Detective Story a Fine Late Film Noir/Drama

 

 

Detective Story (1951)

Directed by William Weyler

Paramount, 103 minutes, not-rated

★★★★

 

Detective Story can be tagged, “Who is Mary” Mary McLeod isn’t the central character of Detective Story, but she is its pivot. We first meet her (Eleanor Parker) outside of the police precinct in which her husband James (Kirk Douglas) is a detective. The two sit in a car and make out like teenagers before James returns to work.

 

Inside the station house we see a different side of James. First, though, another officer brings in a shoplifter (Lee Grant) who is like a second pair of eyes for viewers. She’s also a sarcastic and funny New Yorker and we suspect her outward naivete might be an act. We see precinct life largely from her POV with all of its noise, confusion, seriousness, and absurdity.

 

James reveals himself as a throw-the-book-at-‘em hard-nose, a product of the fact that his father was a criminal who drove his mother mad. We see James’ zealousness when young Arthur Hill (Craig Hill) is being booked for stealing money from his employer. His was an impulsive act for which he is embarrassed. Although he has a character witness and his employer is willing to drop the charges if he’s paid back, James wants Arthur in handcuffs and prosecuted for his theft. We learn from other detectives that James has a history of being too serious for his own good, but James convinces Arthur’s boss he should not drop the charges. To hear James tell it, the very moral fiber of America is at stake.

 

James also has a bee in his bonnet for Dr. Karl Schneider (George Macready), who he thinks is an abortionist responsible for a young woman's death. In 1951, abortion was illegal and, as Schneider’s attorney Endicott Sims (Warner Anderson) asserts, has been roughhoused by James several times in the past. Sims agrees to bring Schneider in for questioning, but comes armed with photos he took of his client an hour earlier and threatens to sue everyone in sight if his client has a mark on him after his interview.

 

To add another level of chaos, police also bring in two men accused of burglary, including career crook Charley Gennini (Joseph Wiseman). “Guilty” is practically etched on Charley’s face, despite his not-so-convincing insistence he’s as pure as a baby. Everyone knows Charley’s rap sheet and rumor has it he’s associated with gangster Tami Giacoppetti (Gerard Mohr).

 

You don’t have to look very hard to find a major logic error in this film. During Schneider’s interview, he drops some information about Mary that drives James into a state of rage. He also slips up enough to warrant a trip to the lockup, but if you’re the duty lieutenant (Horace McMahon) do you send the not-so-good doctor to the hoosegow in the back of a van with McLeod as his guard?

 

James hears things about Mary and comes to suspect he doesn’t know his new bride very well at all. At this point I must remind you that gender relations in 1951 were quite different that they are today, especially for a guy who is strung as tightly as James and is used to taking justice into his own hands. Is he irredeemable? Detective Story will surprise you in several ways.

 

Detective Story is a very good late black and white film noir. It didn’t win any of the four Academy Awards for which it was nominated–hardly surprising in a year it was up against An American in Paris, A Street Car Named Desire, The African Queen, and Quo Vadis–though it arguably stands up better than An American in Paris.

 

I should add that it’s not a typical film noir. I suspect it was labeled as such because of gritty themes, not an interplay of light and shadow. Visually the film’s most notable characteristic is the use of deep focus; that is, shots in which foreground, middle grounds, and background are all in focus. Director Willam Weyler was a legendary Hollywood talent. Today we’d probably label this movie a drama, but in 1951, the Hollywood Code simply didn’t cotton to themes of abortion or shooting cops. Weyler had to alter a few things to get it past Hollywood’s moral guardians and drew upon his considerable reputation to bring it the screen.

 

 

Rob Weir

 

The Bog Wife: Strange and Haunting

 

 

The Bog Wife (2024)

By Kay Chronister

Counterpoint, 307pages.

★★★★

 

The Bog Wife Is one of the most unusual books of last year. It’s set in West Virginia whose license plates proclaim: “Wild, wonderful.” Author Kay Chronister's tale is wild;  you can judge whether it's wonderful. I guarantee, though, that it's unlike anything you've read lately.

 

There remain pockets of Appalachia where time has stood still. In the early 20th century, folklorists combed the hills for ballads, customs, and vernacular speech in such places. Speaking of customs, the Haddesley family takes the cake for uniqueness. As we meet them in the not-so-distant past, the family consists of a dying father, sons Charlie and Percy, and daughters Eda, Wenna, and Nora. It is a patriarchal family that lives in the novel's namesake bog. In family lore, their ramshackle manor house has been owned by the h Haddesleys since a royal ancestor came to America and built it.

 

Lots of people go to Ancestry.com in search of august relatives–much of which is of dubious authenticity–but the Haddesleys are anomalous.  Their origins are supposedly contained in a book written in old French that none can read, though the patriarch is the keeper of oral lore. The bog has allegedly always provided what the family needs except for a few things the patriarch buys in a nearby town. They keep a few scrawny animals but rely on gardens and harvested bog bounty. Rituals are needed for the bog to sustain the Haddesleys.

 

Not weirded out yet? When the patriarch’s death is imminent, it’s the eldest son’s duty to administer a slow poison, place the dying body in the bog and wait for the sphagnum moss and algae to grow over him. From this will emerge a bog wife for the eldest son/new patriarch who digs her from the bog and vitiates her by spitting into her mouth. At least that's what the family believes the big black book says. Only Nora has much world experience, which she acquired by running off to Chicago, but did not acquire any old French! She is skeptical of family legends, though she returns to help the family perform their father's death ritual.

 

Wenna is also a symbol of how the bog has withdrawn its blessings–weeds have choked it, Wenna’s flight might be a curse, and a tree fell upon the room where slovenly Charlie slept and crushed the family jewels. Before he was placed in the bog, papa Haddesley told Percy that Charlie is a fool incapable of taking over and asked Percy to kill his brother. Everyone has issues that threaten to break the pact between the family and the bog. Oldest daughter Eda is a whiner who thinks she does all the work, Wenna doesn’t want to be there, and Nora, the youngest is naïve and willing to do anything to keep the family together. (Call Nora’s attempts unusual and distressing.) Meek Percy becomes a mystic survivalist, their inheritance money is nearly gone, and they are forced to sell items in the house that are old but don't yield a lot of money.

 

It is easy for us to identify a way of life in decline with five inept people adrift in a world that has passed them by. They are so isolated that many locals assume the manor is empty and consider it haunted. In a way, they are right; a few more crises and the withering House of Vegetation will fall down. The novel turns in ways that could be imaginary or perhaps magical. Stir in a visitation, a few revelations, and it spells change or perish.

 

It's never entirely clear what Chronister wants us to take away from all of this. For me,  the book is a metaphor for the clash between traditionalism and modernity with the Haddesleys representing a decaying pioneer spirit versus the encroaching outside world, the veritable serpent in the bog. Chronister never romanticizes life in the decaying manor house and played out bog, nor does she juxtapose modern life as a new Eden.

 

Disclaimer: My take could be nuts! The Bog Wife could be read as an environmental novel, or just an odd story populated by eccentrics. One blurb mentions “honoring family commitments and the drive to strike out on one's own... a haunting evocation of the arcane power of the habits and habitats that bind us.” That doesn't really help! Whatever you conclude, I suspect this book will stick with you like bog mud.

 

Rob Weir