Acting Wed Of Myriad Styles

Detective Story (1951) Heats Up A Station House

Ralph Bellamy Dictating To The Wife

I call 1951’s Detective Story the king-polyglot of acting styles, a past-present-future quilt where players from all stripe laid bounty of old and new before us. Here was early float of fresh approach to thesping, an ensemble open to vote as to whose technique worked best. The new “realism,” which really wasn’t new unless we considered Stanislavski (1863-1938) fresh meat still. His theories had lit up anew in Hollywood since the war, students of what became the Method burrowing into mainstream product as the Actor’s Studio in New York schooled more and more young players eager to get in films. Similar instruction would be supplied by California teachers, a boomlet not unlike elocution gurus that helped would-be talkie talent adjust to sound. Detective Story was safely conventional in other ways, being of Broadway origin and a hit to guarantee bidding among studios. 580 performances from March 1949 to August 1950 may have gone longer but for what lead Ralph Bellamy referred to as “horrendous” summer heat. The play had novel things to say about street-level law enforcement, its day-in-life account of a NY station house a jolt to many who barely, if at all, understood how crime fighters did their jobs. “It was the perfect play,” Bellamy recalled. Sidney Kingsley wrote it, him of Dead End fame, that a corker in the mid-30’s with a quick adapt to movies.

Horace McMahon, Les Tremayne, and Ralph Bellamy in Broadway's Detective Story

Bellamy Continues Detecting for TV's Men Against Crime (1949-1953)

I tend to think of movies in a vacuum, as if each one of importance sprang upon screens with nothing of a past having inspired it. We remember Detective Story because it was a film, more critically, remains a film we have ongoing access to. The play, very noteworthy in its day, lasted no longer than a final word spoke upon stages. I don’t know if legit Detective Story is ever revived … most would argue Why? in view of the property being so imitated, perhaps improved upon, since. Yes, the drama has dated, and maybe Detective Story functions best as a time capsule, but I value and enjoy it, for conflicts played out among a cast we won’t see likes of again. To reality of acting life in the day, I suggest Ralph Bellamy’s memoir, When The Smoke Hits The Fan (published 1979), where he tells of hardship run-up to Detective Story. We think of Bellamy having been on stage and screen from way back (early 1920’s) and assume he prospered by the late 40’s, maybe a weekend house, pool, sport car. After all, he was Ralph Bellamy. The book tells different. Poor Ralph (I said poor) was so bust going into rehearsals for Detective Story that he couldn’t afford food, and had to sign for meals at his NY hotel in hope the play would cash in and he could go off the cuff. Where it rained, however, it poured. Bellamy got a TV series (broadcast live to begin with) called Men Against Crime, where his detective part on stage enabled a rough same for five-years tube run (1949-1953). Episodes are on You Tube (some under alt. title, Follow That Man), each a fascinating relic of primitive vid. Like most hits off Broadway, Detective Story stayed viable for touring. Bellamy wrote how Chester Morris road-played his lead, something I’d give much to go back in time and see.

Meanwhile, Detective Story was sought for films. Everybody wanted it, but few qualified, money-wise, to have it. Humphrey Bogart knew the “Jim McLeod” part would be ideal for him, and his independent “Santana” shop. Bogart being pals with Sidney Kingsley (since Dead End, where HB had earlier success) was figured to cinch a deal. Cash talked louder, however, in this case Paramount’s. Fair was fair, Para staff director William Wyler stepping up. He had kicked in start dollars for Detective Story, so divined from a start how exceptional the property would be. Among hurt feelings, Alan Ladd’s stood out, him having seen press to effect he would essay McLeod, but inquiry to brass got firm no. Why use Ladd in a thing of merit when him as formula cow reliably gave milk? It was a same slight older guard stars got as hotter names entered post-war gates (ask Tyrone Power, now second chair to Gregory Peck at Fox). Thus was Ladd soured with Paramount, his discontent shared with fan press, an indelicacy to show vivid that he was fed up. A move to Warners would result. Someone asked Ralph Bellamy why he didn’t play McLeod on screens, “Reason? Boxoffice,” his swift/sure reply.

Paramount wasn’t spending like they had. No studio could by 1950. The company released 20 features in 1950, down from 29 in 1949. Etched in more-less stone was edict not to spend over $1.5 million on any negative (Variety, 1-4-50, “industry wide budget reductions of twenty-five percent”). DeMille got go ahead to be lavish on Samson and Delilah, but no one else dealt so flush. William Wyler promised he’d do Detective Story quick-time and for cheap, which he more-less would with $1.8 million the outlay. His cast rehearsed for two weeks and shooting took five. Maybe Wyler felt he needed to prove something --- newfound efficiency? --- because repeat takes typical of him were curbed this time. Kirk Douglas did the Bellamy lead, him off Champion and other heel parts, but aptitude there to be sympathetic, if strung-tight. There was censor noise over abortion as a plot point. Drop that and you might as well not make the movie, said Wyler. OK, so you’d not say the word, describe the procedure, or fully explain what all of cast-wringing was about, but despite it still being a Code world, audiences knew how to decode. Nobody talks the issue straight out, which makes me ask, Would they have in real life? People are supposed to have been much more guarded in 1951, chose words careful, stayed off sensitive topics, profanity, the rest. Did they really? I wasn’t there, so can’t tell you, and defy anyone of my tender age to say one way or the other. I’ll rest on what Wyler told Film Bulletin as his picture went into release: “My own kids want to see Detective Story, and I’m not going to let them do so.”

