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Released by: Twilight Time Releasing
Released on: February 16th, 2016.
Director: Fritz Lang
Cast: Glenn Ford, Alexander Scourby, Gloria Grahame, Lee Marvin, Jocelyn Brando, Dorothy Green
Year: 1953
Purchase From Screen Archives
The Movie:
Fritz Lang's 1953 is widely regarded as a pretty sterling example of hard boiled classic film noir - and for good reason. This is one of those rare pictures that gets EVERYTHING right. Written by real life crime reporter Sydney Boehm, the film follows Sergeant Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) as he, a rare breed of honest cop, goes about investigating the death of fellow officer Tom Duncan. When Dave isn't hard at work, he's relaxing at home with his lovely wife Katie (Jocelyn Brando). At first, all involved are pretty much convinced that Duncan took his own life. However, after interviewing his widow, Bertha (Jeanette Nolan), and then after that a woman named Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame) who may or may not have been the dead man's mistress, Bannion starts to wonder if he wasn't actually murdered.
Things go from dicey to dangerous when Debby's body is found bound and very clearly dead, dumped on the side of the road. He starts investigating things more closely and soon enough, all signs point to the involvement of a crime boss named Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourb) and his sadistic right hand man Vince Stone (Lee Marvin).
And we'll leave the plot synopsis part of this review at that.
A film that winds up you and keeps you tense from start to finish, The Big Heat really is edge of your seat suspense, especially upon first viewing where it really will keep you guessing as to how it's all going to end. The movie builds flawlessly, the script offering up rock solid twists and turns throughout but never moving out of the realm of plausibility or asking us to suspend our disbelief too much. The dialogue is full of tough guy posturing but it suits the characters and the world that they inhabit and in fact, it just adds another layer of grit to the proceedings, further accentuating the atmosphere and style that play such a big part in the film.
An important part of making all of that work is the look of the film. Charles Lang's cinematography knocks it out of the park, with pretty much every frame of the film a perfect composition. Shadow and light play a role as important in the way all of this plays out as any of the human characters do, and the locations and sets used as the backdrop for all of the action and drama benefit this careful attention to detail. Close ups are used at key moments to capture the ever important reactions of the different characters as they traverse the story arc, though in the film's most infamous scene (to which the cover art alludes to) Lang judiciously pulls back, letting our imagination do the work for us.
Of course, all of this is well and good but if the cast don't deliver, it would all be a bit of a waste, right? Thankfully Lang managed to assemble a cast that manages to balance the style and substance inherent in the script and the visuals pretty much perfectly. Brando and Nolan are good in their roles but Gloria Grahame as the film's requisite, though unconventional, femme fatale steals the show as far as the female performers are concerned. As to the men, Lee Marvin is pure, unadulterated menace in a designer suit - his role here is large enough to matter if not huge, but he absolutely makes an impression here. Alexander Scourb impresses as Marvin's boss while Glenn Ford is really at his steely eyed best in this picture - a man's man to be sure, but one who abides by a strong moral code even when wronged and out to correct that. It's also fun to see Carolyn Jones, best known as Morticia from the Addams Family, show up in a supporting role.
Video/Audio/Extras:
This Blu-ray reissue of The Big Heat seems to replicate the transfer of the Blu-ray that they released back in 2012, a fine looking disc that has been out of print for some time. The AVC encoded 1.33.1 fullframe picture shows excellent detail and texture with nice depth and texture evident throughout. The image is very clean but has a nice amount of natural looking grain evident, the kind that reminds you this was shot on film. The picture never looks overly processed, there's no evidence of noise reduction or edge enhancement, and the picture is free of compression artifacts. The image is also very clean, there's virtually no print damage here to note at all. The transfer is a strong one indeed.
The English language DTS-HD Mono track is also of very good quality. Dialogue is clean, clear and easy to follow and the score has nice depth and range. Hiss and distortion are never an issue and the levels are properly balanced throughout. Optional English subtitles are provided.
The past release of the film from Twilight Time included the film's isolated score as a DTS-HD 2.0 track, a trailer, static menus and chapter stops. Those extras are carried over to this reissue along with a few new supplements starting with an audio commentary with film historians Lem Dobbs, Julie Kirgo, and Nick Redman. These three have provided commentary tracks for Twilight Time releases in the past and they're clearly quite comfortable working together as they have a good chemistry here as they talk about different aspects of the film. Some time is spent comparing this to other similar films made around the same time, discussing Lang's style, offering some observations and critical analysis of the story and the performances and quite a bit more.
Also included on the disc are a few short featurettes. The first of these is an eleven minute piece called Michael Mann On The Big Heat. The second featurette is the six minute Martin Scorsese On The Big Heat. These were originally included on the 2009 release that the film received as part of Columbia's Film Noir Classics Volume I boxed set and they're interesting appreciations from two men who really know film and have a genuine appreciation (not to mention solid knowledge) of film noir.
It's also worth noting that the insert booklet of liner notes written by Julie Kirgo that were included with the first issue of the film are also included here, though the cover art is different. As usual, Kirgo's observations are worth reading and well written. This is an informative piece that serves as a nice primer to the film.
The Final Word:
Fritz Lang's The Big Heat is a superlative example of just how tense and exciting American film noir can be. This is a top notch thriller made all the better by the presence of an impressive cast under the watch of a director at the top of his game. Twilight Time's Blu-ray release looks and sounds great and this 'Encore Edition' adds some nice new extra features to the mix. Highly recommended - a great release of a great film.
Click on the images below for full sized Blu-ray screen caps!
