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DVD The Detective
Frank Sinatra's 1968 film The Detective was a serious attempt at a social statement sandwiched between the chairman's two lighthearted detective films Tony Rome and Lady in Cement. Directed by Gordon Douglas (who also directed the Tony Rome films), the plot centers around Detective Joe Leland (Sinatra) and his investigation of the murder of a prominent businessman's gay son. The film was notable at the time for openly depicting the gay community; however, it still falls back on the same tired stereotypes. Rounding out the cast is Lee Remick as Sinatra's nympho-wife, Robert Duvall as a violent homophobic cop, and Jack "the Klugster" Klugman as Sinatra's only honest ally on the force. Off screen, the film was notable for causing the irreparable rift between Sinatra and then-bride Mia Farrow, when she opted to star in Rosemary's Baby instead of this film. Obviously a wise choice, but The Detective is still a solid effort, with a great Jerry Goldsmith score and solid performances from all involved. Interestingly, this film could be considered the unofficial prequel to Die Hard. Both films were based on the same series of detective novels by Roderick Thorpe. --Kristian St. Clair
Someone wandering into a showing of "The Detective" in 1968, after a movie absence of say a year or so, might well have not beleived what they were seeing or hearing.
The film broke a certain amount of new ground at the time as it depicted somewhat graphically the mutilation murder of a homosexual.....one of Sinatra's first lines of dialouge as New York detective Joe Leland is "penis cut off....fingers shredded....."
Despite the first time utterances of screen obscenities and its dabbling in the worlds of homosexuality and nyphomania, the "Detective" felt somewhat square and retro even at the time of its initial release--could be all those New York cops in snap brim hats running around calling homosexuals "fags" and the Jerry Goldmsith score with that lonely trumpet right out of 40's film-noir--one has to remember this was also the film era of "Easy Rider" and "The Graduate"
Screenwriter Abby Mann puts so many liberal platitudes in Sinatra's mouth, there are times in the film when he sounds more like a crusading social worker than a tough cop--"there are things to fight for, and I can't fight for them while I'm here.."
In any case "The Detective" provided Sinatra with one of his better roles in the 60's although that trademark fedora made him look older than his 52 years at the time, and the supporting cast (especially Lee Remick as Leland's nymphomaniac wife) is fine.
It might also be worth noting that "The Detective" played a part in the breakup of Sinatra's marriage to Mia Farrow.
Farrow was originally scheduled to play the part of Norma Mc Iver but scheduling problems with "Rosemary's Baby" led to the role going to the beautiful Jacqueline Bissett (sporting a Mia-type short hairdo)and to Mia being served with separation papers on the "Rosemary" set.
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There are no special features to speak of on the new Fox DVD except for some trailers for "Tony Rome" and "Lady In Cement,"
the lightweight prviate eye films Frank made before and after shooting "The Detective"
A BIT DATED BUT STILL DECENT CRIME DRAMA
Sinatra really was an underrated actor and I'm guessing a lot of younger people today may not even know about his acting career. Sinatra starred in a number of crime dramas in the 1960's notably Tony Rome and Lady in Cement. The Detective is one of his lesser known films but by no means a bad film. He plays a New York Detective named Joe LeLand who is investigating the murder of a gay man and fighting a political battle as well with the pressures to solve the case. Lee Remick plays his estranged wife and a bit of a sex addict.
The supporting cast really helps out a movie that has a plot that's a bit all over the place. Besides Remick we get Tony Musanta, who was so gripping as the thug in "The incident", Jack Klugman, and Robert Duvall. With it's homophobic, and sex and drugs undertones The Detective was probably fairly edgy for 1968 but in present day it all comes off a bit forced and a bit cheesy. Sinatra manages to rise above it all and based on that I give the film three stars.
