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    Home»Movies»Movies by Decade»Movies - 1950s
    Movies - 1950s Movies - B 2 Mins Read

    Big Heat, The (1953)

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    Glenn Ford stars as Dave Bannion, a cop who ditches his badge in order to take down a mob boss when his wife (Jocelyn Brando) is blown up by a car bomb meant for him.

    bigheat_008The action in The Big Heat is relentless and brutal – from thug Vince (Lee Marvin) throwing a pot of boiling coffee at moll Debby (Gloria Grahame) to Bannion exacting bloody revenge on the crooks who ruined his life.

    In a crucial development, the embittered hero still can’t commit cold-blooded murder, and so a double has to step in to pull the last thread that allows justice to be done – the big heat that brings down crime boss Lagana (Alexander Scourby) is precipitated when Debby confronts and murders his “sister under the mink”, the crooked cop’s grasping widow.

    The Big Heat is grounded more in political reality than most of Lang’s film noir’s, thanks to the hard-hitting detail of William P McGivern’s novel and Sydney Boehm’s script.

    bigheat_500Lang’s direction is still indebted to expressionism here, with sets that reflect the characters’ overriding personality traits.

    The cold luxury of the Duncan house, bought with dirty money; the tasteless wealth of Lagana’s mansion, with its hideous portrait of the mobster’s sainted mother and jiving teenage party; the modern penthouse of Vince and Debby (where the police commissioner plays cards with killers); the cramped, poor-but-honest apartment of the Bannion family; and the hotel room where Bannion ends up, his life pared down to the need for vengeance.

    The finale is hardly comforting. After the fall of the crime syndicate, the hero returns to his desk in the Homicide Department.

    The welcome of workmates – expressed, of course, by an offer of coffee – is curtailed, and the end title appears over Bannion putting on his hat and coat to go out and deal with “a hit and run over on South Street”.

    bigheat_02Sgt Dave Bannion
    Glenn Ford
    Debby Marsh
    Gloria Grahame
    Katherine ‘Katie’ Bannion
    Jocelyn Brando
    Mike Lagana
    Alexander Scourby
    Vince Stone
    Lee Marvin
    Bertha Duncan
    Jeanette Nolan
    Tierney
    Peter Whitney
    Lieutenant T. Wilks
    Willis Bouchey
    Gus Burke
    Robert Burton
    Larry Gordon
    Adam Williams
    Commissioner Higgins
    Howard Wendell
    George Rose
    Chris Alcaide
    Hugo
    Michael Granger
    Lucy Chapman
    Dorothy Green
    Doris
    Carolyn Jones

    Director
    Fritz Lang

    Video

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