Columbia Pictures, 89m 46s
As a person born long after the end of
the film noir movement, I view everything noir through a
retrospective lens. I sometimes imagine what it would have been like to have
seen some of my favorite film noirs at the time of their respective
theatrical runs. Some of the most dynamic wish list titles that leap to mind
include DETOUR (1945), GILDA (1946), NIGHTMARE ALLEY
(1947), KISS ME DEADLY (1955), THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955) and
TOUCH OF EVIL (1958). I think all of these movies pack a pronounced
punch today, so the shared experience of the past must have been exceptional.
But perhaps more than any other noir film, I wonder what the general
audience takeaway was from THE BIG HEAT, one of the most bitterly
cynical and unpleasantly misogynistic of film noirs.
Directed with vigor on a 24-day shooting
schedule by the estimable Fritz Lang, our American crime story opens on a
tragic note with the suicide of Detective Sergeant Thomas Duncan, which leaves
the opportunistic Bertha Duncan (Jeanette Nolan) a widow. Bertha archives Tom's
incriminating notes on the area's resident crime boss Mike Lagana (Alexander
Scourby) and secures a schedule of blackmail payments. Sergeant Dave Bannion
(Glenn Ford in a disciplined performance) is assigned to the case and quickly
is faced with conflicting information between Bertha and her late husband's
side piece Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green). After Lucy is eliminated
"prohibition style," Bannion is warned repeatedly to distance himself
from the case, which of course he does not. His persistence leads to the death
of his wife Katie Bannion (Jocelyn Brando) and his suspension from the police
department. Now more avenging angel than cop, the alienated, tight-lipped loner
Bannion swings a wrecking ball at the fractured system of authority that
permits the city to be controlled by an arrogant crime lord.
Life of a gangster moll: Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame) Sergeant Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) The evil queen
Filmmaker and film historian Paul
Schrader recognized there was a difference between the major protagonist of
later film noir compared to the noir films produced earlier. With
his cornerstone article "Notes on Film Noir" (FILM COMMENT, Spring,
1972), Schrader asserts, "The third and final phase of film noir,
from 1949-'53, was the period of psychotic action and suicidal impulse. The noir
hero, seemingly under the weight of ten years of despair, started to go
bananas." (p. 12) That description applies to the major protagonists who
appear in GUN CRAZY (1950), IN A LONELY PLACE (1950), WHERE
THE SIDEWALK ENDS (1950), ON DANGEROUS GROUND (1951) and THE
PROWLER (1951). Sergeant Bannion also conforms to Schrader's noir
psycho archetype, if not exactly from the get-go. Bannion's placid nature on
display early in the film swerves into the pathological after his wife is
killed by the car bomb intended for him. His determination to restore order to
a compromised city is alluded to when Bannion knocks down the miniature police
station constructed by his young daughter Joyce (Linda Bennett, uncredited).
The fallen pieces cause the girl to cry, and for good reason: stabilization of core police department
functions and the removal of disruptive crime figures will require considerable
female sacrifice.
Apart from the seemingly incorruptible
Bannion, the local police force has been emasculated from top to bottom by the
ruthless city kingpin Mike Lagana and his brutal shadow government. Both a
symbol of cultural decline and the immigrant's perseverance, Lagana maintains a
tight grasp on the city's business and political activity. His corrosive
influence extends throughout the police department, which ensures an appalling
lack of law enforcement ethics. Feckless police officials primarily act out of
self-preservation, worried more about their pensions than anything else.
Bannion's steadfast professionalism is met with resistance by Lieutenant Ted
Wilks (Willis Bouchey), under direct pressure from Lagana. Wilks admonishes
Bannion for following basic police procedure and strongly encourages him to
forget about a brutal homicide with obvious connections to the Duncan case.
