourselves, and how do we bring ourselves to forgive? I was so engrossed that I postponed my loo break until the very end. This is a fantastic movie - loved it.

It is a testament to the directorial versatility of William Wyler that he could make both a film like 'Ben-Hur', with its grand spectacle, and 'Detective Story', an adaptation of a stage play in which most of the action is conducted within one room of a New York police station. This is a fine film, that never seems stage-bound. How Wyler achieves this is something of a miracle. You hardly notice his camera, you are so absorbed in the human dramas. The story revolves around a crusading detective who seems intent on driving all the evil out of the world single-handedly. He is incorruptible, handsome, witty – and heartless and self-destructive. The story spans a single day in which he seems about to bring off a long-hoped-for arrest, until a family secret and a cunning lawyer cut the legs from under him. The story builds to a terrific climax. Several sub-plots are kept running simultaneously, as various suspects are brought into the station under arrest, but the scenario will cleverly knit these characters together. Kirk Douglas is excellent in the lead role, as is Eleanor Parker playing his wife. But the whole cast should stand and take a bow. Sixty years on, 'Detective Story' still packs a punch.