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The Big
Heat (1953)
Fritz Lang's bleak, dark, very brutal and violent film
noir crime classic and expressionistic melodrama-gangster film
explored the seamy underworld of American organized crime. It was
based upon William P. McGivern's serialized story in The Saturday
Evening Post that was published in 1953.
- the film opened with the apparent suicide of veteran
41 year-old Kenport Police Dept. cop Tom Duncan at his desk at 3:15
am in the morning. His evil, conniving and greedy widow Bertha (Jeanette
Nolan) saw his handwritten case notes (with damning evidence) that
were to be mailed in an envelope addressed to the local DA in the Hall
of Justice, took them, and soon after secured them in her bank safe-deposit
box.
Opening: Suicidal Death of Tom Duncan
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Widowed Bertha Duncan
(Jeanette Nolan)
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Tom Duncan's Incriminating Letter to DA
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- Bertha immediately phoned big-time, ruthless, meglomaniacal
kingpin and local mob boss Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby), to tip
him off - presumably because she planned to use the notes to extort
his criminal gang for lucrative payoffs and to seek protection via
blackmail. He in turn called his brutal, sadistic, reflexive, cold-blooded
henchman Vince Stone (Lee Marvin), who was in the company of his vainly
narcissistic, brassy, free-spirited femme fatale girlfriend/moll
Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame) in tow in a sado-masochistic, abusive
relationship.
- Police Sergeant Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford), an iron-willed,
driven, and unrestrained honest homicide cop, investigated his colleague's
suicide. He spoke to newly-widowed Bertha who claimed Tom had been
ill with a strange health problem. Bannion questioned Duncan's barfly
mistress Lucy Chapman (Dorothy Green) at the Retreat Bar, who completely
refuted Bertha's version of events about Tom. Lucy was expecting to
marry the very healthy officer after Bertha had recently consented
to a divorce. Lucy was contemptuous of Bertha, and called her a "leech"
and a liar, and also made a comparison: "The only difference between
me and Bertha Duncan is that I work at being a B-Girl. And she has
a wedding ring and a marriage certificate."
- shortly
afterwards, Lucy was found thrown from a moving car on the parkway
(off-screen) - she had been brutally beaten and tortured (with cigarette
burns) and murdered (by strangulation). The county medical examiner
dismissed it as a "sex crime." Bannion
became suspicious when other compromised individuals in the police
department wanted no more questions about Duncan's sudden suicide or
Chapman's murder, including Department Head Lt. Ted Wilks (Willis Bouchey)
and Police Commissioner Higgins (Howard Wendell).
- Bannion
felt compelled to question Lagana personally about Lucy Chapman's "old-fashioned" murder,
but aggravated the kingpin when he visited his home during an night-time
social party: (Lagana:
"This is my home. And I don't like dirt tracked into it").
Bannion sarcastically lambasted the corrupt crime boss' dwelling: "No
place for a stinking cop. It's only a place for a hoodlum who built this
house out of twenty years of corruption and murder....You couldn't plant
enough flowers around here to kill the smell." Bannion also didn't
like intimidating phone calls that his wife had answered, and before
leaving, slugged Lagana's bodyguard George Rose (Chris Alcaide) when
he was manhandled.
- the next day, Bannion was
again warned by Lt. Wilks to stop pestering Lagana: "You're just begging to go back into uniform,
pounding a beat in the sticks." Bannion spoke to his beloved young
wife Katherine or 'Katie' (Jocelyn Brando) about his determined doggedness
to get answers: "What am I supposed to do, hold onto my job by
just stringing along? Afraid to look to the left or to the right because
I might see something that they don't want me to see?" She encouraged
him: "Just keep leading with your chin and don't you compromise."
- the
Syndicate decided to intimidate Bannion by retaliating against him.
There was a shocking scene of a car bombing (with a blinding explosion
outside Bannion's house) that accidentally killed his wife Katie as
he tended to his young daughter Joyce (Linda Bennett) inside. Moments
earlier, Katie had proposed to drive over and get their teenaged baby-sitter
