Sun 11 Jan 2015
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: THE BIG COMBO (1955).
Posted by Steve under Crime Films , Reviews[5] Comments
THE BIG COMBO. Allied Artists, 1955. Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Brian Donlevy, Jean Wallace, Robert Middleton, Lee Van Cleef, Earl Holliman. Screenplay: Philip Yordan. Cinematography: John Alston. Director: Joseph Lewis.
Wilde, a detective investigating mobster Conte’s activities, is obsessed with breaking up Conte’s operation and winning his mistress (Jean Wallace) for himself.
Superbly scripted, directed, and photographed, this film by a director I had never heard of reminded me how little I know about this period. There is a brilliant beginning as Wallace runs down an alley with the fluidity of a trapped moth in beautifully composed and lighted frames.
One of the strongest performances of his career is given by Brian Donlevy as a deposed monster chief who’s now relegated to backing up Conte. He wears a hearing aid, and Conte likes to torment him by turning up the mechanism and shouting, but he turns it off when Donlevy is gunned down by the Conte’s two henchmen (Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman). The guns blaze in complete silence as the shots light up the dark and the film.
The reaction of the more knowledgeable members of the audience was that this is certainly a fine film but the Lewis’s masterpiece is Gun Crazy (1950).
January 11th, 2015 at 3:07 pm
One of the performances that most impressed me here was Helene Stanton as Wilde’s stripper girlfriend. Based on this, she should have been headed for bigger things, but was not, unless you count the jungle goddess in PYMGY MOON MEN (1955)
January 11th, 2015 at 3:17 pm
Her son is Dr. Drew Pinky — he can be seen on CNN from time to time.
January 11th, 2015 at 4:43 pm
“Wagonwheel” Lewis outdid himself here and in GUN CRAZY. He was always a competent, and at times innovative, director, but nothing before really could have prepared anyone for this.
That silent gun down of Donlevy is one of the iconic moments in noir.
Before this Conte was as often a good guy as a bad one. After this he still played some good guys, but his bad guy career was set.
Wallace, Wilde’s wife, was also good in this. No one is suggesting she is a great actress, but because Wilde used her in most of his films like Eastwood and Locke or Bronson and Jill Ireland she didn’t always get her due. She is good here, good in MARICAIBO and a fine Guinivere in THE SWORD OF LANCELOT. She certainly never harmed any of the films she is in.
Wilde was surprisingly active in film noir roles for an actor best known for swashbucklers and Arabian Nights. I suppose it dates back from his supporting role in HIGH SIERRA. Here he is cop is obsessed and consumed with getting Conte in true noir style, and the scene where Conte tortures him by putting Donlevy’s hearing aid on him in order to leave no tell tale marks is memorably skin crawling.
And Holliman and Marvin do everything but spell out the suggestion of a homosexual relationship between the two killers.
All in all THE BIG COMBO is a remarkable entry on classic noir.
January 11th, 2015 at 6:52 pm
Can’t resist plugging my book length article on Lewis:
http://mikegrost.com/lewis.htm
The Big Combo is indeed “Superbly scripted, directed, and photographed”!
Thank you.
January 19th, 2015 at 4:22 am
I loved THE BIG COMBO but I have to agree that GUN CRAZY is Lewis’s finest moment.