The Big Combo

Couldn't help but notice the very similar beginning to Pulp Fiction. Tarintino shamelessly takes from other movies all the time. The boxing match, the girl being looked after by other gangsters for the boss, the girl overdose; ring a bell? Anyway, looks great and has a fantastic script. Ahead of its time in many respects. Its kind of grittier than most other genre entries of the time, but also has all the ingredients of a classic film noire.

Allied Artists which was Monogram Studios and mostly noted for the Bowery Boys gave us The Big Combo and they put together a stylish cast for this noir thriller. The cast is so good they cover up a lot of holes in the story.

The antagonists in this film are honest police lieutenant Cornel Wilde against ruthless syndicate chief Richard Conte. Wilde is doggedly determined to get Conte who's an article as slick as they come. His persistence reminds me a lot of Columbo without the humor.

Conte took over from a former syndicate chief who took a Johnny Torrio like 'retirement' to Sicily. Or what exactly is the real story there and who's this mysterious Alicia that throws a scare into the normally unflappable Conte?

Wilde also has a personal interest in another way as he's kind of crushing out on Jean Wallace who's Conte's main squeeze. There's a club stripper played by Carolyn Jones who's sweet on Wilde and pays for it with her life.

The Big Combo has made the list for cinema of gay interest because of the roles of Earl Holliman and Lee Van Cleef as a pair of gay trigger men who work for Conte. It's something that during the Fifties only a small studio like Allied Artists would have on screen. Today their relationship is rather obvious.

The parts are much greater than the whole and basically what Conte has done is pull a syndicate coup d'etat. But personally as the story unfolds he did a rather sloppy job in covering it up.

Rounding out the cast is syndicate banker Brian Donlevy and Wilde's police superior Robert Middleton. It's a nice noir thriller, but it should have had a much tighter story.

The Big Combo may be the only film noir ever plugged on the I Love Lucy show (Cornel Wilde guest-starred in the episode which aired April 18, 1955). Coming late in the noir cycle and directed by Joseph Lewis, it seized a position as one of its most innovative and stylish titles. And, with the wizardly John Alton behind the camera, it kicks film noir's distinctive look up into another, rarefied dimension (Alton must have been emulating the Dutch Masters – spare traceries of light limn almost abstract patterns on the screen's primordial blackness).

The story, too, stays a primal one of obsession, lust and revenge. Ninety-six-fifty-a-week cop Wilde lives in a cheap flat across from a burlesque house, one of whose headliners (Helene Stanton) he occasionally `sees.' But his only passion is for nailing suave but savage crime boss Richard Conte. Iin a performance brimming with cool menace, Conte is fond of saying `First is first and second is nobody.' Wilde also harbors half-admitted fantasies of riding to the rescue of Conte's remote and unwilling mistress (Jean Wallace, Wilde's off-screen wife). Conte's so possessive that he assigns an intimate twosome of torpedoes (Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman) as her full-time bodyguards (since they're gay, he trusts them to serve as eunuchs). But when they fail to prevent her overdosing on pills, she falls into Wilde's hands at hospital and starts to babble about a woman called Alicia.

Another wild card is Conte's lieutenant Brian Donleavy, over the hill and hard of hearing, who chafes at playing second fiddle; he saw himself as heir to the organization when unseen capo Grazzi `retired' to Sicily. His grudge against his boss makes him reckless, placing the whole `combination,' or combo, in jeopardy. Wilde, meantime, has tracked down elusive Alicia, Conte's supposedly murdered wife (Helen Walker, the duplicitous psychiatrist in Nightmare Alley, in her last screen appearance); only she knows where the bodies are buried and can write her husband's death warrant....

The Big Combo counts as one of the more sadistic instalments in the cycle, but the mayhem and executions are played as big set-pieces, as flourishes; Lewis draws on Alton's full fetch of tricks (and in one memorable instance, on the sound editor's) to highlight but at the same time soften their nastiness. There's a streak of sadism in the casting, too: Both Wallace's attempted suicide and Walker's dissipation bring to mind the actresses' private troubles. Innovative and striking, The Big Combo comes as close as any film in the noir cycle to being an art-house triumph; it consolidates Lewis' reputation as an erratic director who was nonetheless capable – here, and with his Gun Crazy – of pulling off something unexpected yet extraordinary.

Police Lieutenant Leonard Diamond is a driven man; he has seen the Organisation grow in strength daily with Mr Brown at its head. He has seen innocents being sucked into crime by the syndicate and he has had enough. With his expenses spiralling out of control, he is put under pressure to close his investigation but his anger at Brown and his love for his girl, Susan, keeps him going. A chance discovery of a mysterious woman called Alicia starts a trail of information that offers Diamond the chance to cut off the head and kill the snake if, that is, he can stay alive long enough to do it.

Although it has been many years since I first saw this film it has stayed with me ever since, a classic crime thriller with elements of noir and some very memorable moments. The basic plot is about a crime syndicate and the cop who is trying to bring it down and this is very well done throughout. The plot is a bit of a mystery in this regard as Diamond tries to build a puzzle with most of the pieces missing but the plot is only a part of this film working as well as it does. One of the main factors making it so good is the consistently tough tone of the material that can be seen in many ways. It has all the usual stuff in the tough characters spouting quotable dialogue with the rat-a-tat-tat rhythm of a tommy gun but also has many tough scenes of brutality, my favourite being the unforgettable execution that takes place in total silence – the perfect conclusion to a scene that had been built up with such tension.

The film adds to this with elements more suited to noir than gangster movies. The "hero" is a deeply flawed man driven more by hate than righteousness, unable to get Brown's girl he turns to a low rent show girl (although it is clear that she is a prostitute) meanwhile we have corruption within the authorities hinted at – it is all nicely twisted, not quite a fully blown noir but it takes elements and blends them well to produce a superb mix. The cast match this with some great performances. Conte gets the headlines because he gets the cool character and the toughest dialogue but for me it is Wilde that makes the film his own with a convincing portrayal of a man who is driven by hate as much as love until, finding neither, he uses a "lesser" woman to satisfy his lust – only for it to sink him deeper into apparent self-loathing. He is a bit wild-eyed at times but generally he gets it spot on with a complex performance that says as much with his expressions as he does with his dialogue. Donlevy is good in a small role and the female characters are well done (for different reasons) by Wallace and Stanton. Lee Van Cleef was a surprise find in a minor role but really the film belongs to Wilde and Conte who really go to town with the chance.

Overall this is not a normal crime syndicate thriller as the title suggests, but nor is it a traditional noir. Instead it is a fine blend of the two with the best elements of each working to produce a classic crime thriller with atmospheric direction, tough dialogue, brutally memorable scenes and great performances. Complex characters and a morally ambiguous hero only helps the film's impact making this one well worth hunting down (can you believe it has only had a few hundred votes on this site? I despair.)

A very good gangster flick and evocative film-noir directed by Joseph H. Lewis. A zealous cop(Cornel Wilde) seeks the aid of a gangster's(Richard Conte) ex-girlfriend(Jean Wallace)in bringing down a crime syndicate. Conte's character is relentless as he rules his corrupt world with murder, gunplay and torture. Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman are his minions and Brian Donlevy is a handicapped mentor of sorts. Supporting cast features Helen Walker and Robert Middleton. Terrific lighting and photography make this an exceptional crime drama where shades of gray makes THE BIG COMBO a notch above the ordinary. Note:off-screen Wilde and Wallace are Mr. & Mrs.