Recommend reading - Detective Story

Detective Story

 

A play in three acts

 
by Sidney Kingsley.
 
First published 1949.
Published by Legare Street Press.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1022892851
ISBN-13: 978-1022892859
 
Description:
 

Sidney Kingsley's classic play, first performed on Broadway in 1949, is a gripping and intense drama that explores the seedy underbelly of crime and punishment in New York City. The play's intricate plot, complex characters, and dark themes make it a timeless classic of American theater.

 

The scene is the squad room and office in a New York police station. The playwright presents a fascinatingly realistic picture of routine cases brought into a metropolitan police station in the course of a day. Out of the welter of human misery, vice and stupidity there emerges the tragic and moving case of a decent young fellow who has stolen money from his employer. Though a woman who is in love with him comes to his help and the employer is offered everything that has been taken from him, the case has fallen into the hands of McLeod, a hardworking detective whose experience in police work has developed in him a mania for punishing all law breakers, whom he regards as incorrigibles. Nothing will satisfy him but brutal punishment. He is at work at the same time on a case involving an abortionist whose attorney, failing to move him by other means, forces McLeod's wife to confess to her husband that she had herself some years before made use of the services of the abortionist in question. Since McLeod worships his wife and finds in her the only happiness of his existence, his world collapses about him. The climax comes when McLeod gets involved with another prisoner who attempts to escape from the squad room with the aid of a revolver taken from one of the detectives. McLeod is shot and killed. This climax is a fitting end to McLeod's career. To the last, he had been bent upon doing what he considered his duty in seeing that criminals obeyed the letter of the law at no matter what cost."

On this day in movie history - Detective Story (1951)

Detective Story

directed by William Wyler,

written by Robert Wyler and Philip Yordan,

based on the play by Sidney Kingsley,

was released in the United States on October 24, 1951.

Music composed by Miklós Rózsa and Victor Young.

Cast:

Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, William Bendix, Cathy O'Donnell, George Macready, Horace McMahon, Gladys George, Joseph Wiseman, Lee Grant, Gerald Mohr, Frank Faylen, Craig Hill, Michael Strong, Luis Van Rooten, Bert Freed, Warner Anderson, Grandon Rhodes, William 'Bill' Phillips, Russell Evans, Charles Campbell, Edmund Cobb, Ann Codee, Catherine Doucet, Pat Flaherty, Harper Goff, Howard Joslin, Donald Kerr, George Magrill, Mike Mahoney, James Maloney, Lee Miller, Ralph Montgomery, Burt Mustin, Jack Perry, Robert S. Scott, Jack Shea, Kay Wiley.

Born on this day – Sidney Kingsley:

 

Sidney Kingsley

Writer

October 22, 1906 – March 20, 1995

Credits:
 
Written work / plays:
 

Darkness at Noon (stage & TV adaptation) (1951); Dead End (1935); Detective Story (1949); Lunatics and Lovers (1954); Men in White (1933); Night Life (1962); Ten Million Ghosts (1936); The Patriots (1943); The World We Make (1939).

 

Movies and television:
 

Alta comedia (1974); American Masters (1989); Au théâtre ce soir (1972); Dead End (1937); Detective Story (1951 / 1963); Estudio 1 (1971–1978); Great Performances (1976); Homecoming (1948); ITV Play of the Week (1963); Men in White (1934); Moving Image Salutes Elia Kazan (1987); Polizeirevier 21 (1968); Primera fila (1964); Producers' Showcase (1955); Serpico (1973); Sonnenfinsternis (1963); Teatro estudio (1978); The DuPont Show of the Month (1960); The Ed Sullivan Show (1951); The Patriots (1963); We, the People (1949–1951); World in White (1957).

On this day in movie history - Dead End (1937)

Dead End

directed by William Wyler,

written by Lillian Hellman, and based on the play by Sidney Kingsley,

was released in the United States on August 27, 1937.

Music by Alfred Newman.

Cast:

Sylvia Sidney, Joel McCrea, Humphrey Bogart, Wendy Barrie, Claire Trevor, Allen Jenkins, Marjorie Main, Billy Halop, Huntz Hall, Bobby Jordan, Leo Gorcey, Gabriel Dell, Bernard Punsly, Charles Peck, Minor Watson, James Burke, Ward Bond, Elisabeth Risdon, Esther Dale, George Humbert, Marcelle Corday.