The film is the story of a great detective who didn't know he was trailing his own heartbreak . Brought by William Wyler , Academy Award Winner who gave ¨The best years of our lives¨ and Pulitzer Price Winner Sidney Kingsley , author of ¨Dead end¨ and featuring of the cast that made from the smash Broadway play so sensational about a love with no punches pulled . The picture talks the events at a N.Y.C. police precinct .
Excellent casting with Kirk Douglas as an angry , grumpy and violent police with obsession to imprison a doctor played by George MacReady , Eleanor Parker as the loved wife with a terrible secret , William Bendix as a good , agreeable policeman , Joseph Wiseman as a hysterical thief and Lee Grant who was prized in Cannes festival to the best female interpretation . Cameraman Lee Garmes makes an exceptional cinematography reflecting splendid images in white and black photography plenty of lights and darks , typical of noir cinema . And uncredited John F Seitz who filmed the last three weeks of production . Lee Garmes along with Nicholas Musuruca , John Seitz and John Alton cinematographers are the fundamental artifices of this expressionist cinema or ¨Film Noir¨full of dark and portentous frames . William Wyler direction is magnificent , blending documentary and police critical , he realized this exciting adaptation at a theater until the actors learned the dialog and , after that , he made a quick shooting . The film was nominated for Academy Award Winner to screenplay , Philip Yordan , Robert Wyler , (director's brother) , Eleanor Parker as main actress and Lee Grant as secondary actress . Support cast is frankly excellent such as Horace McMahon, Joseph Wiseman, Michael Strong and Lee Grant , all of them re-enacted their stage roles . Being film debut of Lee Grant and Burt Mushin .
The motion picture was compellingly directed by the great maestro William Wyler . Wyler was considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema and the winner of three Best Director Academy Awards . Wyler was a great professional who had a career full of successes in all kind of genres as Film Noir : ¨Detective story¨ , ¨The desperate hours¨ , ¨Dead End¨ ; Western : ¨The Westener¨, ¨Friendly persuasion¨ , ¨Big Country¨ , but his speciality were dramas as : ¨Jezebel¨ , ¨The letter¨ , ¨Wuthering Heights¨ , ¨The best years of our lives¨, ¨Mrs Miniver¨, ¨The heiress¨ , ¨the little Foxes¨ , ¨The collector¨ and Comedy as two films starred by Audrey Hepburn : ¨How to steal a million¨ and of course ¨Roman's holiday¨ with Audrey at her Oscar-winning best and immortal comedy-romance. Furthermore , his greatest hit was the Super-Oscarized ¨Ben-Hur¨. ¨Detective story¨resulted to be a great film , nowadays very well considered . Rating : Better than average . Well worth watching .
