THE NIGHT STALKER (1972)

Director: John Llewellyn Moxey

Writers: Richard Matheson, Max Hodge (uncredited), adapting the novel The Kolchak Papers by Jeff Rice

Producer: Dan Curtis

Cast: Darren McGavin, Carol Lynley, Simon Oakland, Ralph Meeker, Claude Akins, Charles McGraw, Kent Smith, Barry Atwater, Larry Linville, Jordan Rhodes, Elisha Cook, Jr., Stanley Adams, (and uncredited cast members) Virginia Gregg. Patty Elder, Irene Cagen, Don Ames, Buddy Joe Hooker, Peggy Rea, Edward Faulkner, Rudy Doucette, Sig Frohlich, Eddie Garrett, Monty O’Grady, Mark Russell, George Simmons, Al Roberts

Las Vegas newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) is assigned to cover the murders of various women found drained of their blood. The killer (Barry Atwater) proves to be elusive and dangerous, even to the police that try capturing him. Kolchak constantly grates on the local authorities in his pursuit of the truth. When the truth Kolchak wants to report suggests that the murderer may be a supernatural vampire, he also encounters resistance from his editor (Simon Oakland). Yet his reporter’s zeal and ambition drive Kolchak onward, regardless of the risks.

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The Night Stalker is one of the finest horror films ever made. Great writing, characters, performances, and direction all contribute to the excellence of this production. It is the concept that really energizes the whole thing: a modern-day metropolis and its officials having to deal with the possibility of a fiend from folklore being responsible for the serial killings making headlines. The early 1970s seemed to be an era hellbent on resurrecting the vampire as a modern-day, movie menace. Films like Count Yorga, Vampire (1970) and producer Dan Curtis’s House of Dark Shadows (1970), his feature film adaptation of his Dark Shadows television series (1966-71), opened the decade with contemporary spins on that Gothic horror. The Night Stalker dumps what seems to be a classic vampire right into the lap of 1970s Las Vegas. There is no way to explain the menace rationally, and the authorities refuse to acknowledge it for fear of not only creating panic, but also to protect business interests (gambling and tourism), as well as law enforcement reputations that may look foolish admitting to the existence of a “real live vampire.” 

The screenplay, by fantasy writer Richard Matheson, is based on the then-unpublished novel The Kolchak Papers by Jeff Rice. There has been a bit of speculation about the originality of Rice’s vampire-in-a-modern-day-American-city premise, as the 1965 novel Progeny of the Adder by Leslie H. Whitten also dealt with a similar situation in Washington, D.C., from the perspective of the police rather than a newspaper reporter. Rice claimed not to be familiar with the earlier work when he wrote his novel, and there are many instances where similar ideas occur to different creators. As a matter of fact, long before the Whitten and Rice works, the king of all vampire tales, Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula, took place in what was then modern-day London, England. For that matter, modern-day London was also the setting for the 1931 film version of Dracula as well as the 1943 film The Return of the Vampire, both starring cinema’s vampire icon Bela Lugosi. 1958’s movie The Return of Dracula had the famous bloodsucker relocating in a small, modern-day, California town. 1970’s Count Yorga, Vampire also had its title fiend settling into modern California. All the previous works mention that modern society does not readily accept the existence of the vampire, yet the Jeff Rice novel and its film adaptation really stress the corruption of the establishment being the main obstacle to dealing with the supernatural menace.

This was the first collaboration between writer Richard Matheson and producer Dan Curtis. Matheson had written many fantasy and horror stories in prose and screenplays for the cinema and television. Curtis had produced the 1968 television adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and was the creator of the daytime television Gothic soap opera series Dark Shadows. Curtis would later direct, as well as produce, more Matheson-scripted films. Anything these two guys were involved in is worth checking out.

Director John Llewellyn Moxey had directed the British horror film The City of the Dead (1960), aka Horror Hotel. That was the first horror production by the producing team of Milton Subotsky and Max Rosenberg, who would later helm Amicus Productions. That company would become Hammer Films’ chief British rival in horror film production during the ’60s and ’70s. Llewellyn would later move to America and direct a lot of television work, including more suspense and horror projects.

Producer Dan Curtis’s go-to-guy for his soundtracks, Robert Cobert, composed a score for The Night Stalker that is full of energy and eeriness with a contemporary urban feel. It puzzles me how Kolchak’s creator, author Jeff Rice, could have hated this film’s fantastic music. I think Cobert’s music is perfect.

