Home > Detective Story Summary & Study Guide

Detective Story | Introduction

Sidney Kingsley’s play Detective Story was a critical and popular success during its time, garnering the 1949 Edgar Allan Poe Award and a successful run on Broadway. Detective Story was adapted to the screen as a major motion picture starring Kirk Douglas and became a prototype for later movie and television police crime dramas.

Detective Story centers on the decisions of James McLeod, a New York City police detective who self-righteously regards himself as a sovereign judge of the rights and wrongs of others. McLeod performs his job with complete disregard for the rights of the accused and the laws of due process in the American justice system. He brutalizes Kurt Schneider, a man who has turned himself in to the police due to an arrest warrant, under suspicion of performing illegal abortions. McLeod is convinced that Schneider is guilty and disregards the legal process by which the man has the right to a fair trial in order to determine his guilt or innocence. When McLeod learns that his own wife once obtained an abortion from Schneider, he is unable to forgive his wife for her past decisions, and his marriage is destroyed. Only in his dying moments, having received a fatal gunshot wound from an already apprehended burglar, does McLeod realize that he himself is guilty of failing to forgive others for their mistakes.

Kingsley wrote Detective Story as a message about the importance of maintaining the rights of the accused and upholding due process in law to the principles of democracy. He was particularly concerned with the threat of a corrupt or totalitarian police force to a free society. In an introduction to Detective Story, Kingsley explained:

When I named my police station the Twenty-First Precinct, I hoped some of the audience might ask themselves whether we will be living in a police state in the twenty-first century, or whether we will be getting the protection of the police in accord with the rules of a free society.

In Detective Story, Kingsley explores themes of forgiveness and compassion, democracy and justice, police brutality, and self-righteousness in judging others.

Detective Story Summary

Detective Story takes place in a detective squad room of a New York City precinct police station on a Sunday evening in August, spanning a time period from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m.

Act 1
In act 1, several police detectives and other police precinct employees process arrests and attend to the routine business of the police station. Two men, Charlie and Lewis, are brought in, having just been arrested for burglary. Detective McLeod enters with Arthur, a young man he has just arrested for stealing $480 from his employer. Arthur claims he has never been arrested before and that he cannot give the money back because he has already spent it. Joe Feinson, a reporter familiar to the employees of the police station, hangs around, hoping for a lead on a good newspaper story.

Endicott Sims, an attorney representing Mr. Kurt Schneider, enters the station. There is a warrant out for the arrest of Schneider, who is being accused of performing illegal abortions, although he claims to be a vegetable farmer in New Jersey. Sims later brings Schneider into the station, warning the police officers to observe his client’s legal rights.

Alone with Schneider in an office of the police station, McLeod tries to pressure him into signing a confession that he has practiced illegal abortion services, but Schneider refuses. McLeod explains that a young woman, Miss Harris, is currently in the hospital in critical condition from internal injuries received while obtaining an abortion from Schneider. McLeod asserts that the Harris girl has identified Schneider as the man who performed the abortion, and McLeod plans to bring Schneider to the hospital so that she may identify him in person. McLeod needs this concrete evidence in order to bring Schneider to trial. However, he receives a phone call from the hospital indicating that the Harris girl has died. He now has no evidence against Schneider.

Frustrated, McLeod shoves Schneider, slaps him, and kicks him, knocking him down on the floor. Other detectives come running into the office to see what has happened. Schneider writhes and moans on the floor and then seems to lose consciousness. Before he does, however, he asks the detectives to contact a man by the name of Tami Giacoppetti.

Act 2
Act 2 takes place about an hour later. Schneider is in the hospital being examined to determine if McLeod inflicted any significant injury to him. Lieutenant Monaghan chastises McLeod for assaulting Schneider. Sims, Schneider’s lawyer, warns that he will charge McLeod with felonious assault if it turns out that Schneider is injured.

Sims privately tells the lieutenant that McLeod’s insistence on convicting Schneider is a... » Complete Detective Story Summary