The Detective *** (1968, Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick, Jacqueline Bisset, Ralph Meeker, Jack Klugman) – Classic Movie Review 3998

Gordon Douglas’s second thriller in row of three finds Frank Sinatra starring as troubled New York City Detective Joe Leland, in the 1968 film The Detective. It’s a cop movie, not a private eye thriller, but in the same neo noir hardboiled vein.

Director Gordon M Douglas’s second thriller in row of three with Frank Sinatra after Tony Rome and before Lady in Cement finds Sinatra giving an arresting performance as troubled New York City cop Detective Joe Leland in the 1968 film The Detective. However, the slim difference this time is that the detective that Sinatra plays is a policeman not a private eye, so it’s a cop movie, not a private eye thriller, but it is in the same neo noir hardboiled vein.

The story has Leland booking a man called Felix (Tony Musante), who is forced to ‘confess’ to the mutilation and murder of a wealthy gay man named Teddy Leikman (James Inman) and is then executed. But Leland (Sinatra), disturbed by his wife (Lee Remick)’s delicate mental condition, later suspects that the man Felix (Musante) is innocent and that there is a web of corruption sweeping through the police force.

Douglas’s tense, exciting and unusual 1968 crime drama is quite nasty and explicit for its time, with strong, quirky acting, pungent dialogue and ruthlessly efficient direction. The film’s dodgy treatment of gays is now very offensive, leaving a bad taste in the mouth, accurately reflecting the unenlightened side of its oppressive era. The sour picture of the brutal, corrupt city cops is realistic but not very attractive. Basically it is an old Hollywood take on material previously unavailable to it, and struggling rather clumsily to try to come to terms with it, so it feels exploitative rather than liberationist or even very liberal.

The true-for-once advertising boasted that ‘Roderick Thorp’s giant novel comes on like a powerhouse’, and that is pretty much what happens in the movie. It is also billed as ‘An adult look at a police detective’ and that is true as well, with the film delivering a much more grown-up take on the life and work of an American police detective while tackling for one of the first times in mainstream cinema the long taboo subject of homosexuality.

Talented, Academy Award-winning screenwriter Abby Mann writes the screenplay, based on Roderick Thorp’s 1966 novel. When he won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), Mann said in his acceptance speech: ‘A writer worth his salt at all has an obligation not only to entertain but to comment on the world in which he lives.’ His screenplay for The Detective certainly fulfils that remit.

Also in a remarkable cast are Jacqueline Bisset as Norma MacIver, Ralph Meeker, Jack Klugman, Horace McMahon, William Windom, Al Freeman Jr, Robert Duvall, Lloyd Bochner, Sugar Ray Robinson, Pat Henry, Patrick McVey, Dixie Marquis, Renée Taylor, Tom Atkins, James Dukas, Earl Montgomery, George Plimpton and Don Fellows. Bette Midler allegedly appears as a girl at party.

Thorp wrote a Joe Leland sequel called Nothing Lasts Forever, which was filmed much changed 20 years later as Die Hard (1988), in which Joe Leland’s name was changed to John McClane and the woman he was rescuing was changed from his daughter to his wife. Because of a clause in Sinatra’s contract, he was the first to be offered Bruce Willis’s iconic John McClane role, even though he was aged 73 at the time.

Sinatra was supposed to co-star with his wife Mia Farrow but her film Rosemary’s Baby (1968) was running late so she refused. An angry Sinatra made the film with Bisset instead and served Farrow divorce papers on the Rosemary’s Baby set.

The Detective is Sinatra’s fourth collaboration with director Douglas after Young at Heart (1954), Robin and the 7 Hoods (1964) and Tony Rome (1967), and before Lady in Cement (1968).

The book’s rights were owned by Robert Evans, who planned to produce the film but instead was hired by Gulf+Western to run Paramount Pictures. Aaron Rosenberg took over as producer.

Joe (Frank Sinatra) and Karen (Lee Remick) watching a New York Giants v. Green Bay Packers game at Yankee Stadium.

The cast are Frank Sinatra as Det. Sgt. Joe Leland, Lee Remick as Karen Wagner Leland, Jacqueline Bisset as Norma MacIver, Ralph Meeker as Det. Curran, Jack Klugman as Det. Dave Schoenstein, Horace McMahon as Capt. Tom Farrell, Lloyd Bochner as Dr. Wendell Roberts, William Windom as Colin MacIver, Tony Musante as Felix Tesla, Al Freeman, Jr. as Det. Robbie Loughlin, Robert Duvall as Det. Nestor, Pat Henry as Mercidis, Patrick McVey as Officer Mike Tanner, Dixie Marquis as Carol Linjack, Sugar Ray Robinson as Kelly, Renée Taylor as Rachael Schoenstein, James Inman as Teddy Leikman, Tom Atkins as Officer Jack Harmon, George Plimpton as reporter in squad room, Joe Santos as reporter in squad room, James Dukas, Earl Montgomery, Don Fellows, and Bette Midler as a girl at party.

It runs 114 minutes.

It was released on May 28, 1968.

It was a hit, with $6.5 million in US box office rentals, exceeding its $4.49 million budget. 20th Century Fox said the film required $8,800,000 in rentals to break even and by 11 December 1970 had made $10.2 million, making a profit.

The Detective was released on DVD by 20th Century Fox in 2005 as part of a boxed set with Tony Rome and Lady in Cement.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3998

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