While working as a painter for Columbia Pictures, Darren McGavin’s long acting career began when he managed to get hired for a bit part in Columbia’s 1945 film A Song to Remember. He then moved to New York City to study acting and performed in stage productions while also appearing in live-television dramas. By the mid ’50s, McGavin was starting to get featured roles in movies while he was becoming a television mainstay. In addition to guest-starring roles in episodes of many television programs, he also headlined several series: Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer (1958–59), Riverboat (1959–61), and The Outsider (1968–69).

When Darren McGavin portrayed news reporter Carl Kolchak, he created one of my all-time favorite heroes. He is likable but irascible. His goal to report the truth is both noble and self-serving. He is not infallible or fearless, yet he presses on. He is a very human and, ultimately, tragic character. Carl Kolchak has certainly become Darren McGavin’s signature role, perhaps only to be rivaled by his “the Old Man” character, young Ralphie’s father in the yuletide classic A Christmas Story (1983).

Ralph Meeker plays Bernie Jenks, Kolchak’s pal at the FBI. It is fun to see both McGavin and Meeker teaming up in this film, as both actors had portrayed that most hard-boiled of private detectives, Mike Hammer. Meeker portrayed Hammer in one of the greatest film noir flicks, Kiss Me Deadly (1955), three years before McGavin played another interpretation of that character in the syndicated television series.

It is suggested that Kolchak’s girlfriend, Gail Foster, is an escort or hooker, which was pretty daring for the hero’s love interest of a 1972 TV-movie. As Gail, the adorable Carol Lynley makes us root even more for a happy ending to play out for our reporter hero.

Simon Oakland, as Kolchak’s editor Anthony Vincenzo, establishes the ongoing friction between the two characters that would become ever more entertaining in the sequel to this film and the twenty episodes of the weekly ABC television series that followed.

There are plenty of other memorable character actors that provide great support such as Larry Linville, Charles McGraw, Kent Smith, Claude Akins, and Elisha Cook, Jr. As in all the Kolchak stories that would follow, these other characters provide a lot of interesting and often humorous conflicts with Carl Kolchak.

Of course, the greatest conflict is created by “suspect” (as the Las Vegas establishment would have it) Janos Skorzeny. Without a single word of dialogue, Barry Atwater is the creepiest vampire ever. FBI man Bernie Jenks provides the only information known about this character during a press conference. That makes us relate to the killer in the same way that we would if he and his crimes were being reported to us through the news media. This is the same way we are made aware of all too many other real-life killers among us. It is this sense of matter-of-fact reality that enables The Night Stalker to get under our skin.

I was just a kid tuning in the boob tube on the cold winter night of January 11, 1972 when I first saw The Night Stalker. I knew nothing about it beforehand, but this little ghoul realized he had hit the jackpot during the second scene when the leggiest beauty (Patty Elder) he had ever ogled met her grisly fate in a Las Vegas alley. The Night Stalker made television ratings history and proved that sometimes something can be enormously popular because it deserves to be.

GOOD GUYS WEAR BLACK (1978)

Director: Ted Post

Writers: Joseph Fraley, Bruce Cohn, Mark Medoff

Producer: Allan F. Bodoh

Cast: Chuck Norris, Anne Archer, James Franciscus, Lloyd Haynes, Dana Andrews, Jim Backus, Soon-Tek Oh, Lawrence P. Casey, Joe Bennett, Jerry Douglas, Anthony Mannino, Stack Pierce, David Starwalt, Michael Payne, Benjamin J. Perry, Michael Stark, Pat E. Johnson, Virginia Wing, James Bacon, Kathy McCullen, Aaron Norris, Don Pike

In 1973, a special unit of U.S. commandos called the Black Tigers, led by Major John T. Booker (Chuck Norris), is sent into Vietnam to rescue American POWs. The team finds no one to rescue from the prison camp and is soon under attack. Their radio call for pickup by choppers is ignored. The Black Tigers realize they have been set up and abandoned, so they must make it out of Vietnam on their own. Five years later in Los Angeles, California, Booker is now teaching political science at UCLA. A reporter named Margaret (Anne Archer) approaches him with information regarding his doomed Black Tigers mission. Booker is reluctant to revisit his past until he and other surviving members of the Black Tigers are being targeted for assassination.

