Review of The Big Heat (1953) by Kenneth L — 23 Jun 2013

This is, at least on its surface, a fairly standard film noir with a few standout elements. It doesn't make as strong an impression as the greatest classics of the genre - The Maltese Falcon, Double Indemnity, etc. - but it's still a strong film. On the special features on the film's DVD, Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann make compelling arguments for its greatness. Roger Ebert's Great Movies review of it also advances an interesting, subversive reading of the film, but you should only read Ebert's piece after you've seen the movie.

The movie opens with a policeman committing suicide under suspicious circumstances. Another detective, Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) begins a long, costly investigation into police corruption, which ends up having unforeseen, brutal consequences. Also involved are a rough gangster (Lee Marvin), the gangster's girlfriend (Gloria Grahame), and Bannion's wife (Jocelyn Brando, Marlon's sister).

I can't really discuss the movie too much without spoiling things, but suffice it to say the movie packs in several surprising, violent twists. There are two moments in particular, one involving a pot of boiling coffee, that make the movie possibly one of the grimmest and most violent noirs from the 1950s. The overall structure of the movie plays out in a fairly straightforward, predictable fashion, but the events along the way definitely do shock and surprise.

Glenn Ford is fine as Bannion, though he just doesn't have the presence of a Humphrey Bogart. More interesting is Gloria Grahame's excellent performance as the gangster's girlfriend, who gets a lot more to do in the movie than you think she will at first. She's the real standout character in the movie. Lee Marvin is also quite good as the villainous gangster, but then Marvin was always a great villain. It seems odd that the movie was directed by Fritz Lang, the creator of the German Expressionist classics Metropolis and M, because it's possibly the most stylistically plain and uninflected film noir I've ever seen. It just looks like a standard black-and-white movie, with little overtly arty camerawork. Maybe that was part of the point, to make a barebones, stripped-down movie, but the shadowy lighting of most noir has always been part of the genre's appeal to me. So, overall, it's a little dryer than most noirs, but still worthwhile.