And now the cast: This being very much an ensemble, no one gets to hog. Kirk Douglas is the pivot, others swirling about him. He gives a Douglas performance Frank Gorshin would have loved. I find KD easy to enjoy especially where he pulls stops. Douglas had come from the stage, was “hot” by column parlance for putting muscle behind words and looking always ready to fly apart at seams. He was a “fun” actor who knew wisdom of giving folks fireworks they paid for. Douglas could do bad pictures and at least make them seem a money’s worth, always better to my mind as a louse rather than nice guy. It is others in Detective Story who merit points too long withheld for being taken for granted. For instance Frank Faylen sitting quiet as a desk sergeant, his reactions mimed for most part rather than worded. And yes, he’s good …we’re happy with him around, maybe wondering why he didn’t play McLeod? (boxoffice again, but imagine FF on the road, alternating nights w/ Chet Morris --- the mind spins). Let’s step further: How about Gerald Mohr, or in-for-a-glimpse western stalwart Edmund Cobb, as McLeod? Any could have done the part to a brown turn by my estimate. Take Faylen, a great character actor who gave 1945’s best job as a mean and prissy alcohol ward attendant in The Lost Weekend, then was an albino heavy in Whispering Smith a few seasons later. Manny Farber once reviewed a Paramount picture and wondered why Frank Faylen wasn’t in it. I knew him most of my life for being Dobie Gillis’ sourpuss father, every episode a Faylen retort to sappy Dads poisoning a televised landscape. Such a great actor ends up being a “Whatever Became Of …,” life unfair indeed. Richard Lamparski looked him up for a nice profile in 1982 (“Eighth Series” among the books). Pardon this Faylen focus --- I am a fan, you see.

Wild cards of Detective Story are Lee Grant and watch-out-here-he-comes Joseph Wiseman, lit fuse reps of Stanislavski. Wiseman is a howl if you don’t let him get on your nerves too much. I wonder how he felt catching Detective Story years after the fact. Did he apologize to the family … pick up his TV tray and leave the room? Not to criticize, for his is a fun performance too (and further laurels to Wiseman as Dr. No). I wonder if he picked up tics from the Actor’s Studio (another Lee Strasberg creation?) but no, Wiseman had been on Broadway from the 30’s, but that’s not to say he wasn’t exposed to the Group Theatre and their bold bids for realism. Trouble is, most glance once at Wiseman in Detective Story and say, Oh, one of those Method nuts. Lee Grant was Method (taught by Sanford Meisner, a proponent), but by no account was/is she a nut. On the contrary, very articulate and a window to what Detective Story was like in its making. Her sit-down for the Archive of American Television recalled a screen debut in the film (she also spoke fluidly to Osborne for TCM). Grant played a shoplifter, pinched by management and now in custody of cops. Coming from the Actor’s Studio in New York and accustomed to stage techniques, she saw the camera as an “invasion” that tripped her concentration. Grant’s response was to turn her back, not realizing that the camera was “a character” alongside herself, and that she would have to learn to “love it.” Such were adjustments any stage player had to make, Detective Story finding spots for legit cast members Horace McMahon and Michael Strong, in addition to Lee Grant and Joseph Wiseman.

Read About Him/Her in Kirk's Memoir --- A Real Eye-Opener

What I enjoy is frisson between these imports and more establishment Hollywood talent. There’s no indication they clashed, but I wonder what each were thinking. Did William Bendix sit and talk about the craft with Joseph Wiseman? Would Lee Grant have had lunch with Cathy O’Donnell? The Method was said to be the counter to declamatory acting previous generations represented, a nod to naturalism. The Detective Story ensemble could not have been more disparate. Think of Gerald Mohr, late of cheap noirs, much radio work, voice employ as “The Scorpion” in Adventures of Captain Marvel (back at beginnings, he was on stage with Bogie/Bogey in The Petrified Forest). Mohr is a marvel in Detective Story, in but brief, best of perhaps all in hindsight. What quiet authority in his playing! Character actors all have their stories, perhaps not spelled out in lights, Detective Story affording so many a chance to shine. We can imagine how rewarding this job was for each. Of note from the Lee Grant interviews, done over sixty years after Detective Story, her still able to quote back lines of dialogue. Pardon me as I struggle to recall a single thing that happened in 1960 … oh, wait … first day of school, and that but barely. The rest, pretty much a blank. Detective Story streams in HD at Amazon and Vudu. There is also a Region Two Blu-Ray listed as 1:33, 1:78, “widescreen” (which it isn’t, or should not be) … proceed at own risk.