THE BIG HEAT (1953) is a classic noir film with Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame in the lead roles, with a very young Lee Marvin playing a mobster.

Glenn Ford plays the detective. Sergeant Dave Bannion, the straight arrow who refuses to back down when his investigation into the suicide of a fellow police sergeant upsets mob boss Mike Lagana, who has Police Commissioner Higgins and Bannion’s boss Lt. Wilks, in his pocket.

The movie opens with a bang, literally: Police Sergeant Duncan commits suicide in his home, leaving behind an envelope addressed to the DA.

However, his suspiciously cold widow, Bertha Duncan, who enters his study just after the incident, picks up the envelope as her husband’s corpse is still bleeding on her desk, and calls for Lagana.

A deal is made and Mrs. Duncan is put on the payroll in exchange for suppressing her husband’s letter revealing mob ties. Later we understand that Sgt. Duncan was also at the shot, but regretted what he had done and tried to drive out the mob by committing suicide.

Duncan’s death is swept under the rug as the suicide of an unhappy man who was ill. But Duncan’s girlfriend contacts Bannion and insists that Duncan was not sick, he was happy, and in fact had a lively affair with her at their summer house, suggesting too much wealth for a cop who you are supposed to survive on a limited income.

Bannion can smell something very rotten in the suicide ruling, but he is told to step back and “let it be”, which of course makes him even more suspicious and adamant.

Soon Duncan’s girlfriend, seen talking to him in a bar staffed by Lagana spies, is found dead, thrown from a car into a ditch on the outskirts of town. Bannion realizes that she is definitely correct.

During his investigation, Bannion befriends Debby (played by a very talented Gloria Grahame), the girlfriend of gangster Vince Stone (Lee Marvin) who is regularly abused and scorned in the Stone household. This semi-romantic bond becomes crucial later in the story.

The big “plot point” comes when Stone’s hit man Larry Gordon blows up Bannion’s car one night in his driveway with his beautiful wife in it. Revenge is on.

Bannion, even after being ordered to surrender his badge and resign his position, vows to find Larry Gordon and seek revenge.

Debby, whose face is burned when Stone throws a hot cup of coffee in her face during one of her outbursts, takes refuge with Bannion, who has evacuated his home after his wife’s death and moved into a hotel.

Deeply angry and dejected that half of her face has been burned with an ugly scar, Debby is a woman with nothing to lose. And since she knows her inside score, she takes matters into her own hands by first killing the smug Mrs. Duncan, who she was sure would live on an easy street for the rest of her life. Was she wrong about that?

Debby then brings Bannion to both Larry Gordon and Vince Stone.

The final showdown between Bannion and Stone takes place in Stone’s penthouse with a stunning night view of skyscrapers lit up like Christmas trees.

Debby achieves the closure she seeks by burning Vince’s faces as well with a hot cup of coffee before Vince fatally shoots her. After the mandatory shootout on the terrace, Bannion captures Stone alive.

From Sgt. Duncan’s hidden letter was Mrs. Duncan’s guarantee, once she dies, the letter is revealed as per her instructions and Lagana and all of her men are hastily arrested.

In the last scene, Bannion is reinstated in his job as a police detective with integrity and is welcomed into his office with the warm admiration of his colleagues and subordinates.

But what happens to Police Commissioner Higgins and his boss, Lieutenant Wilks, isn’t quite clear at the end of the movie. It appears that the former, a political appointee, is also fired, but Lt. Wilks survives his checkered past and ordeal. This is life.

The production values ​​on this film are less than what you would expect from a film made in 1953. Debby’s burn scar, for example, is a funny sheet of glue stuck to her left cheek and makes one wonder what so primitive is the state of makeup. art was back in those days. But Glen Ford and Gloria Grahame display a nuanced sensibility and believable approach to their characters.

The plot isn’t too bad either, especially for noir fans like me.

This classic has a 7 out of 10.

——————————————-