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Due to the recent passing of action movie icon Chuck Norris, I felt the urge to revisit the film that first made me aware of the martial arts champion-turned-actor. Its trailer featured Norris’s John T. Booker character jumping over the front of an onrushing automobile to dropkick through its windshield. I am convinced that stunt is what sold the public on this movie and made Good Guys Wear Black a box office hit. As cool as that powerful promo was, I did not see this film until Norris had become a household name and I had already seen several of his later ass-kicking epics.

The six-time middleweight world karate champion had been making appearances in small roles for films and television requiring his martial arts expertise ever since his blink-and-you-miss-him bit in the Dean Martin-starring Matt Helm spy flick The Wrecking Crew (1968). Norris got some real attention when he played martial arts star Bruce Lee’s opponent in a fight to the death in The Way of the Dragon (1972), aka Return of the Dragon. After encouragement from one of his martial arts pupils, actor Steve McQueen, Norris started to seriously pursue film acting. 1977’s Breaker! Breaker! was Norris’s lead actor debut. Released at the height of America’s CB craze, it cast Norris in the role of a trucker facing off against a small town’s corrupt law enforcement. The film was generally dismissed by the critics (a common attitude toward most of Norris’s films), but it managed to be profitable. It was a notable film credit for Norris that gave him the opportunity to again play the lead in his next film, Good Guys Wear Black.

Chuck Norris was just as determined to succeed in films as he was in his karate matches. The idea behind the film’s story was Norris’s. He worked out the story with another of his martial arts pupils and kept pitching the project to different producers. Wisely, Norris wanted to star in a plot-driven movie that was not just a string of martial arts fights. After plenty of rejections all over Hollywood, he finally convinced a producer to greenlight the project when Norris reasoned that, even if only half of the Norris karate fans showed up to see his movie, the low-budget film would be profitable.

Good Guys Wear Black is an action film that is also a political thriller. As such, I find its plot more intriguing than most action films. Norris’s John T. Booker is not looking for trouble or associated with the military anymore. He is trying to move beyond his wartime past and live a peaceful life as a civilian. During his lecture to his political science students, Booker expresses disapproval of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War. One can only assume the setup that doomed the POW rescue mission Booker led has given him an attitude with more nuance than “just follow orders.” Yet, despite the betrayal of his last Black Tigers team mission, he refuses to obsess about the awful incident he survived and won’t let bitterness spoil his new life.

Like many political thrillers, Good Guys Wear Black has a strong streak of anti-establishment sentiment. It condemns those in the government whose machinations are used to pursue their selfish goals and cover their tracks. The theme of political expedience sacrificing peoples’ lives is a powerful one. Ultimately, the film does not glamorize war and stresses that soldiers are not just expendable assets.

The nefarious plot based in political corruption works well to serve a low-budget film. Individually assassinating various former commandos amid their postwar civilian lives is meant to be lowkey. It is not the sort of extravagant operation that draws a lot of public attention in the story. This somewhat stealthy tactic is easier for a budget-conscious film to depict.

With director Ted Post at the helm, this project was in good hands. Post had an extensive background in television and film projects. Notably, he had twice directed Clint Eastwood in the Western Hang ‘Em High (1968) and the second Dirty Harry film, Magnum Force (1973). Post was experienced enough to know how to be sure that the story was driven by characters’ motivations and could deal with many production challenges of time and budget. However, Post has stated that, due to a very tight schedule, he considered Good Guys Wear Black an unfinished film; he wanted more time to further develop the script.

The film’s only deficiency that has always troubled me is the night shooting during the Black Tigers’ Vietnam mission early in the story. Very poor image quality mars what should have been some exciting action. I have quadruple-dipped for this flick in various formats over the years, and the footage for that sequence always seems underlit and poorly focused. Ted Post was a seasoned pro who certainly knew what he was doing, so perhaps something went awry in the sequence’s processing at the film lab.

While this is an early role for Chuck Norris, I think he does just fine. His acting chops may not be as adept as his chopsocky skills, but he makes for an appealing and capable protagonist. It is not only his good looks and fancy footwork that have made him an enduring action star. Norris has a presence of calm determination, no doubt a result of his martial arts discipline. Norris does not pose and strut. He projects the confidence of an accomplished person with nothing to prove. That makes him a believable hero.

