*****Spoiler ahead*****
Many films from the 60's and early 70's have dated terribly but none more so than THE DETECTIVE. What was once shocking and taboo breaking is now hilariously campy and would cause even the most stoic movie watcher to break into a non-stop giggle fit.
Sinatra is the tough, been-around-the-block-and-then-some cop called upon to investigate the brutal murder of a homosexual. Lee Remick --a good actor in one of her most thankless roles-- plays his estranged sex hungry wife and a stiff Jacquline Bisset plays what's supposed to be the slightly 'mysterious' character searching for the clues to her husband's death.
The dialogue is a riot: after Frank and Lee have an awkward quickie he gets to say the line "I came here to ball! Well, that's what you're good at ain't it baby?" Many scenes and performances are smile worthy but honorable mention goes to the 'shocking' finale where the luckless, gold lame mini-robed homosexual hisses "You bitch!" while struggling for the phone with the closeted 'killer' only to have his face smashed in with a marble ashtray. (The director uses the screaming violins from Hitchcock's PSYCHO for this moment.) A runner-up would be the scene where Sinatra and Lloyd Bochner --always good for a laugh-- playing a psychiatrist listen to the killer's audiotaped confession. "I was more ashamed of being a homosexual than I was a murderer." Right.
If your luck is such that you and your friends find yourselves sitting around the t.v. one night and THE DETECTIVE comes on (the thought of someone owning a copy of the damn thing is too much to believe) don't turn the channel...............you'll miss out on having one helluva' good laugh!
Many films from the 60's and early 70's have dated terribly but none more so than THE DETECTIVE. What was once shocking and taboo breaking is now hilariously campy and would cause even the most stoic movie watcher to break into a non-stop giggle fit.
Sinatra is the tough, been-around-the-block-and-then-some cop called upon to investigate the brutal murder of a homosexual. Lee Remick --a good actor in one of her most thankless roles-- plays his estranged sex hungry wife and a stiff Jacquline Bisset plays what's supposed to be the slightly 'mysterious' character searching for the clues to her husband's death.
The dialogue is a riot: after Frank and Lee have an awkward quickie he gets to say the line "I came here to ball! Well, that's what you're good at ain't it baby?" Many scenes and performances are smile worthy but honorable mention goes to the 'shocking' finale where the luckless, gold lame mini-robed homosexual hisses "You bitch!" while struggling for the phone with the closeted 'killer' only to have his face smashed in with a marble ashtray. (The director uses the screaming violins from Hitchcock's PSYCHO for this moment.) A runner-up would be the scene where Sinatra and Lloyd Bochner --always good for a laugh-- playing a psychiatrist listen to the killer's audiotaped confession. "I was more ashamed of being a homosexual than I was a murderer." Right.
If your luck is such that you and your friends find yourselves sitting around the t.v. one night and THE DETECTIVE comes on (the thought of someone owning a copy of the damn thing is too much to believe) don't turn the channel...............you'll miss out on having one helluva' good laugh!