THE BIG HEAT [1953 / 2020] [Standard Edition] [Blu-ray] [UK Release]
Fritz Lang returns with an iconic “film noir” Masterful Crime Thriller!
THE BIG HEAT [1953] Fritz Lang's iconic “film noir” masterpiece is an uncompromising exploration of corruption and violence at the dark heart of small-town America. Glenn Ford is the good cop in a bad town, who single-handedly takes on local mobsters headed by Alexander Scourby and his psychotic right-hand man Lee Marvin.
FILM FACT: The film ‘THE BIG HEAT’ was selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2011. The film was based on a fictional serial by William P. McGivern, which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post from December 1952 and was published as a novel in 1953. Initially, McGivern's novel was to be produced by Jerry Wald, who wanted either Paul Muni, George Raft or Edward G. Robinson (who worked with director Fritz Lang in ‘Woman in the Window’ and ‘Scarlet Street’) for the role of Dave Bannion. Columbia Pictures paid $40,000 for William P. McGivern's novel. Fritz Lang directed the film while Sydney Boehm wrote it and changed many details in the novel. Commissioner Higgins is not in the novel and Lieutenant Wilks is the corrupt policeman. An honest policeman called Cranston, who was in the novel, was omitted from the film. Columbia Pictures wanted Marilyn Monroe to play the part of Debby Marsh but did not want to pay the fee 20th Century Fox demanded for the loan of their star, so Gloria Grahame was cast instead. Actor Rex Reason was slated to play either Tierney or Detective Burke, but his agent wanted a larger part. In the end, Rex Reason was not cast and Peter Whitney and Robert Burton got the roles of Tierney and Gus Burke respectively. In the scene at the bar where Vince Stone [Lee Marvin] and Katie Bannion [Jocelyn Brando] first meet, the house band is performing “Put the Blame on Mame,” a song also heard in the 1946 “film noir” classic ‘Gilda,’ also starring Glenn Ford, and also produced by Columbia Pictures. The Academy Film Archive preserved ‘THE BIG HEAT’ in 1997.
Cast: Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby, Lee Marvin, Jeanette Nolan, Peter Whitney, Willis Bouchey, Robert Burton, Adam Williams, Howard Wendell, Chris Alcaide, Michael Granger, Dorothy Green, Carolyn Jones, Ric Roman, Dan Seymour, Edith Evanson, Phil Arnold (uncredited), Linda Bennett (uncredited), Charles Cane (uncredited), Phil Chambers (uncredited), John Close (uncredited), Sidney Clute (uncredited), John Crawford (uncredited), John Doucette (uncredited), Kathryn Eames (uncredited), Al Eben (uncredited), Douglas Evans (uncredited), Fritz Ford (uncredited), Jimmy Gray (uncredited), Michael Jeffers (uncredited), Byron Kane (uncredited), Donald Kerr (uncredited), Lyle Latell (uncredited), Harry Lauter (uncredited), Nico Lek (uncredited), Celia Lovsky (Mike Lagana's Mother in Portrait) (uncredited), Herbert Lytton (uncredited), Herbert Lytton (uncredited), Mike Mahoney (uncredited), Laura Mason (uncredited), Paul Maxey (uncredited), Joseph Mell (uncredited), John Merton (uncredited), Patrick Miller (uncredited), William Murphy (uncredited), Ezelle Poule (uncredited), Norma Randall (uncredited), Michael Ross (uncredited), Ted Stanhope (uncredited), Robert Stevenson (uncredited) and William Vedder (uncredited)
Director: Fritz Lang
Producer: Robert Arthur
Screenplay: Sydney Boehm (screenplay) and William P. McGivern (Saturday Evening Post serial)
Composer: Henry Vars (uncredited)
Make-up Department: Clay Campbell (Make-up Artist) and Helen Hunt (Hair stylist)
Costume Design: Jean Louis (gowns)
Cinematography: Charles Lang, A.S.C. (Director of Photography)
Image Resolution: 1080p (Black-and-White)
Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1
Audio: English: 1.0 LPCM Mono Audio
English: 2.0 Dolby Digital Stereo Audio
Isolated Score: 2.0 LPCM Stereo Audio
Subtitles: English
Running Time: 89 minutes
Region: All Regions
Number of discs: 1
Studio: Columbia Pictures / Powerhouse Films / INDICATOR
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: ‘THE BIG HEAT’ [1953] is a “film noir” made in 1953 by Fritz Lang and starring Glenn Ford, Lee Marvin and Gloria Grahame. It was written by a former crime reporter, Sydney Boehm and is about the revenge of a cop who takes on the corrupt mob that controls his city after his wife is blown up by a car bomb meant for him. The film has a moralistic message to push home, which is that the forces of violence and evil can only be successfully opposed when the decent, courageous individuals in society stand together to fight them.