After Bannion rightly calls out Commissioner Higgins (Howard Wendell) as a
pathetic puppet of Lagana, Higgins immediately suspends Bannion. That sequence
of events transforms our lead protagonist into a laconic loner, isolated from
his own colleagues, booted to the curb by his superiors. Disgusted by spineless
cops on the take, Bannion embodies resilient stoicism when confronted with
provocation, a model of composed resolve determined to defeat widespread
corruption. In one of the great film noir traditions, bringing down
Lagana becomes Bannion's obsession. Director Fritz Lang had presented obsessed
main protagonists, both portrayed by Edward G. Robinson, in THE WOMAN IN THE
WINDOW (1944) and SCARLET STREET (1945), two of the crucial film
noirs of the 1940s. Similarly obsessed lead or major characters provide the
backbones for many of the most famous of film noirs, including DOUBLE
INDEMNITY (1944), LAURA (1944), GILDA, OUT OF THE PAST
(1947), GUN CRAZY, IN A LONELY PLACE and SUNSET BOULEVARD
(1950).
Though the period of time Lagana has
been a major influence in the city never is specified, it has been long enough
for some truly deplorable characters to feel at ease in the system. A city
beast of unparalleled nastiness, Vince Stone (Lee Marvin) is a thoroughly
reprehensible personality construct that poses a threat to anyone in his
vicinity. A top-tier henchman for Lagana with a nonstop proclivity for
gambling, Stone demonstrates his impatience and a rotten mean streak at The
Retreat when dice girl Doris (Carolyn Jones) grabs the dice too quickly for his
liking: he callously burns her hand with
his cigar. One gets the sense Stone is prone to vicious outbursts whenever a
woman annoys him. Perhaps he even takes a sadistic pleasure in hurting them.
"You like working girls over, don't you?" Bannion cannot help but
observe. Stone assumes he can repair his psychopathic outburst with a little
bit of money and a kind word. Presumably such compensation has been sufficient
to cure his more impulsive transgressions historically. With miserable thugs in
positions of power like Stone, an abhorrent psychotic with shocking disdain for
human existence, one wonders if there is any going back to how things might
have been prior to Lagana's ascension to the rank of crime boss.
Bannion surveys his empty home,
a place rendered meaningless by the Lagana syndicateDebby repeatedly reviews her obvious charms in the mirror,
unaware she will not make that a habit much longerThis shot implies a rigid division between the humble working class
and the corrupt, expansive urban world under investigation by BannionPsychological warfare between rogue cop and the city's creeps:
Bannion addresses the menace presented by Larry Gordon (Adam Williams)
Underworld objectives that incapacitate
the city's essential public services bring corresponding complications for the
traditional American family and its support structure. A foundational tenet of
the film noir is the notion that the nuclear family has passed its
expiration date as basic social unit. Sylvia Harvey explored this recurring
theme in her essay, "Woman’s Place: The Absent Family of Film Noir"
(WOMEN IN FILM NOIR, E. Ann Kaplan, Ed., 1978]). Harvey explains:
"It is the representation of the institution of the family, which in so many films serves as the mechanism whereby desire is fulfilled, or at least ideological equilibrium established, that in film noir serves as the vehicle for the expression of frustration." (p. 23) She goes on to write, "One of the fundamental operations...has to do with the non-fulfilment of desire." (p. 23) and "...if successful romantic love leads inevitably in the direction of the stable institution of marriage, the point about film noir, by contrast, is that it is structured around the destruction or absence of romantic love and the family." (p. 25)
Harvey's observations provide a helpful
prism through which to view THE BIG HEAT, a study in urban decadence
that offers little room for the sort of domestic way of life portrayed in TV
programming of the day like I LOVE LUCY (1951–1957) and FATHER KNOWS BEST
(1954–1960).
