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"What's a pirate's favorite genre of movie?"
"Film NoiRRRRRRRRRRRR"
*pause for groans from audience*
In this 50's noir, Glenn Ford takes the lead as Dave Bannion, an intrepid homicide detective who begins to find dirt at every layer in a suspicious case of a colleague who has died by suicide.
After interviewing the new widow, he receives a tip that the victim had a mistress, a barfly who ends up dead soon after providing him with some crucial information.
Bannion continues to put the pieces together, and everything points to the crime syndicate, led by the Big Boss, Mike Lagana, played by Alexander Scourby. Lagana is smooth as silk, but just under the surface, you can tell that he means business. Bannion needs answers and leaves Lagana's home, having made an insidious enemy.
Bannion is a family man with a better half named Katie, played by Jocelyn Brando. Brando invigorates their scenes and provides a nice contrast to Bannion's driven cop. We sense their connection and really feel for their relationship. Being a police officer's wife is no easy task, and Katie knows the territory.
Tragedy strikes when a car bomb meant for Bannion kills Katie and takes his singular drive to a new level. With his superiors in the department telling him to drop it, he turns in his badge and goes it alone. In the process, he has an interaction with one of Lagana’s ruthless lieutenants, Vince Stone, played by the legendary Lee Marvin in one of his early roles. Of course, there’s a femme fatale, and this time, it’s Gloria Grahame playing Stone’s “gal,” Debby. After a disturbing incident where a jealous Stone scalds Debby, Bannion finds an uneasy ally in the case.
Would give one of my MVP awards to Gloria Grahame, who shows a ton of range going from just the “arm candy” for the inner circle of an organized crime syndicate to a vulnerable victim of the circumstances around her and then a vengeful woman looking to balance the scales. I was also taken by Jocelyn Brando’s performance. She was playful and supportive, but not the typical “housewife” from other stories from the 1950s era. Her death had even more of an impact because I felt I had a chance to get to know her character.
The Big Heat is a unique noir, thanks in part to the director Fritz Lang, who provided a distinctive tone and his own stamp on the genre. This would be one that I would recommend as a nice example of the genre, and would most likely look up again.
