Le Détective

Part of the Film Noir genre is the romance angle with a powerful female lead. This neo-noir fails on that point offering a watered down, trifling character portrayed by a non-threatening Lee Remick, whose eyes the director seems obsessed with capturing long expressionless shots of. Sinatra's acting is fine, but the film technique... I can't explain how it makes him seem uncool, and the character of Leland is extremely cool and wildly open-minded for the time. Trouble is, they go very far out of their way to make him seem at once overly modern, and decidedly anchored in his values. Doesn't work. I didn't care for the camera work at all. A brilliant performance by Tony Musante as the basket-case ex-lover of the murdered gay man in the opening sequence is dminished by not properly photographing it. Great story and plot. Very sadly executed in a "message over story" way.

This is a surprisingly effective movie. I had never been a great fan of Frank Sinatra, but he is very good in the role of the ambitious, hard-bitten, but troubled Detective. The movie tackles some pretty unusual issues for those days, homosexuality and sexual dysfunction.

There is no question that the interrogation scene between Frank Sinatra's Detective, and Tony Musante's homosexual character was cringe-inducing ridiculous, and terribly stereotyped. I suppose, in those days, this was the best Hollywood could do. I give them credit for at least making the attempt.

Frank Sinatra plays a Detective who is given a sought-after promotion due to his coercion of a confession from a terribly guilt-ridden homosexual. Later, Frank fully realizes what he has done, and tries to set things right by re-investigating the case, and putting the right man behind bars. Frank shows some surprising range in portraying the moral ambiguities that run through this man. All this, while trying to hold the fragile sexual nature of his relationship with Lee Remick together.

This movie dealt with some pretty ugly homophobia, and adult sexual issues in ways not seen too often in 1968.

Robert Duvall had an early role as one of the squad Detectives.

Made at a time when the cinema was exploring new freedoms in language, violence and sex, this is a somewhat tough character study which is tame now, but had to be pretty gritty then. Sinatra is the title cop, a man who bucks the system at times, but has an innate core of fairness. When a wealthy homosexual is found slain and mutilated, Sinatra and his partner Freeman set out to find the culprit. Meanwhile, Sinatra reflects on his troubled marriage to sophisticated, but oversexed Remick. He arrests thuggish Musante for the crime and wins a promotion for his trouble, but, soon after, a young woman (Bisset) comes forth with a case that may be tied into the original one. Sinatra gives an assured and believable performance, though it is jarring at first to hear him bandying about terms like "penis" and "queer", etc... Remick is attractive and effortlessly sophisticated as his wife who can't seem to keep her knickers on. The supporting cast is made up of great pros who offer a lot. Meeker is a jaded, slimy fellow detective. Klugman does well as a family man cop who helps Sinatra crack cases. Duvall is menacing as a hard-nosed and prejudicial policeman. Musante is so over-the-top it is unbelievable! His interrogation scene is a lesson in extremes (and helped sideline his US career for a while.) Bisset is lovely, as usual, but was shoehorned in (costumes and all!) at the eleventh hour for Sinatra's estranged wife Mia Farrow and the part doesn't fit her as well. She's meant to be a slightly boyish type and that's a tad easier to do on Farrow than it was on Bisset. Bochner is a little too cartoon-campy as a vaguely sinister psychiatrist. Though today's audience will likely find many things to pick apart with the story, it is nonetheless a fascinating glimpse into what Hollywood's depiction of gays was at the time. One unintentionally funny scene involves a dockside parking lot in which scores of gay men crowd into the back of cargo trucks and snuggle - fully clothed! There's also a groovy trip into a velvety gay bar. The film's chief flaws are its overuse of LENGTHY flashbacks and a hugely distracting habit of having Sinatra and Remick deliver lines directly into the camera, a big no-no except in comedies or quirky dramas. The flashbacks are necessary in order to flush out the romantic story, but they tend to be disjointed and overlong. The issue of speaking to the camera could have been easily solved by just having the actors act opposite each other. This was an experiment that just doesn't work. But the film has a fair share of interesting dialogue, situations and visual appeal. One amusing line has a forensic specialist telling Sinatra that the victim was a homosexual. Sinatra looks around the overdone apartment and says, "Looks like he was a leader!" Moss Mabry got quite a workout coming up with outfits for Remick, less so for Bisset.

I thought I was in for another Tony Rome when I rented The Detective: a silly, 1960s screwball detective comedy that made incessant sex jokes to celebrate the end of the Hays Code. Boy, was I wrong! The Detective is a very heavy drama, and while it absolutely takes advantage of the drop of the Hollywood censors, it does so very tastefully. There's nothing funny about this movie, and unlike many 60s movies, it's not dated.

Frank Sinatra plays the title character, and the plot alternates between his work life and his home life, showing his strain as he juggles being a detective with being a man. He falls into a whirlwind romance with beautiful Lee Remick, and the love scenes are steamy without being obscene, a combination that helps keep the movie classy.

The film discusses touchy issues like murder, the death penalty, homosexuality, nymphomania, and police confession tactics. Frank Sinatra gives a wonderfully conflicted performance; on one hand, he objects to using inhumane tactics on murder suspects, and on the other, he treats his wife disrespectfully when he comes home. "I came here to ball—ain't that what you do best?" he shouts during an argument. On the third hand, does she perhaps deserve this treatment? Watch The Detective to find out! It's entertaining and the acting is very good. I recommend it! DLM Warning: There's one scene where someone jumps from the top of a building and the camera spins out of control during the fall. It's about halfway through the movie, so keep on the lookout.

An honest cop gets caught up in a web of corruption as he investigates the murder of a prominent gay socialite. Frank Sinatra plays Detective Joe Leland, a beacon of decency and stability in his own unhinged world. His wife (Lee Remick) is practically a nymphomaniac, unable to control her sexual appetite, while his fellow detectives (Ralph Meeker and Robert Duvall) are involved in a widespread real estate corruption scandal known as Rainbow. The investigation of the murder takes place after the prime suspect is wrongly executed for the crime, and leads into the underground New York homosexual world of the late 60's, with some fascinating scenes shot at one of the bars, with a few faces that have been seen in other films, and a surreal atmosphere. Some have called this gay-bashing, though it seems more to be a portrayal of the secretive and closeted world of that time. In any event, the threat of being outed is an essential part of the story, and that element is quite dramatic and well done, with William Windom quite believable as the closeted and married gay man at the center of Rainbow. A tough movie of a detective caught up in a weird world of public corruption and personal crisis, catch it if you can.