The status of the noir family
crystallizes in the opening sequence, when a suicide brings the Duncan marriage
to its abrupt conclusion. To begin the film in such a manner immediately
questions the strength and validity of the American household. Then we are
brought to the Bannions, the ostensible antithesis of the Duncans and seemingly
idyllic family setting, at least upon an initial inspection. But so ideal is
the introduction of the Bannion household the viewer senses difficulties must
be fermenting. Displayed in a prominent position in their home is a photograph
of policemen in uniform, Dave presumably among them, which suggests a permanent
encroachment on his private life. Though the couple enjoys dinner together in
their modest middle-class home and appear perfectly content with one another,
the first sign of trouble emerges when their steak dinner is interrupted by
Bannion's police work. The following day, after learning of the murder of Lucy
Chapman, Bannion is disturbed enough to bring his work home with him, which his
wife cannot help but notice. In another key segment, Dave and Katie share a
close moment that might have ended in sex had they not been interrupted by
their daughter (kids are never conducive to intimacy). The Bannion marriage
appears to be loving and functioning on the surface, but in truth falls short
of mutual fulfillment thanks mostly to Bannion's demanding profession, which
offers a minimum of separation between his professional and personal affairs.
And from an economic perspective, glaring class distinctions isolate the
Bannions from an affluent person like Lagana. A place where jokes are made
about the limitations of a policeman's salary, the small rooms and low ceiling
heights of the Bannion home differ sharply from the materialistic plenty that
distinguishes Lagana's lifestyle. The police department even offers public
security for private parties at the Lagana home. It feels as if the principles and
obligations meant to keep the nuclear family intact allow for far less accumulation
of wealth.
In terms of marriage and family, the
women who inhabit the fictional American city of Kenport are marked by an
unsuitability for that pathway. Moreover, a hefty sample of female sacrifice is
required to make the city's transition to moral normalcy possible. Although
Katie Bannion is put forward as the supportive, respectable housewife and
nurturing mother, she is destroyed by the mob that seeks to keep her bothersome
husband in check. Beyond Katie comes a discernible downgrade in female
representation. All of humble origins, we have so-called barflies, a mature
woman who requires a cane for mobility, the quintessential gangster moll and a
scheming widow. Connected with this all-female group is an unrelenting physical
disfigurement theme (burns, impaired mobility, victims of gunfire or
strangulation). Each of them is somehow less than what they once were, destined
for the morgue, or both. Tom Duncan's mistress Lucy Chapman is tortured before
she is strangled to death, her discarded body found repeatedly burned by
cigarettes. Bannion inadvertently (or perhaps, carelessly) gets her killed.
Doris, the dice girl at The Retreat, is savagely burned on the hand by Stone.
Selma Parker (Edith Evanson), an administrative assistant at the local salvage
yard, bravely agrees to help Bannion's investigation. He absolutely puts her in
a dangerous spot in front of a suspected killer, especially when one considers
her dependence on a cane. Stone's girl Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame) is a
childish but street-smart urban beauty who defines herself by her
attractiveness; every mirror she encounters activates her narcissistic
impulses. When not reviewing her appearance, she spends her time making drinks,
relaxing on the couch and shopping. Bertha Duncan is also associated with
mirrors, though in not quite the same context. The mirrors that reflect Bertha
seem to comment on her complexity, her duplicitous, self-serving nature. The
implication that seems unavoidable within the text of THE BIG HEAT is
that women fundamentally exist in their capacity to serve some masculine need
in an ongoing pattern of systemic misogyny. By inference, the most viable
family structure might be the ersatz support network created by Bannion's
brother-in-law Al (John Crawford, uncredited), who with his old army buddies
forms an alternative family of masculine protection that watches over Bannion's
vulnerable daughter Joyce, who is left to grow up without her mother. Given the
most common fate of the narrative's adult females, what the future holds for
Joyce is a troubling thought.
