Fritz Lang's (1953) "The Big Heat" is the definitive cinema noir (and oddly not hetertofore reviewed here). The usual Lang themes of vengeance and of ordinary people fighting against overwhelming odds reach perfection herein. The expressionist lighting and striking visual compositions that are hallmarks of Lang's visual language are also in abundant evidence, too.

The "ordinary Joe" who cannot be corrupted and who slides into the shadows to fight back in this rendition is Glenn Ford (who had also appeared in the ultimate femme fatale cinema noir "Gilda" with Rita Hayworth). Ford plays NYPD (aka "Kenport PD") sergeant Dave Bannion, a homicide detective who insists on investigating Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby) whose criminal activities Bannion's superiors have been paid off to ignore. (The movie was made at a time when denials that there was still organized crime in America, the Mafia in particular, was denied, before Senator Estes Kefauver's committee started turning up evidence of racketeering.)

His apartment is fire-bombed and his wife Katie (Jocelyn Brando) is blown up. Will this get the message to back off through Bannion's thick head? Absolutely not. He resigns from the police force, but only to be better able to pursue the killers without interference from his corrupt superiors. Deeper cover requires faking suicide...

As usual in Lang movies, Bannion finds a female ally, though one nowhere as pure as those Sylvia Sidney played in Lang's first two American movies. The heavy-drinking gangster mistress Debby Marsh (played by the formidable Gloria Grahame, fresh from her Oscared turn in "The Bad and the Beautiful") has her own strong vengeance motivation. One of Lagana's thugs (a particularly sadistic, snarling Lee Marvin) disfigured her face by throwing a pot of hot coffee at her. (This was the second most shocking moment in the first decade of postwar Hollywood movies, surpassed only by Richard Widmark hurling an old woman in a wheelchair down the stairs and giggling in "Kiss of Death.")

The state (the police) and the criminal syndicate collude (as in the various Dr. Mabuse movies Lang shot). Corpses pile up. Like other Lang protagonists, Bannion pays a high price in fighting back. Hatred is an emotion requiring high maintenance, as Lang most vividly showed in "Kriemhild's Revenge." I would say there is no catharsis in the violence there, but that there is in "The Big Heat" but do not want to elaborate and "spoil" the plot for readers who have not seen the movie.

The movie brought to the screen more graphic violence than was generally allowed to be shown (though less than most viewers think, so powerfully are some other incidents conveyed without being directly shown). It has signature Lang closeups of clock faces and a famous opening closeup of a pistol (even if the coffee is the weapon most remembered by viewers, aided by the closing line of the movie being a request to keep the coffee hot!)

Lang transformed the pulpy content into another examination of the costs of revenge and official duplicity in a particularly fast-paced (hard-driving) narrative of crime investigation, attempted cover-up, and retribution that is one of the toughest yet also most visually striking movies from the 1950s. Ford is good, but Grahame seizes the screen whenever she appears (whatever the lighting or scene-framing).

The DVD sound and image transfer as good. The only DVD extras are pictures of six movie posters and three theatrical trailers ("Lady from Shanghai" I can see, but "Suddenly Last Summer"?)

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This a contribution to Lean 'n Mean III. Reviews of more Lang movies are on the way...


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD