Os Corruptos

This is a classic film noir, beautifully directed by Fritz Lang.. Fast paced non stop plot line & action... Glenn Ford is the good guy with some shades of gray/ Lee Marvin is the bad guy and boy is he bad ; roughs up 2 women/ Carolyn Jones at the bar, slams her hand/ and poor Gloria Grahame/ throws hot boiling coffee in her gorgeous face.. This is a very sadistic scene, and very memorable!!Gloria plays her part to the hilt.. one of her greatest screen moments...She made several film noire movies, In A Lonely Place/ Naked Alibi etc. won her Oscar for a serio comedy role in The Bad & The Beautiful/ sang "I Cant Say No" in Oklahoma.. and was almost crushed by an elephant in The Greatest Show On Earth.. she had a great career... and will always be my favorite 50's bombshell...this film is not to be missed/ Great support by Alex. Scourby, Jeanette Nolan and others.. not to be missed !

Glenn Ford is a police sergeant seeking retribution for the death of his wife in "The Big Heat," a 1953 film that also stars Gloria Graham and Lee Marvin. While investigating a police officer's alleged suicide, Ford's idyllic family life is ruptured when his lovely young wife is killed in a car bombing intended for him. Some have suggested the similar scene in "The Godfather" was inspired by "The Big Heat." It's certainly possible.

For 1953, the violence is uncompromising, particularly against the female character played by Gloria Graham when she crosses her boyfriend, Lee Marvin, in one of his early roles. Marvin is fantastic as a brute, and this characterization must have done a lot to raise his profile in films.

There are some outstanding performances, including that of Jeannette Nolan as the late officer's wife who knows plenty. Glenn Ford, a handsome, solid actor who seems forgotten now, underplays his role but the coldness and rage he feels is evident as he goes from happy family man to angry avenger.

Excellently directed by Fritz Lang, "The Big Heat" packs a wallop.

It's doubtful that even Dirty Harry in his most menacing moments could match the smouldering rage that Glenn Ford brings to the screen in this excellent 1953 Fritz Lang flick. From a modern POV there is nothing unfamiliar here, except maybe the dated hardboiled lingo. The maverick cop, the revenge theme, the underworld characters and heroines. It's just that whereas a modern director would make this into a predictable two hour yawn-fest with slow-motion car accidents and ten minute shootouts with shoulder-launched missiles, Lang's movie clocks in at under 90 minutes, and there isn't an ounce of fat on it. It's lean, fast-moving and engrossing. Not a single camera shot is wasted or unnecessary. The script crackles, the cast is uniformly excellent, and Ford and Lee Marvin in particular are unforgettably intense. Ford, just when he's about to go way over the top, reins himself in, adding to the aura of barely suppressed violence in his character.

The movie can also lurch from plot exposition to sudden, economical and unexpected explosions of violence which can still shock today and must have been extremely confronting fifty years ago. And from there it can become suddenly, unexpectedly sensitive and moving.

Nothing is wasted in this movie. Everything is nailed down just right. It's not that they don't make them like this any more; it's more that they've been making them like this ever since, and generally to lesser and lesser effect.

A strong 8 out of 10.

This punchy little noir moves along at brisk clip. Glenn Ford simmers the whole time like a boiling kettle about to blow . This man has no pleasures that are obvious except his Westinghouse wife and child. Lee Marvin barely maintains control for much of the film. He is a catalogue of evil and greedy excess. Gloria Grahame is marvelous, witty, beautiful, bitter beyond hope. There is no redemption to be had for most of the characters in this sordid little universe. Conspiracy theorists of the 21st century will look back at the kind of simple-minded corrupt worldview espoused by Lang in this and other films and lament its loss. In THE BIG HEAT, evil and rot have names and faces and with enough fortitude, and the willingness to lose everything, they can be conquered. At least for a day. We know today that the whole infrastructure of power is poisoned beyond repair. The fifties held out a modicum of hope. Brief, fleeting hope. This is a violent film. Others have commented that much of the horror is committed off screen. But you can easily imagine it. Lang doesn't pull many punches here. The treadmill of denouement speeds up rapidly in the last few sections of the film. After viewing a film like THE BIG HEAT, I often want to wander down some dark street and find a corner diner, something like the one portrayed in Hoppers's NIGHTHAWKS, and have a cup of java, listen to some Brubeck on the jukebox, and wait for someone to come in from the chilly street . But the diners in my neighbourhood are either in the middle of the block or close early because of street crime. So I stay home, have a cup of tea, and dream noirish thoughts half asleep on my couch. This is a fine entry into the film noir lexicon.

Effective film noir about a cop fighting the mob as well as his own corrupt superiors as he investigates a murder. Ford has perhaps the best role of his career as the good cop. His scenes with wife Brando are very nicely handled, adding poignancy to the tragedy that would befall the family. There are shades of Dirty Harry as Ford takes matters into his own hands. Marvin and Grahame are also good as a mobster and his moll, respectively. Lang, a master of this sort of film-making, keeps things moving at a snappy pace. Some of the violence is jarring but of course nothing graphic is shown, given the era the movie was made in. After an excellent start, the second half of the film becomes somewhat routine but it still packs a punch.