So if women all are subject to the
control of egocentric men, one might ask what happens when women are not held
in check by entrenched patriarchal power? That answer surfaces when Bannion
visits Lagana to review the gangster's well-earned reputation. Bannion soon
encounters a depiction of the ultimate monstrous feminine. Lagana's beloved
mother, deified within a massive framed portrait, might be considered one of film
noir's most malevolent femme fatales. The recently departed Lagana family
matriarch, who resided with her son until her death, is positioned well to
oversee and no doubt approve of all of her son's sordid business affairs. The
woman idealized by her son in THE BIG HEAT might be dead, but her legacy
lives on in the form of her likeness and offspring. Interestingly, in a
homoerotic subtext probably too conspicuous to be referenced as an undertone,
when Lagana is introduced in his bed during the opening sequence, his male
servant/bodyguard/companion George Rose (Chris Alcaide) is present. A gay man
with a mother complex, Lagana is never shown with a woman (though he does have
a daughter named Angela), other than beneath his mother's all-knowing portrait.
Otherwise he is the archetypal crime boss surrounded by men. Presented here as
both a threat to the basic nuclear family and an invasive criminal force, the
homosexual villain was a signature element of the film noir. Such
character tropes populate celebrated noir titles such as THE MALTESE
FALCON (1941), THE GLASS KEY (1942), LAURA, GILDA, THE
BIG CLOCK (1948), FLAMINGO ROAD (1949), THE RECKLESS MOMENT
(1949), STRANGERS ON A TRAIN (1951) and THE BIG COMBO (1955).
Debby sulking in darkness,
a scarred victim of savage patriarchal authorityDebby gets her revenge Can he do it? Not with the PCA watching his every move Redemption
THE BIG HEAT is well remembered for its unsettling hot
coffee scene, so much so that the (now defunct) boutique label Twilight Time
re-issued the film on Blu-ray in 2016 with a steaming coffee pot as the focus
of the packaging. The hot coffee sequence deserves review from multiple angles.
The scene is set up in an earlier segment when Stone assures Lagana that Debby
is out on the street if she ever disappoints her benefactor. Later, after Stone
fears Debby has gotten overly friendly with Bannion, Stone douses her with
scalding hot coffee. The appalling attack is witnessed by Commissioner Higgins,
a regular at Stone's endless poker games. Higgins is a weak, submissive man, monumentally
unfit for his job. His embarrassing lack of authority certifies just exactly
how in charge the Lagana group has become. Stone is free to leave a trail of
dehumanizing violence without fear of retribution, even with a policeman of
high rank onsite. Exactly half of Debby's face is scarred permanently by
the coffee, evidence that both Freudian female archetypes (Madonna/whore) exist
in one female body in roughly equal parts. During her dying moments, Debby's
redemption is granted by Bannion, who recognizes her signature vacuity has been
overcome by sympathetic thoughtfulness. As she dies, Debby only wishes to know
what Bannion's late wife was like. Unfortunately, neither female archetype is
able to survive Kenport, where masculine needs reign.
The film closes on an uncomfortable note
when Bannion formalizes his commitment to keeping city crime in check. “Keep
the coffee hot,” he requests. That line carries some ugly connotations about
what likely will be required going forward to prevail against disorder in a
volatile urban milieu, a figurative hell, always susceptible to the rising
force of another criminal upstart. In such an environment, the coffee never
cools. Early in the film it is mentioned "there were four Lucy
Chapmans," which is to imply there is more cannon fodder available for the
police department's town maintenance. Tellingly, multiple posters are attached
to the walls of Bannion's workplace that read "Give Blood Now" and
"Blood Means Life." Such marketing signals ongoing sacrifice for the
greater good. Although Bannion endangers all the women with whom he
communicates, the narrative never vilifies him, his methods never really are
called into serious question. In another line of analysis regarding Lucy
Chapman's horrific demise, does a certain amount of contributory carelessness
facilitate her downfall? How could she talk to a cop at her place of
employment, a known gangster watering hole, without worry that she was planing
the planks for her own coffin? How could the supposedly streetwise dame make
such a catastrophic mistake? In the filmic universe of THE BIG HEAT,
only men know how women are supposed to behave.
