Movie Monday: The Big Heat (1953)
If you are like me and enjoy a good drama film every now and then, The Big Heat is the movie for you! This black and white classic is real, raw, and gripping. It is no wonder critics and fans alike view it as a timeless piece of cinematic history! The Big Heat is held is such high regard that it even made it on the National Film Registry list of the Library of Congress in 2011.
These photos are not mine.
Before this film was made in 1953, gangster movies were always portrayed in a more Al Capone kind of light where it was the mob versus the police. But when The Big Heat made its debut, it changed the genre of mob movies forever. This was the first film to be created in Hollywood that featured the possibility of corruption within the police department.
The title “Big Heat” is or was lingo criminals often used to talk about police curtailing illegal endeavors. This clever movie title also seemed to be rather memorable for audiences and is a widely copied tactic even to this day. Films like Scarface use names that are found in mobs/criminal activities to identify the film more easily with the category in which it is aligned with.
These photos are not mine.
Originally, The Big Heat was a series written for the Saturday Evening Post! This continuous story was so popular that Columbia purchased the rights to the series even before they saw the ending. The only change they made to the overall story was to make the main character, played by Glenn Ford, a more relatable guy.
Like I mentioned earlier, The Big Heat is a film that is very real and raw. In the film, it shows a very hard to watch, but important to the story scene where domestic violence is shown in a brutal form. Despite this painful display of violence, it also acts as a key reminder of showing audiences what the corrupt side of the story truly looks like.
These photos are not mine.
Overall, the story arc of Glenn Ford’s character gave mob movie fans a different way to look at noir films. We can still see the same arc, one where the ordinary man beats the odds and defeats the bad guys, followed by many films today. It is no wonder this film changed cinema and a whole genre of movies, its influence still vibrates throughout Hollywood and the world.
Much Love,
Sarah
