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The Big Heat (1953)
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All reviews for The Big Heat
The Big Heat (1953, USA, Fritz ...
by
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"I wasn't that excited to see this but thought I should because I am a major fan of Fritz Lang. The movie is so generic and dull in its mediocrity that if I didn't know he directed it beforehand, I would have been surprised to find that it's the work of Lang. It's not at all in his usual energetic style and is hard to sit though, allthough I did make it to the end. I generally don't like genre theory as an approach to analysing films, because it results in endless, pointless cineaste and theorist debates and super-specific subclassifications that often loose their usefullness. To contradict myself, however, I have to say that I was surprised that this film is often considered a noir as it is a more of a thriller with a few noir elements. The movie stars the decidedly non-hard boiled Glenn Ford as Dave Bannion, a cop who is investigating the mafia, who (spoiler, skip to next paragraph) kill his wife (Jocleon Brando). Do you think he is going to take the law into his own hands to ... "
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The Big Heat
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sarcastig
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As cool as a Fruitstand
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"On the outside, this is almost a boring story, and not very noir at all. Glenn Ford as Sgt. Bannion is the proverbial straight cop in a bent town, too good to be true, not cynical but still convinced good will beat evil in the end. He almost goes vigilante, almost lets his own darker side burst through, but in the end he lets a woman do the dirty job.Ah, but that's where the film gets interesting, with this woman. Gloria Grahame is glorious as Debbie, who seems a supporting character for much of the movie, but don't get her angry. She's ditzy, perpetually drunk, and makes no excuses for placing money above everything else, but she's the cynical hero of this noir tale in the end. She's the one who gets all the good lines, too: she says of her perfume that it's "something new. It attracts mosquitoes and repels men", and as explanation for her roaring rampage of revenge, all she offers is a pouty "Vince should have never ruined my looks. It was a rotten thing to do".She gets a raw dea ... "
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