For those who take their film sinister, then ‘THE BIG HEAT’ a famous “film noir” with an infamous scalding coffee scene that makes the film a literal potboiler. Director Fritz Lang remains best known today for the films he made in his native Germany and including such masterpieces as ‘Metropolis’ and ‘M’ among them, but Fritz Lang made over twenty films in Hollywood. Unfortunately, something was rotten in film land and Fritz Lang had been targeted by HUAC [House Un-American Activities Committee Government agency] during the McCarthy's Red Scare, fuelling the director Fritz Lang's scepticism of the social order. Moral rot gets full play in Fritz Lang's 1953 police drama ‘THE BIG HEAT’ which depicts a corrupt system encroaching on the pursuit of justice.
On its release, the film ‘THE BIG HEAT’ was critically very well received and it did well at the box-office although it sadly received no Academy Award nominations. It is today considered a classic, one of the great “film noir” movies.
Like Fritz Lang's earlier movie the 1952 Western ‘Rancho Notorious’ and ‘THE BIG HEAT’ is a tale of “hate, murder, and revenge.” It begins with a famous shot – a close up of a .38 gun lying on a desk and about to be used by Tom Duncan, a corrupt policeman on the take, to commit suicide, and proceeds rapidly through jolting horrors that malformed the characters. Homicide Detective Sgt. Dave Bannion [Glenn Ford] turns from family man to obsessive when his wife Katie Bannion [Jocelyn Brando] is brutally murdered.
Moll Debby Marsh [Gloria Grahame] is embittered when her thug boyfriend Vince Stone [Lee Marvin] disfigures her with a face full of hot coffee and now Dave Bannion's quest for justice as he throws in his badge and resigns and is now going it alone as an ex-cop to find out the rot that has sent in. In a crucial development, the embittered hero Dave Bannion still can't commit cold-blooded murder, and so as an independent citizen has to now step in to pull all the last threads together that allows Dave Bannion is seen to get justice to be done and will Dave Bannion solve the corruption, well you will of course have to view this classic “film noir.” The film's title refers to extreme police crack-down on criminal activities and the big heat that brings down crime boss Mike Lagana [Alexander Scourby] is precipitated when Debby Marsh confronts and murders her “sister under the mink,” and the crooked cop's grasping widow.
Grounded more in political reality than most of Fritz Lang's “film noirs,” thanks to the hard-hitting detail of William P. McGivern's novel and Sydney Boehm's script, ‘THE BIG HEAT’ is one of a 1950's cycle of syndicate-runs-the-town crime exposés – others include ‘The Phoenix City Story’ in 1955 and ‘The Captive City’ in 1952.
Fritz Lang direction of the movie is still indebted to expressionism, with settings in which the individual personality traits of the main characters are highlighted: thus the frigid luxury of the Duncan house, bought with tainted money; the tasteless opulence of Mike Lagana's mansion, with its hideous, and all too typical, portrait of the gangster's mother and teenage party; the penthouse modern of Vince Stone and Debby Marsh, where the police commissioner plays cards with killers; and the minimalist hotel room where Dave Bannion ends up, his life pared down to one objective – the need for out and out 100% vengeance.
It is not a conventional happy ending; after the fall of the crime syndicate, the hero returns to his desk in the Homicide Department. The welcome of workmates-expressed, of course, by an offer of coffee, and is curtailed, and in the end the title appears over Dave Bannion putting on his hat and coat to go out and deal with “a hit and run over on South Street.” But at least we know the villains have been apprehended and are going to face justice.