SINATRA'S BEST 1960's DRAMA
Stark and brutal for its' time, THE DETECTIVE, was Frank Sinatra's best drama of the 1960's(THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE belongs to Laurence Harvey and Angela Lansbury). This is a story of tortured people keenly told focucusing on wwo main plots: a homosexual murder and the connected subplot involving an urban housing scandal. Both are well woven into a gritty storyline that is stronger that the written work of Roderick Thorp. The most effective visuals: ugly police tactics that lead to the execution of a wrongfully convicted petty criminal, convincingly played by Tony Musante, in one of his first screen roles and the stench of 1960's NYPD corruption. Sinatra is outstanding in the lead role, showing a realm of extreme emotions: dogged, rigged, self righteous, guilt ridden, defeated. Credible support comes from William Windom, Jack Klugman , Robert Duvall as a racist, homophobic cop and Ralph Meeker as a snivler, to whom Sinatra gives a beat down.
TONY ROME at the time of its release represented cutting edge "realism" that was disturbing, stimulating and refreshing. We don't see it as such now; but films in the 1960's were just beginning to bring sex more out in the open than had been before. As far as mass entertainment was concerned, sex was more suggested than shown in the previous history of movies. Think of the end of NORTH BY NORTHWEST. The culminating sex between Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint was related by a visual of a speeding train running into a mountain tunnel. By the early 1960's, the James Bond movies were notorious for the "on screen sex". Only the hip went to see James Bond-the squares avoided them for fear of being labeled scum. Naturally, the "hip" numbers were never big enough to give James Bond movies... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Frank Sinatra - Jill St. John Director(s): Gordon Douglas DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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When it was released in 1968, Lady in Cement was the perfect movie for "The Man Who Reads Playboy." It was tailor-made for middle-aged martini-and-poker men who enjoyed Frank Sinatra in Tony Rome a year earlier, and this slapdash sequel finds Ol' Blue Eyes in sun-soaked Miami, where his treasure-hunting discovery of a naked blonde (the ill-fated lady in cement, found dead underwater) gets him tangled up with a massive thug (Dan Blocker), a retired Mafioso (Martin Gabel) with an over-ambitious son, an ultra-sexy heiress (Raquel Welch, in her sexpot prime at age 27), and a variety of Floridian lowlifes who lent the film its R-rated appeal for the cocktail crowd. With its disposable mystery, rampant homophobia, go-go club lechery, peekaboo nudity, bursts of red-blooded... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Frank Sinatra Director(s): Gordon Douglas DVD Release Date: Released the 24 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Walker (Lee Marvin) strides through Los Angeles with the steel-eyed stare of a stone-cold killer, or perhaps a ghost. Betrayed by his wife and best friend, who gun him down point-blank and leave him for dead after a successful heist, Walker blasts his way up the criminal food chain in a quest for revenge. Did he survive the shooting or return from the grave, or is it all a dying dream? The question is left in the air in John Boorman's modern film noir, a brutal revenge thriller based on Richard Stark's novel The Hunter (remade by Brian Helgeland as Payback), set in the impersonal concrete and steel canyons of Los Angeles and eerily empty cells of Alcatraz. Walker kills without remorse, guided by shadowy "informant" Keenan Wynn, whose own agenda is carefully concealed, and... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Lee Marvin - Angie Dickinson Director(s): John Boorman DVD Release Date: Released the 05 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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The postwar vogue for documentary-style realism, prompted by The March of Time and the critical success of Roberto Rossellini's Open City, cross bred with film noir to create a compelling strain of crime films; this is one of the most low-key and credible, based on the true story of a Chicago reporter (James Stewart) who became convinced of the innocence of a death-row inmate (Richard Conte). Director Henry Hathaway (whose Kiss of Death started the trend) stages the action on the actual Chicago locations, providing a fascinating documentary record of an underfilmed metropolis (the convict's mother is a washerwoman at the Wrigley Building), and leads his cast to appropriately restrained, naturalistic performances. Stewart is just beginning to explore his newfound,... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): James Stewart - Richard Conte Director(s): Henry Hathaway DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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