Asked to investigate the mutilation and murder of a homosexual man, a hardened police detective becomes increasingly disenchanted with the way his bureau is handling the case and their interrogation of gay suspects in this crime drama starring Frank Sinatra. Some of the actors playing gay men are a little over-the-top here, but in general, the frankness and openness with which the film treats homosexuality is nicely unexpected for a 1960s movie. There is an especially memorable scene in which Sinatra slugs a fellow officer for bragging about using German concentration camp techniques to unsettle one gay suspect. The film is needlessly complicated, however, by an awkward structure in which Sinatra's memories of how he met his wife are blended into the story. It also takes quite a while for the vastly different cases that Sinatra is investigating in the first and final thirds of the movie to overlap. The denouement is highly memorable though once the connections become clear. The final third of the movie is a little sad too as it exposes just how much of a taboo homosexuality was half a century ago. More focus on Sinatra's cases rather than Sinatra himself may have worked better here though; solid as Lee Remick may be as Sinatra's wife, their rocky marriage comes off as an unwelcome distraction from the film's unflinching look at how hard it was to be gay in the 1960s.
Review of The Detective
