Today I’m reviewing a movie that I should really have watched years ago, “The Big Combo” from 1955. If you’ve ever found yourself googling “Film Noir” (especially images), you have definitely come across some of the films visuals. Indeed quite often if you see a heading that says “Film Noir” in some kind of article or book on the genre the cover picture is probably from this film. So that should give you a clue as to why the film is famous: It is perhaps the movie most heavily packed with classic Film Noir imagery and tropes. But since it came quite late in the era it’s not like it can claim to have invented any of that imagery. It just really indulged in it. It’s sort of a greatest hits.
The Men Behind The Movie
The movie is directed by Joseph H. Lewis, a director renowned for making the most of a minimal budget (We’ll get back to that) and the writing credit went to Philip Yordan, who possibly didn’t actually write it since he often had his work ghost-written by blacklisted writers at the time (Ben Maddow in particular). John Alton provided the cinematography and since this is a very visual film he deserves recognition for his part.
Cornel Wilde (“High Sierra”) stars, along with his wife Jean Wallace (“Jigsaw”) and Richard Conte (“The Godfather”), who stepped in at the last minute in the villain role to replace Jack Palance (Who quit because they wouldn’t give a role to his wife). Notable support includes Brian Donlevy (“The Glass Key”), Robert Middleton (“The Desperate Hours”) and Lee Van Cleef (“The Good, The Bad & The Ugly”).
The Set Up
The story follows Police Lt. Leonard Diamond (Wilde) on his personal crusade to bring down the sadistic gangster Mr. Brown (Conte). Diamond is also somewhat obsessed with Brown’s girlfriend Susan (Wallace). He claims he thinks she is the key to bringing him down but Police Capt. Peterson (Middleton) thinks he is secretly in love with her. After Susan attempts suicide she inadvertently gives Diamond a lead in the form of the name “Alicia”, which leads Diamond to pursue Browns biggest secret: What happened to his missing wife and to the crime boss he took over from?
So the first thing to note about this movie is that it was clearly made on a very tight budget, but as is often the case this just brings out the creativity in the truly talent director and this is Joe Lewis’ specialty. Indeed the movie was originally meant to be a higher budget job but after funding dried up they sought out Lewis to make it work. The vast majority of scenes are done in a single take, with a single lighting source.
The Aesthetics
On occasion though it is all too obvious they are on a sound stage, but those moments don’t last long enough to take you out of the movie. The best example of the film at it’s best and worst is in the opening scene where a brilliant chase through a series of creatively lit hallways and alleys is capped off by a static shot that is clearly on a sound stage. On the whole the film looks great.
There is a very strong focus on lighting and I have no doubt that when I talked about Film Noir influences on Blade Runner in my deep dive this was one of the movies that had a direct influence. It is a masterclass. The composition of each shoot is excellent too, with a great use of objects in the foreground such as brewing coffee in one scene and a lamp (which was also the light source of course) in another. He even throws old wagon into the background of a shot in the airport, perhaps as an in joke on the directors use of Wagon wheels in his 40’s Westerns, whenever he thought the shots looked too boring.
The Characters
As far as the characters go Conte’s Mr. Brown is the clear stand out. He gets the best lines of the movie and is the more interesting of his yin and yang pair with Cornel Wilde’s Lt. Diamond. Brown is evil for sure, ambitious and cold hearted, but he’s also charming and knows how to please a woman. Diamond however, despite being the virtuous hero, severely lacks in charm and is often somewhat callous towards the women in the movie. While it is suggested he is in love with Brown’s girl, Susan he is clearly more motivated with nail brown than protecting her. Wilde shared producer credits on the movie so had a degree of creative control and yet it is Conte’s performance that stands out. Some people just make great villains and he would play memorable ones several times in his career.
Amongst the rest of the characters, the most interesting is the fallen criminal Joe McClure, humiliated by Mr. Brown and forced to work for him, pretty much has his own story arc (Which naturally ends badly) and while Brian Donlevy plays the role well I suspect the reason for elevating the character was so they could make use of his deafness and use of a hearing aid. When we are introduced to him, we see Joe talk loudly into it to humiliate him, but later when they kidnap Diamond it is used as a full on torture device on the lieutenant, complete with a jazz drum solo on a nearby radio. Then finally when McClure is betrayed and faces death, we get to experience that in complete silence.
The Plot
The plot is a bit of a mixed bag. The scenes are strong but there tends to be a lot of conveniences to move the plot on (Such as Mr. Brown responding to the word “Spaghetti” in a lie detector word association test by blurting out the name of a retired gangster that was key to the case). Most of it works though and some of those scenes are very good. Such as the torture scene with the hearing aid, which was one they clearly spent a lot of time over (Definitely not a single take on that one).
The slow unravelling of the mystery works well and proceeds at a constant pace giving plenty of time for character moments and of course visuals. The mystery itself isn’t especially clever but it does it’s job. This is a movie of visuals first, characters second and last of all plot. But it’s coherent and well paced so I’m not complaining. There is a certain edginess to a lot of this movie though and it’s clear they were pushing just how much they could get past the censors. Remember this was a good 10 years before the Hays code was scrapped, so that torture scene was controversial.
Tropes And Controversy
Perhaps more controversial though was a scene earlier between Conte and Wallace which may be first on screen suggestion of cunnilingus, very skilfully implied without actually giving the censors anything to censor. I wonder if perhaps directors doing things like that made such a mockery of the code they decided it was time to just scrap it anyway. Certainly the film has many things they wouldn’t have gotten away with in a 1940’s Noir. Another example that seems to have slipped past most people in the day was the fact that Mr. Browns two henchmen (Played by Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman) were blatantly a gay couple.
While presenting an A to Z of Noir tropes and visuals in 1955 wasn’t exactly the most original or inspired piece of work it can’t be argued that it has in many ways become a near perfect example of the genre. If I was to recommend a movie to someone as a genre primer, this would be it and the closing shot of the film with the male and female lead silhouetted on their walk from the airport in the fog is perhaps the most famous visual in the whole genre due it’s overuse in pretty much every article about the genre. If you go and do a google image search right now for “Film Noir” it’ll probably be the first picture you get.
Conclusion.
Is it the best Film Noir? No, not by a long way. But it is probably top 20. There is a suggestion that the producers may have meddled with the film after most of it was film, most specifically Wilde may have felt outperformed by Conte, since much of the apparently added footage involves closeups of Wilde. Many of these worked against the feel of the film and it’s visual style so it’s a shame if true. Outside the great visuals Conte’s performance is the most notable thing about the film and it is probably why he was the original front runner to play Don Corleone in The Godfather. Obviously that changed when Marlon Brando came on board, so he ended up playing Corleone’s rival instead.
Ultimately, this is a great Noir. One of the best looking and Conte is one of the best villains of the genre. The movie’s occasional slip both visually (badly covered up sound stages and awkwardly inserted closeups) and plot wise (Those conveniences) count against it a bit as does the fact the protagonist is far less compelling than the antagonist and so much of it could have been taken directly from earlier movies. However, this still get’s high marks from me. This is a strong 7.5/10.
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