Glen Ford has to be one of the most underrated actors of all time. The Big Heat is only the fourth of his film's I've seen (after Glilda and the original 3:10 To Yuma and Superman) but I'll be looking into more shortly. He wasn't a flashy actor by any means but his rock solid performances were always reliable. The Big Heat is another in a long line of old noirs I've been watching and while it took a little while to hit it's stride, when it did, it did so in a major way. Ford plays a hard nosed police detective who get's mixed up in a suicide and sub-sequentially murder scheme involving the city's mob boss (who happens to have the police commissioner in his pocket) and his right hand man (Lee Marvin). It's a pretty brutal film at times and director Fritz Lang (M, Metropolis) shows as much as film standards would allow at the time. While the supporting performances are all very good (and Marvin is excellent as a jealous and unwavering tough guy in one of his earliest films) it's Ford who holds the film together. The Big Heat isn't a perfect film but it sure does have a lot going for it.
Rating: 4.5
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