The film noir movement responded
to heightened public awareness of organized crime that resulted from The
Kefauver Hearings (1950–1951). Chaired by first-term Tennessee senator Estes
Kefauver, the hearings were televised and consumed by a large US audience. Noir
films that exploited the public's new consciousness of mob activity were
plentiful, including 711 OCEAN DRIVE (1950), THE MOB (1951), THE
RACKET (1951), THE CAPTIVE CITY (1952, endorsed by Senator
Kefauver), HOODLUM EMPIRE (1952), KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL
(1952), THE SELLOUT (1952), THE TURNING POINT (1952), THE
SYSTEM (1953), THE MIAMI STORY (1954), CHICAGO SYNDICATE
(1955), NEW ORLEANS UNCENSORED (1955), NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL
(1955), THE PHENIX CITY STORY (1955) and TIGHT SPOT (1955). I
consider THE BIG HEAT the grittiest of this prolific noir
subgenre. Erstwhile crime reporter Sydney Boehm's screenplay has its roots in
William P. McGivern's Saturday Evening Post serial (December, 1952). The serial
was published as a novel in 1953. For the uninitiated, "big heat" is
slang for the police bringing the hammer down on crime. But in light of the
film's most famous sequence, the "heat" comes in various forms.
Austrian director Fritz Lang built a
spectacular resume for himself in both Germany and Hollywood prior to his film
noir phase. His early work anticipates the American noir movement in
terms of both plotting and visual schemes, i.e. DR. MABUSE, THE GAMBLER
(Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler, 1922), METROPOLIS (1927), M
(M - Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder, 1931), FURY (1936) and
YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE (1937). Prior to helming THE BIG HEAT, Lang's noir
contributions already consisted of some of the key genre entries, including THE
WOMAN IN THE WINDOW, SCARLET STREET, HOUSE BY THE RIVER
(1950) and THE BLUE GARDENIA (1953). Director of photography Charles
Lang's achievements in cinematography are vast, with well over 100 films to his
credit. He is perhaps best known for comedies that all classic film fans should
be familiar with such as THE GHOST AND MRS. MUIR (1947), SABRINA
(1954) and SOME LIKE IT HOT (1959). Among his noir efforts are
two of my longtime favorites: ACE IN
THE HOLE (1951) and SUDDEN FEAR (1952). In THE BIG HEAT,
Glenn Ford is just superb as the indefatigable cop pushed to his limits. He
delivers some terrific hard-boiled lines, for instance, "Tell that to your
mother," and "There aren't gonna be any coming years for you."
The incomparable Gloria Grahame proves herself Ford's equal in a role that
seems ideal for her, though she was not the studio's first choice (the price
tag for Marilyn Monroe was too high). Notable supporting performances include
Peter Whitney as the bar owner Tierney, an odious character who truly deserves
a punch in the face. Dan Seymour also leaves an impression as scrapyard dealer
Mr. Atkins, who puts the safety of his family (wisely, it seems) ahead of
Bannion's investigation. And Dorothy Green offers a sympathetic turn in her
brief role as Lucy Chapman, a “B-girl” or “barfly" whose job is to
encourage male patrons to buy more drinks. As one can imagine, from that job to
prostitution must be a short journey.
A tremendous addition to the Criterion
Collection, THE BIG HEAT is presented in its correct theatrical aspect
ratio of 1.37:1. This new 4K digital restoration was derived from the original
35mm camera negative along with a 35mm fine-grain master positive. The 4K UHD
disc runs in Dolby Vision HDR, the Blu-ray version in HD SDR. All of the screen
captures featured in this review were grabbed from the 4K disc. I think these
images speak for themselves. This Criterion release benefits from a newly
recorded audio commentary track by legendary film noir experts Alain Silver and
James Ursini, the authors behind FILM NOIR: AN ENCYCLOPEDIC REFERENCE TO THE
AMERICAN STYLE (The Overlook Press, 1979), one of the most oft-referenced books
on my shelf. The historians consider Fritz Lang to be the most influential filmmaker
in terms of film noir conventions. That is quite a statement considering
genre achievements from the likes of Billy Wilder, Otto Preminger, Robert
Siodmak, Anthony Mann and Jules Dassin. Silver and Ursini acknowledge the
religious symbolism that comes up repeatedly throughout Lang's work, most
apparent in THE BIG HEAT when Lieutenant Wilks washes his hands of the
Thomas Duncan case, a gesture that recalls Pontius Pilate distancing himself
from the crucifixion. Lang's depiction of corrupt politicians like Commissioner
Higgins got him in trouble with The House Un-American Activities Committee
(HUAC). And while the authority of the Production Code Administration (PCA) was
waning, Bannion getting others to do his dirty work for him was as much a
function of the Code as anything else.