The always adorable Anne Archer co-stars as the beautiful and enigmatic reporter Margaret. We never learn Margaret’s last name, and she knows one helluva lot about those secret Black Tiger commandos. While she may seem to be just determined to follow up on an intriguing lead from an unnamed source in Washington, D.C., Booker is a little suspicious. He wonders if Margaret’s only motivation is journalistic ambition. This ambiguity adds a bit more paranoia to the narrative. Nevertheless, her vague backstory does not keep John T. Booker from accepting her carnal advances, and I can’t say I blame him. Afterall, how can anyone who looks like Anne Archer not be a nice girl? Yeah, if she’s really a femme fatale, a dope like me would be dead meat walking when she's around.

Ironically, the most trustworthy ally Booker has is Murray Saunders (Lloyd Haynes), the CIA operative that sent the Black Tigers on their ill-fated mission in 1973. Five years later, Saunders has learned of a plot to kill the surviving members of the mission and that he may also be a target. He provides some stoic humor and helps Booker confront the threat they are under.

James Franciscus is great as the charismatic and calculating Senator Conrad Morgan who aspires to be the U.S. Secretary of State. He has the movie-idol looks and razor-sharp diction that command attention. This guy is the perfect statesman who delivers every line with dynamic verve. Franciscus makes a powerful impression with his limited screen time, and his dialogue delivery provides as much energy as Norris’s karate moves.

Landing seasoned talents for low-budget films can elevate them beyond mere exploitation. Case in point: Here in a small and important role is veteran actor Dana Andrews as U.S. Under Secretary of State Edgar Harolds. His final scene is a chunk of exposition that Andrews makes interesting, even a bit touching, with his wry and melancholy delivery as he laps up the booze.

Back in 1978, people may have been expecting this film to only provide nonstop chopsocky action. Today, people expect every action movie to feature gigantic budgets and ever more outlandish CGI-tweaked stunts that pacify rather than involve ever-shortening attention spans. I find Good Guys Wear Black positively refreshing since it stoops to neither generation’s expectations. It has nothing revolutionary going on. It is just meant to give us a hero beset by a political plot that requires him to occasionally kick some ass as he tries to save his own. Yet it helped define the action movie genre that would soon dominate the 1980s and launched the film fame of one of its preeminent stars, Chuck Norris.

THIRTEEN WOMEN (1932)

Director: George Archainbaud

Writers: Bartlett Cormack, Samuel Orniz adapting the 1932 novel by Tiffany Thayer

Producer: David O. Selznick

Cast: Irene Dunne, Myrna Loy, Ricardo Cortez, Jill Esmond, Peg Entwistle, Mary Duncan, C. Henry Gordon, Kay Johnson, Florence Eldridge, Harriet Hagman, Edward Pawley, Wally Albright, Blanche Friderici, Lloyd Ingraham (uncredited), Phyllis Fraser (cut scenes), Betty Furness (cut scenes)

Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy) is a Eurasian beauty with the mystic ability to force her will on others. She has controlled an astrologer, the Swami Yogadachi (C. Henry Gordon). He had made horoscopes for twelve sorority sisters who were Ursula Georgi’s American finishing school classmates. Georgi forges new horoscopes from the swami and sends them to each of the sorority sisters. Each of the mailed horoscopes now predicts doom and seems to compel each of the women receiving them to perform self-destructive acts.

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Myrna Loy probably found her greatest film fame as half of the crime-solving couple of Nick (William Powell) and Nora Charles in The Thin Man (1934) and its five sequels. Prior to that, she had been fighting typecasting as exotic, non-American vamps. Her most notorious role was as the depraved daughter of Boris Karloff’s diabolical criminal genius Dr. Fu Manchu in The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932). Just one month before that film’s release, Loy appeared as the sensuous and sinister Eurasian Ursula Georgi in Thirteen Women.

Loy’s performance is restrained, yet she commands every scene she is in; you just can’t take your eyes off her. Her lovely features are suitably enhanced with exotic eye makeup that suggests her mysticism and hypnotic power. During the film’s climax when she is venting about her backstory and grievance that provide her murderous motive, Loy’s performance still maintains enough dignity that we can empathize a bit with her.

At first glance, it may seem that this is just another foreign stereotype of Asian villainy being set up as a film baddie. But this movie eventually reveals how the casual cruelty of American attitudes about class and race cause this foreigner to strike back. That oh so American virtue of pulling oneself up by their bootstraps did not spare the Ursula Georgi character from being ostracized due to the desperate circumstances of her impoverished background and “half breed” status.

