Il terrore di Chicago

The Big Shot was completed just as the USA was getting into World War II and it would be many years before Humphrey Bogart once again played a gangster role. He ended his career as Warner Brothers gangster however with a good role that more than faintly resembled his High Sierra and George Raft's part in Each Dawn I Die.

The story of The Big Shot is told in flashback as Bogart lies in a prison hospital. As he relates it, Bogey's a three time loser who if he gets another conviction it's permanent accommodations for him at the state's expense. Like Roy Earle in High Sierra, it's really too late for him to go straight.

But what a surprise he gets when he finds his former girl friend, Irene Manning, now married to big shot criminal attorney and criminal mastermind Stanley Ridges. When they start taking up where they left off, it's the beginning of the end for Bogey.

Like Roy Earle and Hood Stacey in Each Dawn I Die, there is an air of doom about Bogey's Duke Berne in The Big Shot. No matter what he does it will end bad for him as it does for those other characters. But the audience gets quite a ride. Best bit of action is that police chase with Bogart and Manning being pursued by upstate cops.

Best supporting performance in the film is that of Chick Chandler who plays another convict Dancer with whom Bogey makes a prison break. Chandler did work in vaudeville and was a song and dance man and got to use those skills in the role. Also Stanley Ridges is one mean and nasty villain.

This was the time that Bogart was between classics The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. Though The Big Shot is not up there with those two, it's a lot better than other stuff he was doing at the time like All Through the Night and Across the Pacific. This is a good film for a Bogart fan to introduce someone else to the charisma and persona of Humphrey Bogart without using a classic.

A very exciting fast paced gangster saga, It's interesting seeing Bogart reverting back to his 30's style tough guy persona one more time immediately after his acclaim as Sam Spade in "The Maltese Falcon" & just before his next triumph as Rick Blaine in "Casablanca". This was a transitional period in his career when his image was being redefined from gangster to anti hero. This movie was released at the wrong time, it was seen either too late or too early. Had it been made & seen in the 1930's or had it been withheld & shown in the postwar years along side of "White Heat" it might've went over like gangbusters. But not in 1942 during World War II? We had much more pressing concerns & worries with the Japanese & the Germans. This movie is every bit as good as "High Sierra" if not better, the car chase scene down the slippery slope is exciting & well done. This film literally puts the pedal to the metal & never let's up once. The story moves at lightening speed & will blast you right out of your seat. The Big Shot marked the last time Humphrey Bogart would appear as a gangster, he would not play a gangster for another 13 years until he appeared in a television production revival of "The Petrified Forest" recreating his famous Duke Mantee character. Bogart returned to the movies bringing Duke Mantee with him as escaped convict Glenn Griffin in the William Wyler directed suspense thriller The Desperate Hours in 1955. The Big Shot is essential viewing for fans of old gangster movies & for Bogart fans as well, I like both. So get your tommy guns & tear gas out & enjoy this shoot em up farewell send off to an exciting genre!

HUMPHREY BOGART once admitted that he had to spend years at Warner Bros. dodging bullets and writhing around on the floor as a bullet-ridden gangster type, before being taken seriously in other roles.

THE BIG SHOT is a prime example. It came at a stage in his career where he was on the verge of becoming one of the biggest stars ever, with CASABALANA giving him the iconic role of Rick and taking him away from gangster roles for awhile. But until then, he was still a full-fledged gangster star.

Basically, it's a grade-B yarn with IRENE MANNING (who starred in "The Desert Song" opposite Dennis Morgan a year later), as his romantic interest in a cast that includes SUSAN PETERS, STANLEY RIDGES, MINOR WATSON and HOWARD DA SILVA.

Bogart is an ex-inmate, a three-time loser trying to go straight and we see his story in flashback as he lies on a hospital bed. Lured back into a life of crime when he can't find a job, he joins Da Silva's gang and has to deal with romantic complications involving ex-girlfriend Manning, married to crime boss Stanley Ridges. He gets accused of being one of the armored car bandits and has to figure a way to get himself clear of a frame-up. Ridges frames him while posing as his lawyer and Bogart gets sent to prison for a life term.

The prison break scene is the highlight of the drama and rescues the film from a slow pace that only steams up toward the conclusion. Bogart has a moral problem. A good guy (RICHARD TRAVIS) who tried to prevent Bogie and friend from making a jail break, gets accused of being mixed up in the escape. When a prison guard dies during the attempt, Travis has to take the blame.

The plot takes a turn when Bogart decides he can't let Travis, an innocent man, take the rap.

Summing up: Worthwhile for Bogie fans, but we've all seen this kind of crime drama before.

The Big Shot is a decent crime picture, reminiscent in theme to the previous year's High Sierra, which also featured Humphrey Bogart. Director Lewis Seiler was no Raoul Walsh but handles the familiar plot about the doomed criminal nicely, giving it shadings of atmosphere, urban and rural. The movie is one of the last flowerings of the second major wave of gangster pictures, of which it is a late example. Bogart is excellent, yet one can sense the genre running out of steam despite his performance and the nice pace of the film. There were more pressing issues at hand by the time the movie was made, such as a world war with Germany and Japan, as overall the activity of the criminals in the movie seem small potatoes compared to what was going on elsewhere, in Europe and in the Pacific.

"The Big Shot" is a 1942 film starring Humphrey Bogart and Irene Manning. Bogie is a career criminal, Joseph Berne, who is sent to prison for life for something he didn't do - set up by his own attorney (Stanley Ridges), who finds out that Joe is involved with his wife (Manning). Berne's fake alibi is provided by a young salesman, George Anderson, who needed money and instead gets a year for perjury. It's George's predicament later on that gives Joe a crisis of conscience.

After years of toil at Warner Brothers, Bogart is now a star, and his image as a gangster is softening and would morph with Casablanca into an anti-hero. He does a good job in this film - his story is told in flashback from the prison hospital. The script is problematic. One glaring offense is that the police locate a criminal in a cabin. When they get there, they don't surround it, and their prey, not even aware the police are there, go out the back and drive away. Most viewers are aware that the cops surround an edifice. Not here. The movie is not particularly well directed by Lewis Seiler. There is, however, an exciting car chase.

Of interest here is George's girlfriend, the beautiful and doomed Susan Peters, who less than three years later would be paralyzed in a hunting accident. She was signed by MGM after this film. 1942 was a banner year for her, as she was nominated for a supporting Best Actress Oscar for "Random Harvest." She died in 1952. One of Hollywood's saddest stories.