In 1953, there had been numerous complaints made to the Production Code Administration by the U.S. State Department, citing grumbles from several foreign governments about the high level of violence in Hollywood imports. Eyes turned to ‘THE BIG HEAT’ and was intended opening shot in which Tom Duncan kills himself. The original script called for the shot to show the gun pressed against Tom Duncan’s head. Robert Arthur [Producer] worked with Fritz Lang to appease censors, creating a shot where the camera captures only Tom Duncan’s hand reaching for the gun; the audience then hears the shot and sees his body fall face-down on his desk. Aside from brief delays such as this, the production wrapped fast and on time. The short turnaround was not uncommon for a studio programmer, speaking further of Columbia Pictures unexceptional treatment of the film and their consideration of its B-picture status.
Though the film’s final line, where Homicide Detective Sgt. Dave Bannion tells an office gopher to keep the coffee hot, threatens to trivialize what came before, the lasting message suggests unchecked corruption and crime demand that someone fight them. Rather than a standard “film noir” scheming detective who embraces crime and vigilantism to satiate his impulses, Homicide Detective Sgt. Dave Bannion grapples with his morality outlook and how to enforce it 100%. Fritz Lang makes Homicide Detective Sgt. Dave Bannion’s mission ever more confronting by pitting him against an intractable desecration of American values, backed by a monstrous degree of violence and bloodshed. And the film’s impact has only sharpened since its release in 1953.
When ‘THE BIG HEAT’ was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry for future preservation in 2011, the official release called it, “One of the great post-war “noir films” and said “its subtly expressive technique and resistance to formulaic denouement, manages to be both stylized and brutally realistic, a signature of its director Fritz Lang.” To be sure, the film was written, produced, and directed in a classic Hollywood tradition; however, the sheer force of the storytelling makes everything seem more visceral than classic Hollywood would allow.
‘THE BIG HEAT’ features one of the more mature stories to be found in noir. It deals with some extremely heavy material, some of which would understandably encourage its characters to give in to testosterone and rage, yet preserves an impressive air of level-headedness. The emotions are there, yet true to the director’s impeccable storytelling tastes, they lend the picture some additional pathos and, in its final moments of bitter sweetness. Chalk up ‘THE BIG HEAT’ as a massive big winner.
THE BIG HEAT MUSIC TRACK LIST
IT’S A BLUE WORLD (uncredited) (Written by Chet Forrest and Bob Wright) (Heard instrumentally during one of the scenes at The Retreat)
PUT THE BLAME ON MAME (uncredited) (Written by Doris Fisher and Allan Roberts) (Heard instrumentally during one of the scenes at The Retreat)
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Blu-ray Image Quality – Columbia Pictures; Powerhouse Films + INDICATOR presents us the film ‘THE BIG HEAT’ with a wonderful 1080p Black-and-White image experience and shown in the 1.37:1 aspect ratio and it is near on perfection restoration department. The image is a little soft here and there, but it’s generally clean and impressive, with lustrous whites and velvety, nuanced blacks. The said cleanness of the image bolsters the sense of interplay between the foreground and background of the shots, which is always intensely important to Fritz Lang’s films, as they’re often parables of community at war with itself. Put broadly, the various planes of the imagery could be said to embody respective, conflicting factions of society. Facial details are densely rendered, which is also pivotal to preserving the impact of such an extreme study of faces, but especially we can even pick out the fine details of the very gross Gloria Grahame's disfigure make-up.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – Columbia Pictures; Powerhouse Films + INDICATOR bring us the film ‘THE BIG HEAT’ with a 1.0 LPCM Mono Audio experience and is a Clean and pleasing to the ear, and it hits the mark without incident. Dialogue and the amazing composed musical score by the brilliant Henry Vars are very clearly heard and the expectedly modest audio depth goes along with the original mono track. The soundtrack swiftly, gracefully balances the important background noises, like the simmering of coffee, the humming of a crowd in a bar and with the foreground of the composed score and the dialogue. In other words, all the elements are in harmony in this amazing attractive restoration of one of the great iconic “film noir” American film, and this audio experience is a very fine one indeed for this brilliant ‘THE BIG HEAT’ film.
