Directed by:
Fritz LangScreenplay:
Sydney BoehmCinematography:
Charles LangComposer:
Henry VarsCast:
Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby, Lee Marvin, Jeanette Nolan, Peter Whitney, Willis Bouchey, Adam Williams, Howard Wendell (more)Plots(1)
Dave Bannion is an upright cop on the trail of a vicious gang he suspects holds power over the police force. Bannion is tipped off after a colleague's suicide and his fellow officers' suspicious silence lead him to believe that they are on the gangsters' payroll. When a bomb meant for him kills his wife instead, Bannion becomes a furious force of vengeance and justice, aided along the way by the gangster's spurned girlfriend Debbie. As Bannion and Debbie fall further and further into the Gangland's insidious and brutal trap, they must use any means necessary (including murder) to get to the truth. (Powerhouse Films)
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Reviews (3)
The Big Heat is a delicate crime film about a cop who dares to destroy the leaders of a mafia syndicate linked to politics. It is intelligently written, superbly cast, fast and dynamic, even using narrative shortcuts in places. No wonder the film made Glenn Ford a star. His likable but strict and uncompromising avenging hero is a balanced counterpart to the repulsive, anxiety-inducing gangsters. The clash of their worlds pins the viewers to their seats. Putting diverse female characters in the story – from a nice wife, through a gold-digging widow to martyr-like “companions” (one of whom plays a key role in the story) – is also surgically accurate. It is a Hollywood masterpiece that, among recent movies, is thematically closest to Brian Helgeland’s Payback, for example.
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Fritz Lang became a master of film noir not only in the United States of America, but it is beautifully demonstrated in the movie "The Big Heat." Excellent characters, perhaps all of them, and a great story that starts with an excellent scene where it is not clear who actually killed the policeman and what happened, and then only a harsh unraveling, where nobody can be sure how it will actually end.
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Proper craftsmanship, but without the stylistic ambitions that Hitch or Billy Wilder were able to add to their films (and Lang himself doesn't fall short here either). Thanks to the breakneck pace and distinctive, reasonably motivated characters, however, it’s probably the absolute prototype for the bloody tales of private revenge that Hollywood still loves to this day. Glenn Ford is an exemplarily charismatic tough guy and Gloria Grahame a memorably unbound femme fatale. 85%
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