The Detective

In this 1968 police drama directed by Gordon Douglas, Frank Sinatra plays New York detective Joe Leland. Leland investigates a brutal murder, extracts a confession from a mentally ill suspect who is then executed, and later finds evidence the man was innocent, with the trail leading into a tangled real estate scheme and official corruption. The film is among the first in mainstream American cinema to address homosexuality openly and is regarded as the frankest Hollywood depiction to that point. The portrayal looks unenlightened now, but the screenplay's treatment of homophobia was progressive for its moment, and in one scene Sinatra's character punches a fellow officer for roughing up a man simply for being gay. Screenwriter Abby Mann put it this way: in our society it is easier to be accepted as a murderer than as a homosexual. The film left another legacy too. Roderick Thorp, who wrote the source novel, published a 1979 sequel in which a retired Joe Leland is trapped in a Los Angeles high rise, and that book was adapted in 1988 as Die Hard. Contractually the studio had to offer the role to Sinatra first, and when he declined the character was rewritten for Bruce Willis. Who it's for: Anyone interested in 1960s American police dramas and in Sinatra as a dramatic actor. Who it's not for: Not for viewers who will be troubled by homosexuality depicted in the prejudiced language of the era, since the film has dated badly on that front.