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Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
Special Feature: Audio Commentary with Lem Dobbs, Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman [2020] [1080p] [1.37:1] [89:28] With this featurette, we get to hear from Film Historians Lem Dobbs, Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman, and as the film starts, we first get to hear from Nick Redman who informs us that he is a documentary filmmaker and record producer and are all here to talk about the fantastic “film noir” ‘THE BIG HEAT,’ and to also talk about the is Film writer Julie Kirgo and screenwriter Lem Dobbs, and next we hear from stupid idiotic American Julie Kirgo thinks this film is a masterpiece and on top of that whenever she speaks says some really horrible dumb horrible comments that really got on my nerves, well to me saying this film is a masterpiece is way over the top, as I feel there are a lot more films that I have viewed that are total masterpiece films that can compete with the film ‘THE BIG HEAT.’ Of course all three praise the actor Glen Ford for his masterful performance as the policeman with a conscious and I agree with them 100%, and again they mention that Glenn Ford had many affairs with the leading ladies he appeared in a film with and of course I mentioned this in my review with the special feature on the Blu-ray of ‘Affair in Trinidad.’ But what is really annoying me with this particular audio commentary is first there seems to be only two main contributors talking about the film and one of them is the stupid idiotic dumb American Julie Kirgo and she is coming out with some really dumb stupid jerk comments. So because of hearing all of these vacuous stupid dumb audio comments, I am not going review it anymore, as it is so painful and frustrating hearing all these stupid comments, and sadly it is like a another stupid audio commentary I had to sit through was with the Blu-ray ‘Monty Python’s Meaning of Life’ and I just wish they would not put these moronic vacuous stupid idiotic audio commentaries as a special feature as they are a complete waste of time and energy.
Special Feature: Tony Rayns on Fritz Lang and ‘THE BIG HEAT’ [2020] [1080p] [1.78:1 / 1.37:1] [33:22] With this featurette, we get to meet Film Historian Tony Rayns with this newly filmed appreciation and analysing the iconic director Fritz Lang and of course the classic “film noir” ‘THE BIG HEAT.’ First Tony Rayns want to talk Fritz Land, and the director was 100% iconic singular career he had in the 20th century and in Tony Rayns opinion the world, because there was not many directors like Fritz Lang around at the time. Born Friedrich Christian Anton Lang in Germany on the 5th December, 1890, who was of course an Austrian film director, screenwriter, and producer who worked in Germany and later on immigrating to the United States. Fritz Lang was best best-known émigrés from Germany's school of Expressionism, he was dubbed the “Master of Darkness” by the British Film Institute. Fritz Lang was born in Vienna, as the second son of Anton Lang (1860 – 1940), an architect and construction company manager, and his wife Pauline "Paula" Lang. Fritz Lang’s mother was born Jewish and converted to Catholicism. His father was described as a “lapsed Catholic” and Fritz Langwas baptized on the 28th December, 1890, at the Schottenkirche in Vienna. Tony Rayns says that Fritz Lang after finishing school, Fritz Lang briefly attended the Technical University of Vienna, where he studied civil engineering and eventually switched to art. Fritz Lang left Vienna in 1910 in order to travel the world, travelling throughout Europe and Africa, and later Asia and the Pacific area. In 1913, Fritz Lang studied painting in Paris. Some people said Fritz Lang was a very ladies’ man, but some also said he was not a very nice man. Fritz Lang was also a very talented artist and through circumstances drifted into the movie business and was asked to write scripts, but the writing stint was brief, and after two years on writing these scripts, was able to contact producers, and informing them that if you want my scripts to made in to films, the he demanded that the scripts can only be used if he directs the films himself, because Fritz Lang was shocked when he viewed the films that he had written the scripts for, he found the films really terrible and was eventually allowed to start directing films at the German film studio UFA, and later Nero-Film, just as the Expressionist movement was building. In this first phase of his career, Fritz Lang alternated between films such as ‘Der Müde Tod’ (‘Weary Death: A German Folk Story in Six Verses’) [1927] and popular thrillers such as ‘Die Spinnen’ (Parts 1 and 2) (‘The Spiders’) [1919/1920] combining popular genres with Expressionist techniques to create an unprecedented synthesis of popular entertainment with art cinema. In 1920, Fritz Lang met his future wife, the writer Thea von Harbou and both co-wrote all of his movies from 1921 through to 1933. In the films of his German period, Lang produced a coherent oeuvre that established the characteristics later attributed to film noir, with its recurring themes of psychological conflict, paranoia, fate and moral ambiguity. In 1931, independent producer Seymour Nebenzahl hired Fritz Lang to direct ‘M’ [1931] for Nero-Film and was Fritz Lang’s first “talking” picture, considered by many film scholars to be a masterpiece of the early sound era, ‘M’ is a disturbing story of a child murderer starring Peter Lorre in his first starring role, who is hunted down and brought to rough justice by Berlin's criminal underworld. During the climactic final scene in M, Fritz Lang allegedly threw Peter Lorre down a flight of stairs in order to give more authenticity to Peter Lorre's battered look. Fritz Lang, who was known for being hard to work with, epitomized the stereotype of the tyrannical Germanic film director; and ‘M’ remains a powerful work. Fritz Lang was worried about the advent of the Nazi regime, partly because of his Jewish heritage, whereas his wife and co-screenwriter Thea von Harbou had started to sympathize with the Nazis in the early 1930s, and later joined the NSDAP in 1940 and they soon divorced. According to Fritz Lang, propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels called Fritz Lang to his office to inform him – apologetically that ‘The Testament of Dr. Mabuse’ was being banned and so was the film ‘M.’ But Joseph Goebbels was so impressed by Fritz Lang's abilities as a filmmaker, that Joseph Goebbels offered Fritz Lang the position of head of German film studio UFA. Fritz Lang said it was during that meeting that he had decided to leave for Paris, but the banks had closed by the time the meeting was over. Fritz Lang claimed that, after selling his wife's jewellery, Fritz Lang fled by train to Paris that evening, leaving most of his money and personal possessions behind. However, Fritz Lang’s passport of the time showed that he travelled to and from Germany a few times during 1933. Fritz Lang left Berlin for good on 31st July, 1933, four months after his meeting with Joseph Goebbels and his initial departure. Fritz Lang moved to Paris, having divorced Thea von Harbou, who stayed behind, earlier in 1933. In Paris, Fritz Lang filmed a version of Ferenc Molnár's ‘Liliom’ [1934] starring Charles Boyer and that was Fritz Lang's only film in French. Then Fritz Lang emigrated to America and ended up working in the payroll office in M-G-M and tended to fritter away his career going all over America to get to know the people and their ways, and eventually Fritz Lang started to direct films over a twenty-three features in his 20-year American career, working in a variety of genres at every major studio in Hollywood, and occasionally producing his films as an independent. Fritz Lang became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1939. Fritz Lang’s first Hollywood film was ‘Fury’ (1936). Fritz Lang made four films with an explicitly anti-Nazi theme, ‘Man Hunt’ (1941), ‘Hangmen Also Die!’ (1943), ‘Ministry of Fear ‘(1944) and ‘Cloak and Dagger’ (1946). On the other hand, Fritz Lang’s American films were often compared unfavourably to his earlier works by contemporary critics, although the restrained Expressionism of these films is now seen as integral to the emergence and evolution of American genre cinema, “film noir” in particular. ‘Scarlet Street’ (1945), one of his films featuring Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett, is considered a central “film noir” genre. One of Fritz Lang's most praised films noir is the police drama ‘THE BIG HEAT’ (1953), known for its uncompromising brutality, especially for a scene in which Lee Marvin throws scalding coffee on Gloria Grahame's face, but with the film ‘THE BIG HEAT’ and it was filmed in 29 shooting days flat out, because it was on a very tight budget. As Fritz Lang's visual style simplified, in part due to the constraints of the Hollywood studio system, his worldview became increasingly pessimistic; culminating in the cold, geometric style of his last American films, ‘While the City Sleeps’ (1956) and ‘Beyond a Reasonable Doubt’ (1956). But one thing that shocked me was that Tony Rayns informs us that Fritz Lang often frequented brothels and it is said that Fritz Lang says that directors should frequent brothels as they are the best place to be. Tony Rayns also says that police drama ‘THE BIG