Well, apparently my newly shaven head is much more prone to coming up with ideas, but unfortunately this one is the dreaded...BA-BUM...BOOK./MOVIE COMPARISON AND REVIEW! These tend to arise about once a year, maybe twice. My shrink just can't get enough electric currents through me to get rid of them completely, so why fight it?
Today's entry: The Detective
You know me, I love reading the source material behind movies. Well, that is unless the movies take place in some mystical universe that does not involve lightsabers, John Williams orchestral scores, and swamp-living Muppets that sound like Grover. Luckily, this story is only mystical in the fact that I read 100 pages of it in December, then put it down for 3 months before finishing the final 497 pages in one week.
I actually began this journey a few years ago when I bought "Nothing Lasts Forever", a 1979 novel that was the basis for "Die Hard". What is interesting is that the book's main character Joe Leland was in a previous novel called "The Detective" in 1966 and the novel spawned a film where Joe Leland was portrayed by Frank Sinatra...yeah, kind of hard to picture Sinatra crawling around skyscraper vent shafts, right? Anyway, I decided to look for "The Detective" to see how it all began. After an arduous search, I was finally the recipient of it this past Christmas. I finally finished the book last night and watched the 1968 Sinatra film just this morning.
First, the book. Now, as one might imagine, I needed to put a face to Joe Leland to get an idea. It was a choice between Bruce Willis and Frank Sinatra and, well, these days I can't picture Willis doing anything else worthwhile in his career except for maybe an ad for Fruity Pebbles. Sinatra won out.
The book is narrated in a nonlinear Pulp Fiction-style fashion and it takes a bit to get one's bearings. There are no indications of the current date in the book, but clues point to the early to mid 50s based on past events relating to Leland in the 1940s.
The book begins with private detective Joe Leland running his own agency in Manitou, a supposedly imaginary town in upstate New York in the Hudson River Valley. He takes cases such as unfaithful spouses, custody issues, retail theft, and insurance fraud, the latter being a strength due to his former employment in an insurance firm. He is married, but separated from his wife Karen. They have a daughter named Steffie (Stephanie, as if there were a doubt) who seems quite in tune with Joe. A ghastly child rape-murder has happened in Port Smith, another imaginary town a short plane ride away. Joe is contacted by an inept headline-chasing reporter from Port Smith as he was once a police detective there, but he coldly puts the leech off.
Joe meets with young Norma McGiver, a prospective client whose husband Colin supposedly jumped to his death from a racetrack roof months before. She approaches Joe because he apparently knew Colin from World War 2. It appears they were in the same air squadron but had only a brief contact. Norma does not believe Colin killed himself and wants Joe to investigate. They spend a long lunch at a nearby eatery as she tells of her relationship with Colin and what she knows about his life before her, according to his side of it. He checks his war souvenir book and McGiver's insurance files for initial clues, and at first glance, nothing seems too unusual.
The book then skips to Joe in his detective days. He and his crew investigate the brutal murder/castration of a Port Smith homosexual named Theodore Leikman. Following instincts and clues, they apprehend Leikman's disturbed homosexual roommate Felix Tesla at the beach. After a skilled interrogation, Tesla confesses and is put to death. Soon after, Joe is promoted, then quits to move to Manitou.
The book jumps back to the present as he continues his investigation. He questions Colin's cold mother, but is quickly and viciously thrown out. He then questions Colin's first wife Betty and her husband Murray, but does not get much further aside from the mystery of a scar on Colin's neck.
Another jump to the past occurs, where we see the courtship and early marriage of Joe and Karen. Reading their dialogue with each other shows at once how honest Joe is AND how loving yet withholding and tentative Karen is, even when Steffie is born. I think I'd go mad with a woman like that! When Joe goes to war, she is at first loving and supportive, but loneliness triggers a psychological disorder in her and she begins a secretive affair. Joe is no idiot and he senses it when he returns on a second visit home. The marriage crumbles slowly and Joe eventually moves to Manitou to get away from her. At least we now make a connection of an event. He tries to get together with someone else but the link to Karen is too strong, especially when Karen herself moves to Manitou to get a fresh new start and to give Joe a fairer amount of time with Steffie.