Maxine ("Be back in a minute"). After the explosion,
Bannion rushed outside, pulled open the driver's-side door and pulled
his wife to safety, but she was already dead.
Deadly Car-Bombing Sequence: Death of Bannion's Innocent
Wife Katie
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- the frustrated Bannion was essentially suspended and
then resigned from his position at the police department to pursue
justice on his own. The crusading, vigilante rogue cop/hero went on
a "hate binge" - he was forced to erode his idealistic, law-abiding
principles when he took it upon himself to run a one-man embittered
crusade against suspected corruption. He resorted to the unlawful tactics
of the hoodlums after the tragic car-bomb murder orchestrated by sadistic,
viperous gang members. He moved into a hotel room.
- in
the gangsters' penthouse, Vince met up with his moll girlfriend Debby
Marsh, who was mixing drinks and had just returned from shopping: ("Six days a week she shops. On the seventh, she
rests. All tired out"). The dizty female bragged about her new
perfume:
"Something new. It attracts mosquitos and repels men" - except
for Vince. Lagana arrived to chastize Vince and his pretty-boy assistant
Larry Gordon (Adam Williams) for bungling two jobs: the murder of Lucy
and the car-bombing ("I can't afford people who make mistakes").
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Stone's Moll Girlfriend Debby (Gloria Grahame) in
Penthouse
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- later at the Retreat bar, Debby watched as Bannion resisted
Stone's brutal attack on a blonde woman cheating at dice (by burning
her hand with a cigarette). He confronted the thug: "You like
working girls over, don't you?...Maybe you're the one that worked over
Lucy Chapman." Debby was impressed by his courageous fortitude,
and offered to buy Bannion a drink, but he declined: "With Vince
Stone's money? I'd choke on it."
- she pursued after him on the
street, and then visited with him in his Marland Hotel room, where
she commented on the stark room:
"Say, I like this. Early nothing." She also told him about
her relationship with Vince: "You gotta take the bad with the good" -
and that the good meant an expensive lifestyle: "Clothes,
travel, expensive excitement. What's wrong with that?...The main thing
is to have the money. I've been rich and I've been poor. Believe me,
rich is better."
- he wasn't interested in romance with her and sent her
away, causing her to remark: "Oh, well, you're about as romantic
as a pair of handcuffs. Didn't you ever tell a girl pretty things?
You know, she's got hair like the west wind, eyes like limpid pools,
skin like velvet?" He denounced her: "I wouldn't touch anything
of Vince Stone's with a ten-foot pole."
- afterwards,
the jealously-vindictive Stone was told by Larry that Debby had met
up with Bannion. He suspected that Debby had divulged information to
Bannion and cheated on him: ("I thought
maybe you and Bannion played footsie while my back was turned").
He meanly grabbed her tightly and then tossed a pot of scalding hot
coffee (off-screen) on the left side of her face and disfigured her.
Her painful screams were heard from the adjoining room, as he yelled
at her: "You lyin' pig!...I'll fix you and your pretty face."
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Coffee Pot Face Scalding Scene
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- realizing that her days were
numbered, Debby joined forces with the homicide detective for revenge.
She told him what had happened and then thought of her future: "I
guess a scar isn't so bad, not if it's only on one side. I can always
go through life sideways." She
identified Larry Gordon, one of Stone's associates, as the individual
who arranged for the dynamiting of Bannion's car. During intense questioning
in his Wilton Apartments room by Bannion, Gordon revealed that Tom
Duncan was on Laguna's payroll for years, and also suggested that Bertha
Duncan was blackmailing both Laguna and Stone with his papers in her
safe deposit-box (for $500/week). Bannion left with a threat: "I'm
gonna spread the word that you talked. You're out of business, thief."
When word got out that Gordon might have provided damning information,
he was shot twice fleeing at the airport and deep-sixed in the river.
- Bannion
also confronted Bertha Duncan at her home - she refused to confess
or divulge any complicity. He was disgusted by her glee about her husband's