That final vendetta reveal, as well as the victims-picked-off-one-by-one storyline, is why Thirteen Women has been cited as a precursor to the slasher film. Many vengeance-seeking slasher villains are revealed to have suffered a trauma dealt to them at a young age or in a school setting. But Loy’s Ursula Georgi doesn’t need to bloody her pretty hands when the weapon she wields is the power of suggestion.

The application of that deadly control is rather vague. It seems that the sorority sisters who are targets for Ursula Georgi’s rage are all susceptible to suggestion by the horoscopes of the Swami Yogadachi predicting their fates. Yogadachi’s horoscopes originally foretold happiness for the sorority sisters. As the swami’s secretary, Georgi writes new horoscopes foretelling doom that she sends in his name to her hated former classmates. Due to their faith in the swami’s horoscopes, these women are compelled to behave in ways that assure their downfall. The Swami Yogadachi is one mystic foreigner who, in turn, is under the sway of another, the hypnotically alluring Ursula Georgi. Her mysticism is weaponizing his. We soon meet another man (Edward Pawley) who is practically Georgi’s henchman because he is also similarly smitten with her. Georgi can also command people to instantly fall asleep. Originally, this film tested poorly with audiences and later had 14 minutes cut from it. Perhaps the missing footage explained more about how all this occultism works. It is just as likely that the filmmakers did not bother. American filmgoers would accept mysterious foreigners from exotic places having strange abilities Westerners just can’t understand. However, all this inexplicable mysticism does enable a fitting irony and ambiguity for the film’s climax.

Irene Dunne distinguished herself in screwball comedies and had been nominated for an Oscar five times without winning. She earned her first nomination in her second film, the 1931 Western Cimmaron. The following year Dunne is starring in Thirteen Women as wealthy single mother Laura Stanhope. Of all the victims of Ursula Georgi’s wrath, Laura earns the most of our sympathy as Georgi targets her young son (Wally Albright) for death. Despite this stress, Dunne’s Laura Stanhope seems the most levelheaded of all the potential horoscope victims.

Ricardo Cortez plays the detective investigating the strange series of deaths inflicted by Ursula Georgi. As Police Sergeant Barry Clive, he meets Dunne’s Laura Stanhope, and something tells me he likes what he sees. Cortez had co-starred with Dunne earlier the same year in the drama Symphony of Six Million (1932). He already had an extensive filmography and had played detective Sam Spade in 1931’s The Maltese Falcon, the first film adaptation of Dashiell Hammett’s novel.

This strange thriller’s acts of self-destruction were tragically prescient for an actress portraying one of the doomed sorority sisters. In Thirteen Women, stage performer Peg Entwistle had her only film credit playing the small role of Hazel Clay Cousins. Unfortunately, just one month before the film's premiere, Peg Entwistle would achieve her greatest fame by committing suicide leaping off the top of the famous Hollywoodland sign. Her motive for this tragic act is left unclear by her cryptic suicide note. Such a sad fate for an actress whose stage performance had inspired none other than the great Bette Davis to pursue acting.

If one attributes any significance to karma or superstition, it may come as no surprise that Thirteen Women was unlucky at the box office. In retrospect, this weird film is appreciated as another pre-Code curiosity that was edgy, unconventional, perhaps eventually influential, and now seems to have a reputation verging on cult status.

THE DETECTIVE (1968)

Director: Gordon Douglas

Writers: Abby Mann adapting Roderick Thorp’s 1966 novel

Producer: Aaron Rosenberg

Cast: Frank Sinatra, Lee Remick, Ralph Meeker, William Windom, Jacqueline Bisset, Jack Klugman, Tony Musante, Robert Duvall, Al Freeman, Jr., Lloyd Bochner, Tom Atkins, Horace McMahon, Pat Henry, Patrick McVey, Dixie Marquis, Renée Taylor, James Inman, Sugar Ray Robinson, George Plimpton, Bette Midler (uncredited), Joe Santos (uncredited)

New York City police detective Sgt. Joe Leland (Frank Sinatra) is investigating the murder and mutilation of Teddy Leikman (James Inman). Since the victim was the son of a politically influential local businessman, the case attracts a lot of attention. Leland is prodded by his captain (Horace McMahon) and the media to solve the case quickly. Leland’s life becomes endangered as his investigation threatens to expose more than just the murderer.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

The Detective is the first flick this film junkie had seen starring Frank Sinatra. His performance really made me appreciate that he was more than just that famous singer for an older generation. Sinatra’s assured acting style really earned my respect. As a result, Ol’ Blue Eyes was finally on my radar, and I began to take notice of some of those standards of his that are the perfect musical complement to my martinis. One vice leads to another and another…

The Detective was a far cry from the Rat Pack-attitude-flaunting flicks that Frank Sinatra often starred in during the 1960s. This crime drama may be buoyed by the Sinatra presence but is anchored in plenty of heavy themes: individual and civic integrity; homosexuality; law enforcement prejudice, corruption and fascism; class division; and psychological issues causing relationship dysfunction.

