The Big Combo [VHS]

Be Sure to Get the DVD by Image
I'm a fan of this movie even though the plot is a little silly at times, and Cornell Wilde isn't the greatest of actors. However the film makes up for it's weaknesses in style. The cinematography and stark lighting are first rate. Plus it has Richard Conte, who is one of my favorite actors. The Big Combo is in the public domain, and there are several versions available on DVD, so buyer beware. I recommend the one by Image Entertainment. Although the print used in their version has scratches in several scenes, it still has the best picture quality of all the PD DVDs out there. (Avoid the ones by Geneon Entertainment and Alpha Video. The Geneon version is interlaced, too.) Even so, the Image disc is a bare bones affair, with no extras. Maybe one day someone will do a proper restoration of the film and include an audio commentary by a film historian, but until then the Image DVD will have to do.

Film Noir At Its Toughest
This is one of the few classic films that was so rough, so hard-edged, I got rid of it after several viewings....but now wish I had it back. One thing for sure: this is film noir at its darkest. I got very uncomfortable watching several scenes, frankly. However, it's interesting and I always appreciate John Alton's photography. ****spoilers**** There is a scene in which a cop (Cornel Wilde) is tortured by the head mob boss (Richard Conte) and his goons. Wilde is given a hearing aid and forced to hear loud music through it, louder and louder piercing his ear drums. Then, they make him drink hair tonic that has 40 percent alcohol in it so that when someone finds him, they will think he's drunk. You see what I mean? This is one nasty movie. Conte's character is brutal, killing anyone who poses a threat to him. The female lead, played by Jean Wallace, has a pretty face but that can't overshadow all the mean-spirited or sadistic people who dominate this movie. If you're in a bad mood, this would be a good film to watch!

A classic New York gangster movie
The female lead here reminds me of Grace Kelly a few years later. This movie is the post war gangster movie with very good acting and a good script. The clever gangster seems to have all his bases covered: even his suicidal girl friend, but the detective dogs every lead until he gets him cold for murder. This movie has almost all stars (or future stars) in even the bit parts of the hoods. I like this movie and it shows how a good film should be made.

The Big Combo
Lewis's ultra-hard-boiled noir is savage and unstinting in its view of two men, one squarely on the side of the law and the other seemingly above it, locked in a battle of wills that may eventually destroy them both. Conte is particularly repellent as the sadistic Mr. Brown, but he gets excellent support from Brian Donlevy as a stoic, humiliated underling whose hearing aids provide one of the movie's most gruesome plot points. Earl Holliman and Lee Van Cleef are also solid playing Brown's all-too-loyal thugs. Raw and beautifully stylized by John Alton's brilliant use of light, shadow, and slanted angles, "The Big Combo" makes for a bracing night at the movies.

John Alton's cinematography is a classic noir example of what can be done with limited means
When the two most interesting scenes involve a hearing aid pulled from Brian Donlevy's ear, I think a good assumption would be that The Big Combo lacks a little something. The plot is simplicity itself. An obsessive cop is determined to bring down a crime boss, come what may. As the cop collects witnesses, the crime boss' two goons turn them into corpses. Eventually, the cop prevails...and maybe even makes a friend of the crime boss' innocent, blond and zaftig girlfriend. In fact, however, I think the Big Combo lacks two big somethings. First, the movie has a giant, dull center because the two leads, Cornel Wilde and Jean Wallace, are two of the most limited actors Hollywood ever gave star roles to. While Wilde might generously be called a limited actor, Wallace, with her little girl voice and intonations, simply isn't an actor at all. For my money, almost all the actors lack any inherent interest. The implied relationship between the two killers, amusingly played by Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holiman, might have been an inside joke in the Fifties, but it now seems simply an excuse for excessive analysis on Turner Classic Movies. Donlevy, in fact, saddened me. It was disconcerting to see this actor, who had earned major stature in Hollywood in his prime, reduced to playing a broken-down, aging, useless crime boss in a movie of this quickie, low-budget quality. Second, the dialogue is as flat and stale as yesterday's fried egg. It doesn't power the plot. It doesn't make us sit up because of cleverness or pungency. It's as lifeless as the delivery most of the actors give it, especially Wilde and Wallace. Richard Conte never quite made the A list in Hollywood, but he was always a dynamic and forceful actor, and a good one, too. He's the most animated of any of the actors. His role as the ruthless and smooth Mr. Big, always referred to and addressed as Mr. Brown, gives him more latitude to be interesting than the other players. Yet the silly device of having everyone refer to him only as Mr. Brown brings Conte perilously close to being nothing more than a screenwriter's idea of iconic menace. What's to like about the movie? Well, the plot is hardly original, yet the idea of a Mr. Big eventually brought down by an obsessed cop while people fall by the wayside is usually satisfying. Most impressively, John Alton, the cinematographer, pulled out all the tricks in his bag to give The Big Combo a great noir look. From dramatic spotlights pinning the bad guy against a wall to the flashes of silent machine guns, from Lee Van Cleef's face looking stark and scary to the opening shots of a woman pursued by two killers through dark shadows and blinding lights, The Big Combo is a pleasure to look at. But if all you can say about a noir is that the lighting was great, that might be faint praise.