The Big Heat

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The Big Heat
Directed by Fritz Lang
Produced by Robert Arthur
Written by Sydney Boehm
William P. McGivern (Saturday Evening Post) serial
Starring Glenn Ford
Gloria Grahame
Jocelyn Brando
Music by various uncredited
Cinematography Charles Lang
Editing by Charles Nelson
Distributed by Columbia Pictures
Release date(s) October 14, 1953 (U.S. release)
Running time 89 min.
Language English
IMDb profile

The Big Heat is a 1953 Fritz Lang-directed motion picture drama shot in black and white.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is an honest cop who learns that one of his fellow officers has committed suicide. As Bannion digs deeper into what now he suspects is a murder, he becomes more and more driven to solve the mystery. He keeps digging even when the gangster violence and terror hits home. Complicating matters is Bertha Duncan, the corrupt wife of a dead police officer who has committed suicide. She is in possession of a letter, written by her husband, implicating the criminals, and Ford needs to get the letter so that he can blow the case wide open.

Contents

[edit] Critical reaction

Critical reaction to the film was positive when it was released, and today The Big Heat is considered a classic. Film critic Roger Ebert lists the film in his 100 Greatest Films. In Ebert's review he praises the film's supporting actors and questions the actions of the apparently strait-laced Bannion: "Does it ever occur to him that he is at least partly responsible for their deaths? No, apparently it doesn't, and that's one reason the film is so insidiously chilling; he continues on his mission oblivious to its cost." [1]

Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame
Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame

Writer David M. Meyer states that the film never overcomes the basic repugnance of its hero, but notes that some parts of the film, though violent, are better than the film as a whole. "Best known is Gloria Grahame's disfigurement at the hands of über-thug Lee Marvin, who flings hot coffee into her face." [2]

[edit] Cast

Adam Williams plays Larry, the car bomber.

[edit] Tagline

  • Somebody's Going to Pay...because he forgot to kill me...

[edit] Quotes

  • Vince Stone: Hey, that's nice perfume. Debby Marsh: Something new. It attracts mosquitoes and repels men.
  • Debby Marsh: Hey, I like this. Early nothing!
  • Debby Marsh: The main thing is to have the money. I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me, rich is better.
  • Debby Marsh: We're sisters under the mink.
  • Lt. Ted Wilks: When barflys get killed, it's for any one of a dozen crummy reasons, you know that.
  • Examiner: Trouble automatically catches up with girls like her. Looks like a sex crime to me...I'd say pretty definitely it was psychopathic. You saw those cigarette burns on her body. Det. Dave Bannion: Yeah, I saw them. Every single one of them.
  • Debby Marsh: I'm gonna die...I don't want to die. I must look awful. Vince should have never ruined my looks. It was a rotten thing to do. Dave... I'm gonna die...Remember how angry you got when I asked you about your wife? Det. Dave Bannion: I wasn't angry. You and Katie would have gotten along fine.

[edit] Trivia

  • When Vince Stone first sees Det. Sgt. Dave Bannion, the song in the background is "Put the Blame on Mame," a witty reference to Glenn Ford's (Bannion) performance in Gilda (1946).
  • In many ways, The Big Heat was a precursor, both in theme and tone, of the 1970's films Dirty Harry, The French Connection and Serpico. It was very ahead of its time.
  • The film's screenplay was written by former crime reporter Sidney Boehm and based on a Saturday Evening Post serial by William P. McGivern. In 1952 the serial was published as a hard-hitting and brutal novel.
  • This film noir turns the role of the femme fatale on its head. According to film critic Grant Tracey, "Whereas many noirs contain the tradition of the femme fatale, the deadly spiderwoman who destroys her man and his family and career, The Big Heat inverts this narrative paradigm, making [Det. Bannion] the indirect agent of fatal destruction. All four women [sic] he meets--from clip joint singer, Lucy Chapman to gun moll Debby--are destroyed."
  • The actress Jocelyn Brando, who plays the part of Det. Dave Bannion's wife, is the sister of famed actor Marlon Brando.

[edit] Other uses

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

[edit] References

  1. Roger Ebert's review
  2. ^ David M. Meyer (1998). A Girl and a Gun: The Complete Guide to Film Noir on Video. Avon Books. ISBN 0-380-79067-X. 
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