The Big Heat

Homicide detective Sergeant Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) of the Kenport Police Department investigates the suicide of a rogue fellow officer, Tom Duncan, whose wife, Bertha Duncan (Jeanette Nolan), says her husband had lately been in ill health. Officer Duncan leaves behind an envelope addressed to the district attorney, which Mrs. Duncan places in her safe-deposit box at the bank.

The mistress of the late cop, Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green), contradicts Mrs. Duncan, telling Bannion that Tom Duncan had not been in ill health. Bannion revisits Duncan's widow who resents his demand for particulars about the couple's luxurious home. The next day, Lieutenant Ted Wilks (Willis Bouchey), under pressure from "upstairs" to close the case, rebuffs Bannion. Lucy Chapman is found strangled to death, her body covered with cigarette burns. Bannion investigates although the Chapman case is in the sheriff's jurisdiction. Bannion receives threatening calls at his home. He confronts Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby), the local mob boss who runs the city. He discovers that people are too scared to stand up to the crime syndicate. When Bannion ignores warnings to desist, his car is blown up, killing his wife, Katie (Jocelyn Brando). Accusing his superiors of corruption, Bannion resigns from the police department.

When Lagana's second-in-command, Vince Stone (Lee Marvin), punishes a woman in a nightclub by burning her hand with a cigar butt, Bannion stands up to him, impressing Stone's girlfriend, Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame). Debby offers to buy him a drink but Bannion refuses, observing that her money comes from her boyfriend, a thief. Debby follows Bannion from the bar to the hotel where he is now living. When Debby innocently asks Bannion about his late wife, he throws her out. Debby returns to Stone's penthouse. He accuses her of talking to Bannion about his activities and throws a pot of boiling coffee in her face. Police Commissioner Higgins (Howard Wendell), who had been playing poker with Stone and his group at the penthouse, takes her to a hospital.

Debby returns to Bannion, the left side of her face disfigured and half-covered in bandages. He puts her into a separate, unregistered room at his hotel. Debby identifies the man who had arranged the planting of the dynamite in Bannion's car as Larry Gordon (Adam Williams), one of Stone's associates. Bannion forces Gordon to admit to the car bombing, and to reveal that Duncan's widow is using incriminating documents which could implicate Stone and Lagana to blackmail Lagana. Bannion refrains from killing Gordon, but spreads word that Gordon had talked. Gordon is soon murdered by Stone's men and his body thrown in the river. Bannion then confronts Mrs. Duncan, accusing her of betraying Lucy Chapman and of protecting Lagana and Stone. Bannion intends to kill Mrs. Duncan, figuring that her death will cause the evidence she has against Lagana to be revealed. But cops sent by Lagana arrive before Bannion can strangle Mrs. Duncan, and he departs.

Lagana orders Stone to kidnap Bannion's young daughter, Joyce (Linda Bennett), who is staying with her aunt and uncle under police guard, after arranging for the guards to be called away, but Joyce's uncle summons several army buddies from the war to provide protection. Satisfied that his daughter is in safe hands, Bannion is about to leave his daughter to deal with Stone when Lieutenant Wilks arrives, now prepared to make a stand against the mob. Debby goes to Mrs. Duncan and notes that the expensive mink coats that they are both wearing are thanks to their association with gangsters. When Mrs. Duncan attempts to call Stone for help, Debby shoots her dead.

When Stone returns to his penthouse, Debby throws boiling coffee at him in revenge, but Stone shoots her. After a short gun battle with Bannion, who had followed him, Stone is captured. As Debby lies dying, Bannion describes his late wife to her in terms of endearment rather than the colorless "police description" of his wife he had given to Debby earlier, and tells Debby that she and his wife would have gotten along well. Stone is arrested for murder; Officer Duncan's damning evidence in the note he left behind for the D.A. is made public; Lagana and Commissioner Higgins are indicted; and Sgt. Bannion is restored to his job at Homicide.

