The Detective | Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick

The Detective | Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick | No Nonsense, gritty acting. Really impressed....

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The Detective

	The Detective Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick 20th Century Fox, 2005 average customer review:based on 10 reviews view larger image
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Police detective Joe Leland (Frank Sinatra) investigates the murder of a homosexual man. While investigating, he discovers links to official corruption in New York City in this drama that delves into a world of sex and drugs. Based on the Roderick Thorpe

the detective

as the tough cynical detective frank sinatra shines. he solves the case and watches as the guilty man is put to death. later his world is shaken to its core as he uncovers evidence that shows he was wrong and has sent an innocent man to his death. can he now base his life and his rising career on a lie? the answer is as shocking as the question. a must see movie.

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No Nonsense, gritty acting. Really impressed....

THE DETECTIVE is apart of those movies from the late sixties that are the beginning of modern movie making. I had been wanting to see this for a long time for its taboo subject matter. At least taboo for the times. To see this movie because you might think it is a "gay" movie and to see the shock value is wrong. This movie is much more than that. It is Frank Sinatra at his best. He's a little aged, but still one of the coolest cats ever.

I was impressed with the way Sinatra's character was played. He was so calm and cool under pressure. The best example is the interrogation of the "insane" gay man. The other cops were trying to scare it out of him but Sinatra told everyone to leave and he took care of it his way, calm and cool. Just like Sinatra was. The movie was even able to weave in a love story between Sinatra and his girlfriend/wife. They are going through rough times, but by the end of the movie, you assume they are going to get back together.

Another great part of THE DETECTIVE is the flashbacks and the final scene that is narrated by an important character. The flashbacks are great for the back story on Sinatra's wife and their problems.

The only negative about the movie is for just a few minutes I remember thinking this should have been cut out or re-edited. But it's not a big problem. Also, the gay men are portrayed incorrectly, but that was the public opinion then, so that's the route they took. Overall, a great, great film that I plan to watch again soon.

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Interesting Primarily As A Portrait Of 1960s Homophobia

Based on the 1966 novel by Roderick Thorp, THE DETECTIVE was among the highest grossing films of both 1968 and one of the most popular of Frank Sinatra's film career. At the time it was considered remarkably honest in its portrait of a no-nonsense cop who finds himself trapped between a series of compromises and his own sense of integrity. Today, however, it chiefly notable for its unintentional window onto 1960s homophobia.

Joe Leland (Frank Sinatra) is a third generation New York City police officer who begins the film with two victories: in his private life, he has wooed and won a remarkably beautiful wife, Karen (Lee Remick); in his professional life, he is assigned to a particularly notorious murder case that he quickly solves and which results in a major promotion. But both explode in his face in particularly unsavory ways. Although flawless on the surface, Karen is a distinctly disturbed woman who shatters their marriage through a series of compulsive affairs. And although it seems solved, the case on which Joe's promotion rests may not be nearly as simple as every one thought at the time.

The case involves the brutal murder of a gay man who is found with his head battered in and sexually mutilated--a circumstance that leads Joe and his co-workers to prowl 'known homosexual hangouts' such as gyms and the waterfront. In the process, the film creates a portrait of the gay community that says considerably less about the gay community than the way in which heterosexual America thought of it at the time. The gay men themselves are improbable, being pulled out of group gropes from the back of cargo trucks, flexing muscles in tawny-colored gyms, frequenting bars notable for satin and velvet, and lounging about in silk robes. They come in two basic varities, victim and predator. They are weak and are routinely brutalized by both each other and the police, the latter of which positively delight in knocking them around.

This is not particularly unusual for films of the 1960s and the 1970s; it is much the same portrait presented by such diverse films as ADVISE AND CONSENT and CRUISING. What is unusual is Joe's attitude toward them: unlike his co-workers, he dislikes seeing them mistreated and prefers to see them (and indeed all other suspects) accorded a certain basic respect as human beings. It was a very, very bold stance for a film to take at the time. Even so, it does not counterbalance the portrait itself, which is intrinsically demeaning, or the story, which ultimately pivots on a version of "gay panic"--a heterosexual myth used here with a slight spin.

The chief grace of the film is the performances of Sinatra and Remick. Today Sinatra is best recalled as a singer, but he had some significant acting chops, and he proves more than able to over the shortcomings of the script. Lee Remick, a much-admired actress, is flawlessly cast as the perfidious wife Karen, a woman who superficial qualities conceal an unraveling personality. The supporting cast, which features Jacqueline Bissett, Jack Klugman, and Robert Duvall, is also quite fine. But the script is weak, the story choppy, the film is a shade too glossy for its subject--and its incredibly niave portrait of gay men tends to overpower everything.

All films must be considered in the context of their eras, but even so a good film can transcend its era. THE DETECTIVE doesn't manage to do that: sometimes ridiculous to the point of being amusing, sometimes so grotesque that it becomes a bit embarassing. All the same, it remains interesting primarily because it offers a window on what mainstream Americans of the 1960s thought homosexuals were like. The DVD offers the film in original widescreen format; the transfer, however, is merely acceptable. Recommended primarily to Sinatra fans and film historians interested in Hollywood's frequently off-the-wall portray of gay men.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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tough film

Although a bit dated, this film is a good detective flic. A bit hard at times but life is not full of roses either. Both Frank Sinatra and Lee Remick peform very well. The plot evolves around the detective, his values and his personal life. One should note that the transfer no the dvd is not the best possible as there are few problems with the sound and picture quality.
All in all a decent film which could be described also as neo-noir.

Good basic story, but needs editing

The Detective suffers from excess baggage that detracts from the main story. I would have eliminated most if not all of the Lee Remick character. The reminiscences regarding the beginning and deterioration of Joe Leland's relationship with Karen are too long and break up the progression of the plot. The director has forgotten that his main story is that Detective Leland coerced a confession from a man he describes as a psycho, and he's guilt ridden over it. He failed check out the veracity of the confession because he saw a quick case closure to be a ticket to a promotion denied to his father. For example, he knows a good detective would have matched fingerprints on the murder weapon, but this clearly was not done. Another weakness was an over-reliance of 1960's liberal social values. For example, there was really no relevance of NYC ghetto housing failures to Detective Leland's poor police work or police corruption in general. Moreover, it was a gratuitous slap to any hard-working police officer to imply that they would watch Nazi concentration camp documentaries to gather effective interrogation strategies such as removing a suspect's clothes and questioning him while he was nude.

Get rid of Lee Remick, remove the needless social preaching, and you're left with a pretty entertaining drama. The director also would have had more time to develop the rainbow conspiracy (which had far more potential than a half naked Lee Remick). If you know the scene progression, you can use the bathroom or get some microwave popcorn going without using the pause.

Ralph Meeker was good as a sleazeball corrupt cop, and William Wendon (Commander Matt Dekker from an episode in Star Trek) was also very believable. When Sinatra wasn't being misused as some Great Society mouthpiece, he also was quite credible. It could be remade, but I would suggest LA Confidential if this was almost what you were looking for, but somewhat disappointing.

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