Review of The Big Heat (1953) by Tyler H — 14 Aug 2010

I think The Big Heat is one of the toughest, best cop noirs ever made. Everyone in this one stands out, but Glenn Ford is blistering in his portrayal of an angry detective hell-bent on taking down the nest of criminals roosting in high places (and hey, he was born in Quebec City).

The script is taut, the dialogue lines pure muscle. One of my favorite moments is when Gloria Grahame tells Jeanette Nolan they're "sisters under the mink"(part of the pleasure is knowing what's coming next).

This is one of my favorite Grahame performances, and her moments with Ford are wonderful. She really had a way of lighting things up around a great leading man, like she did with Bogie in In A Lonely Place.

Lee Marvin does a bang-up job of convincing us he's pure snakeoil, and everyone else really does sell it. The direction is all Lang, dark, edgy, baldly convinced it knows the difference between good and evil in the hearts of human beings.

Corruption is a Lang specialty, especially social malaise. I like to think of his post-war stuff as a refraction of pre-war experience, the society gone sick with evil, people destroying each other to keep their pile.

We see it in some of his early pictures, but like other European directors who came to Hollywood before the worst of things, the post-war movies echo the darkness they saw, and the 1953 of The Big Heat is really not far at all from the mid-40s of Europe.

It's a gripping story from start to finish, with plenty of shocks. Reminded me of Chandler and company, noir cops and detectives routing out the Sin. And this one does, all light and shadows in glorious light and shadow, and lots of dark.

Great stuff.