HEAT’ clearly connects with certain issues that preoccupied Fritz Lang's life in how some societies in America used to get influenced by corruption and helpless victims feels lost in the wilderness, but also at the same time pursuing to overthrow the corruption that was rife in society in the film ‘THE BIG HEAT’ and at the same time battling against the elements that at the time felt it could not be beaten. But there were certain characters that were keen to help out Dave Bannion finally to help him get the upper hand, because he wants to give honour and pride to his dead wife who was so brutally murdered. Tony Rayns also feels ‘THE BIG HEAT’ is very classical in a way, and not based on a montage element, it is based on placement on the set, in relationship with the actors on the set and with the camera and to the view point, and it is also based on the small account on the camera movement. Tony Rayns says that Fritz Lang like to portray people that you can believe in, and there is no character in the film who is a characterised, but instead they are distinctive characters, who come alive throughout any of his films and that is what is so distinctive about Fritz Lang films. One of Fritz Lang's most praised “film noir” is the police drama ‘THE BIG HEAT’ and known for its uncompromising brutality, especially for a scene in which Lee Marvin throws scalding coffee on Gloria Grahame's face. As Fritz Lang's visual style simplified, in part due to the constraints of the Hollywood studio system, his worldview became increasingly pessimistic, culminating in the cold, geometric style of his last two American films, ‘While the City Sleeps’ (1956) and ‘Beyond a Reasonable Doubt’ (1956). Finding it difficult to find congenial production conditions and backers in Hollywood, particularly as his health declined with age, Fritz Lang contemplated retirement. The German producer Artur Brauner had expressed interest in remaking the film ‘The Indian Tomb’ (from an original story by Thea von Harbou, that Lang had developed in the 1920’s which had ultimately been directed by Joe May), so Fritz Lang returned to Germany to make his “Indian Epics" consisting of ‘The Tiger of Eschnapur’ and ‘The Indian Tomb’ but sadly things did not work out. Fritz Lang died from a stroke on the 2nd August, 1976, and was interred in the Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills Cemetery in the Hollywood Hills of Los Angeles. On the 8th February, 1960, Fritz Lang received a star on the “Hollywood Walk of Fame” for his contributions to the motion picture industry, and is located at 1600 Vine Street which is a street in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California and at that point, the Tony Rayns featurette ends. Throughout this featurette we get to view a few clips from the film ‘THE BIG HEAT.’
Special Feature: Martin Scorsese on ‘THE BIG HEAT’ [2009] [1080p] [1.78:1 / 1.37:1] [5:48] With this featurette, we get to meet the filmmaker Martin Scorsese and wants to talk about the “film noir” ‘THE BIG HEAT’ that he first viewed the film when he was just 12 years old and left him with a strong force in his mind, and feels watching the picture you get a strong sense of a kind of obsessive nature for revenge that is all consuming, and how it can take a person and turn them into a pretty much ruthless cold bloody monster who starts taking on characteristics of people he is going to take the revenge on and it is like a self-fulfilling prophecy in the film ‘THE BIG HEAT’ and especially casting the actor Glenn Ford was right for the part, which was very interesting is that his character had a wonderful family life , but when his wife is brutally murdered, decides ruthlessly to take on the corrupt people and to get his revenge on them, and becomes a machine bent on revenge and there is no stopping him. Martin Scorsese says the film seems flat at the start of the film, then we get a sequence of horrible events, especially when Gloria Graham gets the scolding hot coffee thrown in her face and scaring her by her mob boyfriend nut job Lee Marvin and eventually you see Gloria Graham’s face totally and horrifying scarred, and of course eventually the character played by Lee Marvin gets his comeuppance with the scalding hot coffee thrown in his face by an off screen Gloria Graham, who eventually warms to the Glenn Ford character as he shows a lot of kindness to Gloria Graham’s character with her scarred downfall committed by her mob bully boyfriend played by Lee Marvin, and sadly by the end of the film, the Gloria Graham’s character comes to a very sad end, and at that point the Martin Scorsese featurette comes to an end. Throughout this featurette we get to view lots of clips from the film ‘THE BIG HEAT.’