For the rest of the book, the story remains in the present on the McGiver case. He lunches with Betty again and gets a slightly better understanding of Colin McGiver in terms of his cruelty. There is some flirtation between the two and Joe is tempted, but he is still taken by Karen emotionally. Joe then goes to Port Smith to meet with Norma to report and also meet with her therapist Dr. Wendell Roberts. Joe at once sees how manipulative Roberts is and dislikes him for seemingly wanting to hide things, perhaps about himself. Joe and Norma almost give in to passion before a call from Karen breaks it up. The child rape-murder case is finally solved, and Joe's old partner on the force is anxious to solve it in the same fashion as the Leikman case, to get a confession out of force and cruelty and hopefully get a promotion.
Joe then gets the results of examination of Colin's secret files from his associate Mike. This is where the book mires down in the world of dummy corporations and money laundering, all in the guise of public interest, housing committees, and civic groups all to make extra money at the public's expense. McGiver's and Roberts's names appear in these records enough for Joe to suspect Roberts of a crime. With Karen's assistance in distraction, he breaks into Roberts's office to look for one connecting file to put all of these corrupt people away, but Roberts interrupts him.
In a long conversation, Joe understands Roberts's position as a helper better, but still dislikes him. A lengthy tape Colin made shows how Colin actually killed Theodore Leikman due to his own repressed homosexuality. Roberts pleads for Joe to not tell Norma the whole truth, but Joe feels he has no choice but to do both that and expose the civic corruption that is happening. With Karen's support on this, the book ends with Joe feeling much anguish over the past and the present.
In the movie, things are simplified quite a bit and maybe 200 of the book's 597 pages are covered. Good thing, because the book has some long-ass paragraphs that are tough to pore through at times. The movie has a similar flashback style as the book, but only to the extent of Joe's growing and later breaking relationship to Karen. Most of it is linear. Joe is also an NYPD cop (you know cop movies, they have to be in some real-life big city). The movie begins with the Leikman murder-castration and we see instantly that Joe is a tough-as-nails cop and quite masculine in attitude. Sinatra had to have it that way, most likely. He is aided by Detective Dave Schoenstein (not promotion hungry in the movie) played by Oscar Madison before he shacked up with Felix Unger; a nasty Robert Duvall (he often played unlikeable sorts then), and corrupt Detective Curran (who was not corrupt in the book). Unlike the book, there are rousts of known gay hangouts to find Felix Tesla who is interrogated by Joe himself (he only watched in the book), then fried to death. Joe is later approached by Norma McGiver to investigate what she thinks was a rushed and frightened investigation of Colin's death. Joe quickly gets wind of the civic corruption and is even shot at to shut him up, proving why the suicide investigation was done quickly. Norma introduce his to Dr. Roberts, who is professional but cold toward him. The near-final scene with the tape shows Colin played by none other than Dr. Seth Hazlitt from Cabot Cove, in flashbacks showing how he struggled with his homosexuality, was pursued by Leikman, and killed him in fear and disgust of his own weaknesses. Although Dr. Roberts tries to convince Joe to let things go, Joe decides to expose the corruption and quit the force.
Although the movie was good and Frank Sinatra is always fun to watch, it did nothing for me other than to see how this movie was probably controversial in 1968 for its themes and language. A funny 2 scenes with Renee Taylor (pre-The Nanny) made me laugh, but otherwise cut some good things from the book. We've seen this before with The Count of Monte Cristo and L.A. Confidential and other book adaptations. The Godfather was more faithful in its film version than most.
In conclusion, I would recommend The Detective as casual summer reading, though a dip in the pool every 50 pages is good for the soul and to avoid falling asleep in the chair or bed. In terms of the movie, I could almost watch it, then Die Hard to see a crumbling marriage recover through terrorists. Apart from that, give me 1960's Ocean's 11 any day!