In contrast to his free-and-easy mystery romps as Florida-based private eye Tony Rome (1967’s Tony Rome and 1968’s Lady in Cement), Frank Sinatra investigates Big Apple crime in this rather downbeat police procedural. The role of the tough, principled detective Joe Leland suits Sinatra’s chutzpah perfectly. Leland’s ethics and idealism are constantly offended by his coworkers and society. He even chastises himself at one point when he feels that he sought an easy solution to a case that enabled his promotion.

Lee Remick stars opposite Sinatra as his love interest, Karen Wagner. It is almost immediately established that Joe Leland and Karen Wagner are two people with very different backgrounds and temperaments. Despite their commitment to each other, their relationship is complicated by Karen’s ongoing psychological issues. Sinatra’s frequent director in the ’60s, Gordon Douglas, often shoots closeups of Sinatra and Remick looking directly into the camera as their characters are having intimate conversations with each other. One would think that this indicates a bond of direct honesty between this couple apart from the sordid world that Detective Leland deals with. However, these closeups often create a sense of confrontational uneasiness as we are not sure these two characters are truly compatible.

There are many other familiar faces cast as Sinatra’s fellow detectives. Jack Klugman plays Leland’s friend Dave Schoenstein. Ralph Meeker and Robert Duvall are absolutely thuggish as Curran and Nestor. Alan Freeman, Jr., as Leland’s new, young partner, Robbie Loughlin, provides a surprise that makes Leland confront his own ambition.

Tony Musante has a featured role as murder suspect Felix Tesla. He is one pathetic knot of psychotic misery.

In his very first film role, Tom Atkins plays the trigger-happy, young cop being grilled by Leland. Atkins would become a horror film favorite in the 1980s for his work in such films as The Fog (1980), Creepshow (1982), Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982), and Night of the Creeps (1986).

Jacqueline Bisset plays one of three important roles that don’t matter until over halfway through the film. Her Norma MacIver approaches Leland to investigate the apparent suicide of her husband. She also provides another potential love interest for Joe Leland.

Lloyd Bochner was a frequent guest-star on many ’60s and ’70s television series and appeared with Sinatra in the previous year’s Tony Rome film. Bochner provides his typically smooth and shifty presence as psychiatrist Dr. Roberts.

The character of Colin MacIver, Norma’s late husband, is played by William Windom, who appears only in a lengthy flashback. The ubiquitous Windom began performing on television in 1949 and never stopped. He also acted in an enormous number of movie and theater productions. Windom may be best known for his television roles as the unfortunate Commodore Matt Decker in the original Star Trek series (1966–69) episode “The Doomsday Machine” and for his recurring role as Dr. Seth Hazlitt on Murder, She Wrote (1984–96).

The Detective could have been an enormously significant movie in action film history. While it is more of a crime drama than an action thriller, it was probably Sinatra’s portrayal of a tough, idealistic police detective that resulted in him being offered the title role of that 1971 classic Dirty Harry. Of course, Sinatra passed on it, and Clint Eastwood became cinema’s most famous cop. Since The Detective film was based on Roderick Thorp’s novel, when his 1979 sequel novel, Nothing Lasts Forever, was adapted as the 1988 film Die Hard, Sinatra was offered the starring role. Again, Sinatra passed on a role that led to another hit action film series. The Joe Leland character was changed from a retired police detective to a younger, still-working police detective named John McClane played by Bruce Willis.

The Detective was released just months before the Motion Picture Association of America rating system began. It is a clear indication of the medium’s new direction using edgier, adult content reflecting the increasing turbulence of the times and questioning the merit in society’s classes and institutions. All the sordid compromises and resulting complications in an unethical society make the story’s murder and its solution seem to be almost beside the point. In this messy and compromised world, Sinatra’s Joe Leland weathers disappointments and eventually must change his tactics to keep making a difference. This film does not offer a tidy and triumphant climax but tells us that the good fight must continue to be waged and that ethics still matter.