A film noir landmark, Criterion’s ‘The Big Heat’ grabs you and never lets go
- Craig Shapiro
- Jul 24
- 5 min read
4K ULTRA HD REVIEW / HDR SCREENSHOTS
Glenn Ford, right, plays Homicide Sgt. Dave Bannion, whose investigation of a policeman’s suicide uncovers corruption that has reached the police commissioner’s office and City Hall.
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“THE BIG HEAT: THE CRITERION COLLECTION”
4K Ultra HD & Blu-ray, 1953, unrated, violence
Best extra: The new video essay, “The Women of ‘The Big Heat’”
AS THE FILM opens, we see a police revolver lying on a desk. Finishing a letter to the DA, a man seals the envelope, raises the gun to his head and pulls the trigger.
In her new video essay, “The Women of ‘The Big Heat,” critic Farran Smith Nehme shares a quote from the film’s director, the great Fritz Lang (“Metropolis,” “M”). Every film has it own rhythm, he said. Already violent and fast, the opening sets the pace for the rest of the film.
That it does, and that’s why “The Big Heat,” a cornerstone of film noir, is as gripping today as it was 72 years ago.
Here’s how Brandon A. Duhamel, writing for TheaterByte, sums it up: “[It] remains potent because of its unflinching bleakness, iconic performances, and Lang’s taut, shadow-drenched direction. It’s a stark reminder of the fragility of order and the seductive, destructive power of rage. Not a film offering comfort or clean resolutions, but an … essential and deeply cynical masterpiece of the noir genre.”
(1&2) Hearing a gunshot, Mrs. Bertha Duncan (Jeanette Nolan) finds the lifeless body of her husband and his letter to the district attorney. (3) Crime boss Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby) takes a call from Duncan. (4-6) Bannion questions the widow while the police photograph the scene.
The man in the opening sequence is a cop and the letter details the corruption, and his role in it, that has poisoned the commissioner’s office and City Hall. When his widow, Bertha Duncan (Jeanette Nolan, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance”), finds him slumped over his desk, she isn’t upset. She scans the letter and calls Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby, “Giant”), the slippery crime boss who runs the city.
Sgt. Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford, “Gilda,” 1957’s “3:10 to Yuma”) doesn’t know any of that when he investigates what he believes is a routine suicide; soon, though, he shoves his principles aside in an unrelenting quest for vengeance. Ford is excellent, playing Bannion as both tough and vulnerable — he’s a family man with a spirited wife, Katie (Jocelyn Brando, sister of Marlon Brando), and young daughter. That conflict between “a normal world” and the deadly underworld is at the heart of the genre, noir enthusiasts Alain Silver and James Ursini say in their new commentary.
But “The Big Heat” departs from convention in that it doesn’t offer “a devious temptress” in the vein of Gene Tierney (“Laura”), Jane Greer (“Out of the Past”) or Rita Hayworth (“Gilda”), Smith Nehme says. Instead, Lang presents “an array of real-life women” whose common bond is their proximity to Bannion and the danger in which he places them.
They include Bertha Duncan (Smith Nehme likens Nolan’s performance to her Lady Macbeth in Orson Welles’ “Macbeth”) Katie; the tragic barfly Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green, the TV Westerns “Sugarfoot” and “Cheyenne”), who tells Bannion that there’s more to the suicide than he suspects; and the gangster’s moll Debby Marsh.
(1) Jocelyn Brando plays Bannion’s spirited wife, Katie. (2) Bannion questions the tragic barfly Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green), who tells him there is more to the suicide than he suspects. (3) Bartender Tierney (Peter Whitney) notices the conversation and later relays the information to Lagana. (4&5) Bannion’s life is shattered when Katie is killed by a car bomb that was meant for him. Determined to avenge her, he soon shoves his principles aside.
Gloria Grahame (“In a Lonely Place,” “The Bad and the Beautiful”) gives arguably her finest performance as Debby, who shows her true character when she comforts the barfly Doris (Carolyn Jones, Don Siegel’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”) after she’s burned with a cigar by Lagana’s psychotic right-hand man Vince Stone (Lee Marvin, “The Dirty Dozen,” in his breakout role).
Stone keeps Debby on a tight leash, but when he disfigures her with a scalding pot of coffee, she turns to Bannion and pays the ultimate price to help him. The ending, as Debby lies dying on a mink coat, is heartrending. (Ford and Grahame starred for Lang again the following year in “Human Desire.”)
VIDEO/AUDIO
“The Big Heat” (1.37: 1 aspect ratio) was remastered by Sony Pictures Entertainment from the original 35mm camera negative and a 35mm fine-grain master positive. The 4K UHD print belies the film’s vintage — presented in Dolby Vision HDR (high-def SDR on the Blu-ray), it’s flawless, balancing its two sources so there’s barely any drop-off in grain and detail. Shot by 18-time Oscar nominee Charles Lang (“Some Like it Hot”), the velvety blacks and lustrous whites define film noir.
Remastered from the 35mm original magnetic track, the mono soundtrack doesn’t play as compressed and center-speaker focused — it’s always clear and never short on dynamics.
(1) Gloria Grahame gives arguably her finest performance as the gangster’s moll Debby Marsh, girlfriend of the volatile mobster Vince Stone (Lee Marvin), Lagana's right-hand man. (2) The investigation leads to a car yard owned by Mr. Atkins (Dan Seymour). He has nothing to say. (3&4) Stone burns the barfly Doris (Carolyn Jones) with his cigar after she mishandles some dice. (5) Debby follows Bannion to his hotel room after he told Stone to beat it. (6) Marvin made a name for himself with his turn as Stone.
EXTRAS
Smith Nehme calls “Big Heat’s” unflinching deep dive into the nature of good and evil “a sly allegory” for the witch hunt that Sen. Joseph McCarthy was conducting in 1953, a sentiment shared by Silver and Ursini in their commentary. Lang was probably feeling some heat, too, they say, because his progressive politics carried over into his movies, particularly “his critique of the justice system and, especially, cops.”
They also point out that the Production Code of America, which had raised concerns with Columbia Pictures about the violence in its movies, had a sizable hand in “The Big Heat.” To wit: Lang originally wanted to show the cop in the opening holding the gun to his temple.
The other extras are from the archives: interviews with Lang conducted by film historian Gideon Bachmann and director Peter Bogdanovich (“The Last Picture Show”), and interviews with directors Michael Mann (“Thief”) and Martin Scorsese (“The Departed”).
— Craig Shapiro
(1) When Stone disfigures her with a scalding pot of coffee, Debby returns to Bannion for help. (2&3) Bannion shakes down the low-level gangster Larry Gordon (Adam Williams) — he planted the bomb that killed Katie. (4) Lagana and Stone begin to feel the big heat. (5) Cinematographer Charles Lang provides the classic film noir lighting. (6) It’s the end of the road for Stone.
SPECS:
100 GB disc
True 4K mastering
Video bitrate average: the mid-80 Megabits per second range
4-perf 35mm black and white film negative, 1.37:1 aspect ratio
No. 8 within Slant Magazine’s Top 100 film noir classics
Box office: Released September 25, 1953, in Boston and Cleveland, the film’s total box office was a disappointing $7,085