The Big Heat

We’re big on Fritz Lang’s  The Big Heat almost any time and any place, and seeing it remastered in 4K is a big deal. It was always a popular picture; the old Twilight Time debuted it in HD in 2012, and did so well that it bounced back for a reissue four years later. Now it’s back in the enhanced format, with a battery of Criterion-grade extras. There’s hope for old-school noir yet.

A top-rank film noir in anyone’s book, The Big Heat is considered by many to be Fritz Lang’s best American film. So consistent are Lang’s themes, direction and style, he almost makes the Auteur Theory feel valid. This big city crime story in The American Style retains quite a bit of Langian power from his old German expressionist sagas. It’s not in the sets or lighting — Lang’s film has the cramped, sparse look we expect to see in early-’50s Columbia product. The ‘style’ is described best by star Gloria Grahame’s character, evaluating the interior of a cheap hotel room:  “Oh … early nothing.”  Yet the show pulses with the same manic fire for vengeance that motivates Lang’s classic  Die Niebelungen.  When wronged cop Glenn Ford sets out to nail the men responsible for killing someone dear to him, he tears the city of Kenport to pieces. We almost expect to hear the hysterical theme song from Lang’s  Rancho Notorious:

“… a story of HATE, MURDER, and REVENGE!” 

Kenport police detective Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is fed up with the department’s hands-off policy toward the growing organized crime presence in Kenport. Dave scoffs at barfly Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green) when she claims that the suicide of police administrator Duncan was faked, that he was going to divorce his wife Bertha (Jeanette Nolan) to be with her. Dave regrets this attitude when Lucy is found dead, with marks of torture on her body. Adding to his anger, Bannion notes that his police superiors and the widow Bertha indeed act as if under the direct influence of organized crime.

This leads Dave directly to Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby), Kenport’s crime kingpin. When the cop refuses to back down, Lagana’s associates Vince Stone and Larry Gordon (Lee Marvin & Adam Williams) strike out at Bannion’s family, with fatal results. The trauma changes Dave’s approach to everything. Accusing his superiors of collusion, Dave gets himself fired from the force. He begins a ‘personal investigation,’ i.e., go renegade. Vince and Larry laugh in his face until he secures the help of two more vulnerable women. Crippled Selma Parker (Edith Evanson) helps narrow the identity of Lucy’s killer. Playgirl Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame) is impressed by Dave’s intimidation of Vince, her swaggering boyfriend. Debby tries unsuccessfully to seduce Dave, and empathizes with his loss. Vince punishes her disloyalty with a horribly painful act of violence.

The Big Heat begins with a shot almost identical to one from Lang’s  Metropolis a quarter-century before: a suicide by revolver, showing only the gun lying on an executive’s desk. Although depicted that discreetly, the scene was shocking in ’53: high-level corruption in an American city?  A top official committing suicide?

Criterion’s cover art depicts The Big Heat with images and typography that suggest the romantic noirs of the previous decade, the ones dominated by James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler:  The Glass Key,  The Blue Dahlia. This show is of a second wave of noir stylistics. Noirs had moved into location shooting for a semi-documentary look, often with the cold approach of a police procedural:  Between Midnight and Dawn,  Crime Wave.  But Fritz Lang doesn’t conform to that template either. The corruption threat is no longer exclusively exterior. Kenport’s Police Commissioner plays poker with Lagana’s organized crime thugs. Troublemakers that impede business are found in a ditch or floating in the river. Like one of  Die Niebelungen’s Nordic avengers, Dave Bannion is transformed into an uncompromising, unrelenting vigilante, ready to go outside the law to find justice and exact retribution.

The Big Heat doesn’t pretend to be socially conscious; it’s not a call to civic action, like Robert Wise’s  The Captive City. Despite the rise of ‘sensitive’ play adaptations like  Detective Story, Lang’s film has little to say about current ethnic or social pressures. The police precinct isn’t packed with juvenile delinquents or drug addicts. The only class-consciousness we see is totally cop-centric. Dave Bannion lives in a modest house with a stay-at-home wife (Jocelyn Brando), an appealing domestic partner. By contrast, the mobster Lagana is rich and enjoys his status as a local bigwig. Lagana is in the same league as the much more discreet power broker Noah Cross of  Chinatown. The police provide free security for a party he throws for his teenaged daughter. One can’t call the police for protection against this mob, because Lagana owns the police. When Bannion’s own pre-schooler is threatened, Lagana can have her protective guard removed with just a phone call.

Most any book on classic film noir will include an enthusiastic discussion of The Big Heat. The movie follows William McGivern’s book very closely. Fritz Lang’s contribution is to focus on the ironies and the parallelisms, like the ‘protect my daughter’ theme mentioned just above. Debby Marsh and Bertha Duncan are indeed ‘sisters under the mink,’ a sorority that poor Lucy Chapman never gets a chance to pledge. Debby begins as a good time girl seeking nothing more than ‘expensive fun.’  Her character arc transforms her into a Kriemhild-like avenging demon, paying Vince back with the very same violence he directed at her. The ‘big heat’ of the title has two references, the hoped-for blast of justice that will wipe out organized crime in Kenport, and the scalding heat of a boiling pot of coffee.

It’s macho vengeance galore, now with added special guest female revenge. 

The celebration of Dave Bannion’s heroism doesn’t judge his self-righteous vigilante crusade. Whether acting as an honest cop or fixated on hateful payback, Bannion’s efforts consistently put women in harm’s way. He pays little attention to Lucy Chapman’s plea for help. Dave ought to realize that Lagana has a long reach, but more women come to harm just for knowing him. The only real survivor is another bar girl, Doris (Carolyn Jones). Dave happens to be present when Vince Stone burns her with a cigarette in front of a dozen intimidated witnesses. The cop comes to her defense but offers her only a cursory check-up as she sits sobbing at a bar table. You’d think he’d be more solicitous considering that he previously ignored the equally innocent Lucy. No, he’s on his noble quest, and Doris is still just a woman of the night.

Bannion is more in his element when punching out villains, terrorizing men and women alike. He cynically sets up the cheap hood Larry Gordon to be rubbed out by his own men. Dave puts on the pressure but others take risks just as big. Dave busts open the Kenport syndicate, yes, but at a very high price.

Fritz Lang’s direction stays at a ‘just the facts’ remove until the confrontation scenes crop up, at which point he pushes in for tight, sometimes erratic compositions. Some violent scenes derive their tension simply by framing faces more tightly. Glenn Ford was never better. He does some of his best playing when the cracks show in his hatred, and he becomes sentimental about the woman he’s lost. Fifth-billed Lee Marvin is sensational as a lout in an expensive suit, a sadist who mistreats women and thinks the law can’t touch him. But the best performance comes from the capricious Gloria Grahame. An actress with a woefully scrambled personal life, Grahame presents Debby Marsh as an immature, accomplished tease, but also a lost soul in need of a real relationship. Her ‘transformation’ through violence is more extreme than Bannion’s, and she becomes the movie’s most unstoppable force. They’ll say that Dave Bannion cleaned up Kenport, but in reality the deciding moves were Debby’s.

The finale is unusually disturbing. Debby and Dave seem literally ‘made for each other,’ but they can’t get together because the Production Code must punish her for finishing the vengeance pact that Dave cannot. Debby must also pay the price for being sexually promiscuous. As a moral warrior Dave Bannion appears to be immune from such criticism, yet his attitude helps cause much of the suffering. This unspoken conflict gives Lang’s movie an extra twist of tension.