Four years after Twilight Time’s initial release, this Encore Edition will keep Fritz Lang’s searing crime tale in circulation for another round of film noir fans. And its extras have been augmented with a pair of celebrity introductions and a new commentary.
A top-rank core film noir in anyone’s book, The Big Heat is considered by many to be Fritz Lang’s best American film. More than most efforts in “the American style” this big city crime revenge story bears a strong connection to an earlier film form, namely German expressionism. It’s not a matter of stylized sets or lighting. The Big Heat bears Columbia’s early-’50s sparse look that can be pretty much summed up by star Gloria Grahame’s assessment of the décor in a cheap hotel room: “Oh … early nothing.” The other Germanic element in Heat is 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 his wife, 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!”
Incorruptible Kenport detective Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) 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. But Dave’s suspicions are raised when Lucy is found dead, with marks of torture on her body. Bannion’s 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. His personality changed, Dave gets himself fired from the police force and begins a personal investigation. 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 the swaggering Vince. She tries unsuccessfully to seduce Dave, and instead 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. The film does not conform to the semi-docu police procedural noir style that dominated the ’50s, but is instead another one of Fritz Lang’s intense studies of cruelty and retribution. Dave Bannion is the good cop in a rotten city. The Police Commissioner plays poker with organized crime thugs, and anybody impeding business is found in a ditch outside of town, or floating in the river.
Despite the inroads of socially conscious play adaptations like Detective Story, The Big Heat has little to say about current ethnic or social pressures. The police precinct isn’t packed with juvenile delinquents or drug addicts. We get the idea that Kenport might be Utopia if it weren’t for those scummy mobsters. 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 slimy Lagana has achieved riches and celebrity. The police provide free security for the fancy parties Lagana throws for his teenaged daughter. When Bannion’s own pre-schooler is threatened, Lagana can have her protective guard removed with just a phone call. Lagana is in the same league as the more discreet power broker Noah Cross of Chinatown: you can’t call the police for protection against these crooks, because they own the police.
Pick up most any book on film noir and you’ll find an enthusiastic discussion of The Big Heat. The structural brilliance of the plot is usually credited to Lang, but it’s mostly all there in William McGivern’s book. 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 is converted from a good time girl seeking nothing more than ‘expensive fun,’ into a Kriemhild-like avenging demon, paying Vince back with the very same violence he directed at her. And of course, ‘the big heat’ of the title refers not only to the hoped-for blast of justice that will wipe out organized crime in Kenport (now that’s a fantasy) but to the scalding that converts Debby from a bimbo into a committed warrior.
Beneath the macho vengeance theme (with special guest female revenge) is a veiled criticism of Dave Bannion’s self-righteous 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 two more women come to a sad end 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. Bannion comes to her defense but offers her only a cursory check-up as she sits crying 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 they’re just women 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 it’s really others that take the big risks. 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 moves in for tight, sometimes erratic compositions. The 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 creep who mistreats women and thinks he’s impervious to the law. 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 looking for a real relationship. Her self-identity destroyed by an act of mutilation, Debby discovers her new potential for hate, and becomes the movie’s most unstoppable force.
The finale is unusually disturbing. Debby and Dave can’t get together for obvious reasons. Twisted Hollywood glamour logic subscribes to the notion that mutilated women must disappear, and the Production Code mandates that sexually promiscuous ‘bad women’ must be severely punished, often with death. As a moral warrior Dave Bannion appears to be immune from such criticism, yet his attitude helps cause much of the suffering. I believe that this unspoken conflict gives Lang’s movie an extra twist of tension.