Special Feature: Michael Mann on ‘THE BIG HEAT’ [2009] [1080p] [1.37:1 / 1.78:1] [10:57] With this featurette, and wants to talk about the iconic “film noir” ‘THE BIG HEAT’ which was of course directed by Fritz Land and Michael Mann says he was famous for the “German Expression” films and with his emigration from Nazi Germany to the United States where had a great influence with his films on films made in America, especially the Hollywood community where Fritz land lived and it was also where a whole bunch of German directors also lived and it was a big cultural period in Hollywood at the time. Michel Mann thinks the women in the film ‘THE BIG HEAT’ was fascinating and were also totally different from the men, they were very strong in character, whereas in previous films with women characters, they were classed second class citizens, and very subservient to the men characters. Michael Mann says that the character Dave Bannion [Glenn Ford] was sick of all the corruption in the police force especially, and throws in his badge in and goes solo to finally route out the corrupt people who are under the thumb of a criminal mob boss in the film and totally eliminate them, and of course all of the authorities were also under the thumb of a criminal mob boss, so of course they have to suspend Dave Bannion who wants the thwart all of their ill-gotten gain corrupt money. Michael Mann felt Gloria Graham and Glenn Ford were totally fantastic in the film ‘THE BIG HEAT’ as well as the deep focus via the lens, and the big influence that Orson Wells had on the film ‘THE BIG HEAT,’ and Michael Mann thinks the set of Lee Marvin’s apartment are very sinister in an arena of abundance, and also in that period America was in abundance in the 1950’s period and also the American economy was well over 50% of the World’s G.M.P., and the whole World couldn’t compete against America at that time period. Michael Mann felt director Fritz Lang was a master of the “film noir,” and at the point the Michael Mann featurette comes to an end. Once again, throughout this featurette we get to view lots of clips from the film ‘THE BIG HEAT.’
Special Feature: Isolated Score [1953] [1080p] [1.37:1] [89:32] With this featurette, you get to experience the amazing and glorious Henry Vars’ original composed film score, which is of course is without any dialogue and other sounds. On top of all that, this optional isolated musical score is one of those extra features I never really understand, it must hold some appeal for some obsessive fetishist soundtrack geeks.
Special Feature: Theatrical Trailer [1953] [1080p] [1.37:1] [1:43] With this featurette, we get to view the original theatrical trailer for the film ‘THE BIG HEAT.’ But they announce that the film is “So, I’m a gangster’s girl. I’ve had it rich and I’ve had it poor. Believe me, rich is better!” and “Vice . . . Dice and Corruption” and “. . . from the shock-packed Saturday Evening Post serial” and finally “A Picture of tremendous excitement . . .”
Special Feature: Image Gallery: With this featurette, we get to view 39 brilliant and stunning Black-and-White and Colour 1080p images related to the film ‘THE BIG HEAT,” that includes wonderful original on-set photographs, original promotional material, plus a few film posters for America and overseas for the film ‘THE BIG HEAT.’ To view the images, you have to us the right hand next button on your remote control to navigate the gallery images.
Finally, ‘THE BIG HEAT’ [1953] is one of those enjoyable films which make no great claims for themselves, yet which so balance style and intention (like the early Hitchcock’s, for instance) that they are finally more satisfying than many more ambitious works. The film lacks the density of a Maltese Falcon; one or two of its elements are over-conventional; Fritz Lang’s viewpoint remains exterior. All the same, it creates its world, and proves that, when his interest is engaged, this director still has at his control the technique of a master. Contributory skills that also deserve praise are Charles Lang’s, whose lighting powerfully contributes to the atmosphere of tension and incipient violence, and Charles Nelson’s, whose editing was totally immaculate. But most important is that the film ‘THE BIG HEAT’ is a total triumph in itself. Very Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema
Paradiso United Kingdom