suicide ("You were even happy when your
husband blew his brains out"), and he was tempted to strangle
her for her collusion with the Syndicate that had set up Lucy Chapman's
death (to keep her quiet): ("A city is being strangled by a gang
of thieves and you protect Lagana and Stone for the sake of a soft,
plush life...With you dead, the big heat follows - the big heat for
Lagana, for Stone and for all the rest of the lice")
- after
his visit, Debby also went to Bertha Duncan's place, where she noticed
that they were wearing similarly expensive mink coats - uniting them as victims of a spreading disease: ("I've
been thinking about you and me - How much alike we are. The mink-coated
girls....We're sisters under the mink"). They were both symbolic
badges of ugly corruption and signified the 'good-life' that they had
both bought with dirty money. The scarred femme fatale cold-bloodedly
murdered Bertha with three gun shots, as she was phoning Lagana
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then after returning to the penthouse, Debby also vengefully splashed
Vince's face with hot coffee to scald it ("It'll
burn for a long time, Vince") and taunted him with her own scarred
face: "Look at it. It isn't pretty, is it?" She then admitted: "Bertha
Duncan is dead. No more insurance for you and Lagana. The lid's off
the garbage can, and I did it."
- as she walked
away, he fatally shot her twice in the back. Dave burst in, arrested
Stone and took him into custody - for her attempted murder, and learned
that Debby had admitted to killing Bertha. Bannion suggested that the
police now had all the evidence they needed to jail the entire corrupt
Syndicate, including Laguna, Wilks and Commissioner Higgins. Debby
had avenged Bannion's wife's death and tried to change and adopt a
decent life, but lost her own life (like Bannion's martyred wife) in
bringing the gangsters to justice.
- during her
moving death scene, the sympathetic Sgt. Bannion cradled Debby's head
with her mink coat. Although she was attended by a doctor, she realized
that she was dying, as he knelt at her side; she pulled up her mink
coat to hide the disfigured, hideous left side of her face in its pillow
- he regarded her from her 'good side'. She longingly looked to Bannion
for assurance and approval, and commiserated with him: ("Dave, I'm gonna die...I don't want to die").
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The Tragic Death of Debby Marsh
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- in response to her curiosity
about his wife ("What
was she like?"), Bannion eulogized Katie with an embellished description,
speaking of her quick temper and loving nature, their close marital
relationship, and how they had led a loving life together - often sampling
each other's drinks, or plates of food. As she died, Debby peacefully
referred to Bannion's murdered wife: "I like her. I like her alot," although
Bannion continued to lovingly describe his wife and didn't realize
that Debby had expired. He smiled as he idealistically remembered more
about his wife, his "princess" daughter, and their blissful
family life: "Sometimes when I came home
from work, she'd have the baby dressed up like a, oh, like a little
princess. One of the most important parts of the day was when I came
in and saw her looking like something that just stepped down off a
birthday cake. I guess, I guess it's that way with most families."
- the film ended with Bannion's return to his duties in
his homicide department job after indictments were brought against
Lagana and his corrupt Syndicate.
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Crime Boss Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby)

Lagana's Henchman Vince Stone (Lee Marvin)

Sgt. Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford)
Bannion's Wife Katie (Jocelyn Brando): "Be
back in a minute" Before Deadly Car-Bombing

At the Retreat Bar, Debby Took Notice of Sgt. Bannion



Debby Marsh Speaking with Sgt. Bannion in His Hotel Room

Vengeful Vince Angrily Manhandling Debby Before Disfiguring
Her

Debby With a Scarred Face Meeting with Bannion


Bannion Questioning Mrs. Duncan Again - His Temptation to Strangle Her

Debby and Mrs. Duncan - The "Mink-Coated Girls"


Debby's Cold-Blooded Murder of Mrs. Duncan


Debby's Retaliation Against Vince

Vince Shooting Debby in the Back Twice

Debby to Bannion: "I killed Mrs. Duncan"

Indictments Announced
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