• Glenn Ford as Dave Bannion
• Gloria Grahame as Debby Marsh
• Jocelyn Brando as Katie Bannion
• Alexander Scourby as Mike Lagana
• Lee Marvin as Vince Stone
• Jeanette Nolan as Bertha Duncan
• Peter Whitney as Tierney
• Willis Bouchey as Lt. Ted Wilks
• Robert Burton as Gus Burke
• Adam Williams as Larry Gordon
• Howard Wendell as Commissioner Higgins

The film was based on a serial by William P. McGivern, which appeared in the Saturday Evening Post from December 1952 and was published as a novel in 1953. Initially, McGivern's novel was to be produced by Jerry Wald, who wanted either Paul Muni, George Raft or Edward G. Robinson (who worked with director Fritz Lang in Woman in the Window and Scarlet Street) for the role of Dave Bannion. Columbia Pictures paid $40,000 for McGivern's novel. Lang directed the film while Sydney Boehm wrote it.

Boehm changed many details in the novel. Commissioner Higgins is not in the novel and Lieutenant Wilks is the corrupt policeman. An honest policeman called Cranston, who was in the novel, was omitted from the film.

In the novel, it is not known until the end that the widow of the policeman who had killed himself (named Deery in the book, Duncan in the film) was blackmailing Lagana. Debby shoots her and then mortally wounds herself. After Stone is cornered by Bannion, he is killed by another policeman. Instead of taking place in Philadelphia, the film takes place in the fictional city of Kenport.

Columbia wanted Marilyn Monroe to play the part of Debby Marsh but did not want to pay the fee 20th Century Fox demanded for the loan of their star, so Gloria Grahame was cast instead.

Rex Reason was slated to play either Tierney or Detective Burke, but his agent wanted a larger part. In the end, Reason was not cast and Peter Whitney and Robert Burton got the roles of Tierney and Burke respectively.

In the scene at the bar where Stone and Bannion first meet, the house band is performing "Put the Blame on Mame," a song also heard in the 1946 noir classic Gilda, also starring Ford, and also produced by Columbia.[6]

The Academy Film Archive preserved The Big Heat in 1997.[7]

The New York Times and Variety both gave The Big Heat very positive reviews at the time. Bosley Crowther of the Times described Glenn Ford "as its taut, relentless star" and praises Lang for bringing "forth a hot one with a sting."[9] Variety characterized Lang's direction as "tense" and "forceful."[10] Critic Roger Ebert subsequently praised the film's supporting actors and added the film to his personal canon of "Great Movies".[11]

Writer David M. Meyer states that the film never overcomes the basic repulsiveness of its hero, but notes that some parts of the film, though violent, are better than the film as a whole: "Best known is Gloria Grahame's disfigurement at the hands of psycho-thug Lee Marvin, who flings hot coffee into her face."[12]

According to film critic Grant Tracey, the film turns the role of the femme fatale on its head: "Whereas many noirs contain the tradition of the femme-fatale, the deadly spiderwoman who destroys her man and his family and career, The Big Heat inverts this narrative paradigm, making Ford [Det. Bannion] the indirect agent of fatal destruction. All four women he meets—from clip joint singer, Lucy Chapman, to gun moll Debby—are destroyed."[13]

The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists:

• 2001: AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills – Nominated[14]
• 2005: AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes:
  • Debby Marsh: "We're sisters under the mink." – Nominated[15]
• 2008: AFI's 10 Top 10:
  • Nominated Mystery Film[16]
  • Nominated Gangster Film[16]

In December 2011, The Big Heat was selected for inclusion in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry.[17] Proclaiming it "one of the great post-war noir films", the Registry stated that The Big Heat "manages to be both stylized and brutally realistic, a signature of its director Fritz Lang."[17]

• List of American films of 1953

• Sarris, Andrew. 1998. “You Ain’t Heard Nothin’ Yet.” The American Talking Film History & Memory, 1927-1949. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513426-5

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• The Big Heat at the American Film Institute Catalog
• The Big Heat at IMDb
• The Big Heat at the TCM Movie Database
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• The Big Heat at Rotten Tomatoes
• The Big Heat at the Greatest Film web site