THE BIG HEAT (1953)

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 syndicate

Debby repeatedly reviews her obvious charms in the mirror,
unaware she will not make that a habit much longer

This shot implies a rigid division between the humble working class
and the corrupt, expansive urban world under investigation by Bannion

Psychological 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 authority

Debby 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.