The Big Heat (1953)
Directed by Fritz Lang
***1/2
What do you get when you take the director of M and put him in charge of a film noir? Well, sure, you get a tough cop who's all shook up, a hooker with a heart of gold, and a plot that's going to keep conning you until the end. You also get some true interest in characters, and a couple of scenes that are so un-1950s, they may have you jumping out of your seat. The plot? Oh, the plot. Good cop Dave Bannion is onto something - or someone. He's just about found the killer, when all of a sudden, he's getting the big heat from a whitewashed crime syndicate. After they beat his world to pieces, his best friend may just be Vince Stone's mistress. Tough-as-nails dialogue, Gloria Grahame and a young Lee Marvin are wonderful.
To me, The Big Heat is the perfect noir film. The idea of varying degrees of ugliness and evil is fascinating. You have the commissioner's ugly (not physically) wife, the femme fatale who is split 50-50 between ugliness and purity, and Bannion's ultra-pure wife. Extremely interesting film that only gets better the more times you watch it.
Posted by: Scott | 08 May 2008 at 02:35 PM