The separate Blu-ray disc houses a
variety of new supplemental material, starting with "The Women of THE
BIG HEAT" (28m 13s), narrated by film historian Farran Smith Nehme.
According to the cinema of Fritz Lang, women often are the essential risk
takers and it usually costs them dearly. Marginalized women assist Bannion in
his noble quest whereas the apathetic male cops around him remain content with
the way things are. "That's what we're all supposed to do, isn't it?"
laments Bannion. Conversely, Lucy, Selma and Debby are anything but bystanders.
Debby sacrifices her own life to bring down Lagana and his henchman Stone.
Nehme notes that in fact a woman (Bertha Duncan) provides the narrative's
impetus; it is Bertha's 3 AM call to Lagana that anticipates all ensuing
violence.
The bonus material then shifts to
vintage audio interview excerpts with Lang, the first conducted by film
historian Gideon Bachmann (1956, 16m 8s). Lang left Germany soon after Adolf
Hitler rose to power. Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels wanted Lang to run
the Reichsfilmkammer (The Reich Chamber of Film), which would have made him the
most powerful man in the German film industry. The job offer prompted Lang to
flee to Paris. After 10 months, he immigrated to the U.S. Little wonder his
entire career Lang maintained interest in the concept of people caught in
metaphorical nets. Whether trapped through their own actions or through no
fault of their own, Lang felt it is what people do to extricate themselves that
makes for great storytelling. The next audio interview excerpt with Lang is
administered by filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich (1965, 6m 54s). Never interested in
overly stylish visuals, Lang preferred more of a flat documentary look. He
believed that approach to the subject invariably led to a more truthful
narrative. And like so many influential filmmakers, Lang understood suggestive
shock is without fail more effective than anything explicit.
Added supplements were recycled from the
Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics I DVD box set released in 2009, a
collection I reviewed for VIDEO WATCHDOG (Issue #161, March / April 2011). In
"Martin Scorsese on THE BIG HEAT" (2009, 5m 49s), the
respected auteur who brought us such revisionist film noir classics as MEAN
STREETS (1973), TAXI DRIVER (1976) and RAGING BULL (1980)
observes the flatness of Lang’s cinematography, which encourages objective
viewership. Scorsese also recognizes a key noir instance of fatalism
when Vince Stone is scorched with hot coffee:
the source of burning-hot liquid is off-camera, as if the fatalistic noir
universe itself were in control. With "Michael Mann on THE BIG HEAT"
(2009, 10m 58s), the master of the neo-noir (THIEF [1981], MANHUNTER
[1986], HEAT [1995]) notes that THE BIG HEAT both opens and
closes with the assertiveness of the female. Mann connects this feminine trait
with the progression of post-WWII American life, during which women were more
willing to speak their minds than ever before. Apart from Bannion and the
criminals, the average male citizen of Kenport is shown to be less
self-confident than his female counterpart. This was not typical of filmmaking
of the early 1950s. The elimination of the Katie Bannion character must have
come as a surprise to audiences of that time as well (THE BIG HEAT
predates PSYCHO [1960] by seven years). Also selectable is a trailer (1m
44s), and the packaging includes a booklet with the essay "Fate’s
Network" by author Jonathan Lethem.
The Academy Film Archive preserved THE
BIG HEAT in 1997, and the Fritz Lang noir classic was inducted into
the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2011.