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glitteryvTrigger/Content Warnings: One of the main characters has v. intense suicidal ideation. At one point, they self-harm and end up at a hospital. A secondary character pretends to have mental health issues in order to be safe from the villain's reach. Finally, one of the characters is Hard of Hearing and is made fun of abt this by the v. person who made that character lose their hearing.
This post will mention and discuss the main character who is suicidal as there's no way to work around it without making this post sound unnecessarily convoluted. Skipping this post if any of those things are triggers for y'all is A-OK.
The Big Combo (YouTube)
A 1955 movie that begins with Susan (Jean Wallace) running away from a boxing match. She gets caught by two thugs who work for Susan's boyfriend, a mobster called Mr. Brown (Richard Conte.) Rather than return to the match, she demands going to dinner elsewhere. While at a restaurant, she meets an old friend of hers. They start dancing. Susan faints cuz it turns out she'd taken a whole bunch of pills. She's rushed to the hospital.
Meanwhile, police Lt. Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde) has spent at least 6 months pouring a lot of time and money in trying to nab Mr. Brown without much success. After a terse interaction with Mr. Brown and his second-in-command at the hospital Susan is recovering at, Lt. Diamond latches onto something that Susan mumbled: Alicia. Feeling that this is THE big piece that he needed to take down Mr. Brown, Lt. Diamond is DETERMINED to unravel Mr. Brown's whole empire.
Now, watching this movie in 2024, there's plenty abt it that feels v. contemporary. Well, with the exception that no one curses and there's zero nudity. Like, if my first thought halfway thru the film is "wow, this is rough stuff!", then I can't even imagine watching the same movie back in 1955. Cuz so many things happened onscreen that made me go WHAAAA?
Frex, there's a scene in which Mr. Brown goes to Susan's apartment. They kinda argue for a few minutes. The scene ends with Mr. Brown kissing her body as he kneels until he's out of the frame while she's moaning and looking quite aroused. IDK what he's doing, but there are SEXUAL THINGS happening, IJS.
Anyways, this movie is super well cast. Wilde as Lt. Diamond projects a heavy cynicism that's at odds with his desire to do good. Even if everything is against him. Wallace's Susan is great at showing someone who is trapped in a relationship she feels she can't escape from unless she shuffles off her mortal coil. And then, there's Conte's Mr. Brown. HE'S SO SLEAZY AND SADISTIC. A great villain to hate cuz there's NOTHING good abt him. Like, he took over his boss' empire and turned his now ex-boss into his second in command. Who he keeps mocking from the v. beginning of the movie onward. It's not as if the second-in-command is a great person, but you can't help but 😬 at the way he's treated by everyone in the movie.
This is the grittiest noir I've watched. It did the most within the confines of the Production Code.
Do I have any criticisms?
This is gonna be a bit nit-picky, but there we are.
In one of the scenes, Mr. Brown tortures Lt. Diamond by using noise. I found it borderline distressing because it goes on for a while. Or, at least, that's how it felt to me. (Yes, this is less of an actual criticism and more of a regular complaint, LOL.)
Do I recommend it?
Yeppers. Well, that is you can sit thru the tough scenes and some of the darker themes that are shown.
So many of the characters are moving through life feeling hopeless, getting stuck in cycles of potential self-destruction (like Susan and, to an extent, Lt. Diamond too). Also, Mr. Brown's gleeful and shameless evil feels quite timely.
I feel it's quite accessible kinda like Gilda. That movie is a good entry point for noir because it has a fairly straightforward plot. Meanwhile, The Big Combo is quite familiar to anyone who has watched movies from the 1980s forward. Although there's nothing explicit, the way that the movie approaches some strong themes is less sugarcoated than movies from, say, 1945.
I'm giving it a 3.8 out of 5.
Because of some copyright misfiling, this movie became part of the Public Domain. So you can watch it in most free movie apps as well as YT.
Queerness level: High-ish. Mr. Brown has two main henchmen (Fante (played by Lee Van Cleef) and Mingo (Earl Holliman) who are unusually (for 1955) close. There are 2 scenes that have domestic vibes including one late in the movie in which Mr. Brown calls their home late at night. Mingo answers, talks to his boss, then (after hanging up), talks to Fante (who happens to be sleeping in the bed next to his). I…OK, good times I guess.
It's pretty clear that they're a package deal is all I'm saying.
This post will mention and discuss the main character who is suicidal as there's no way to work around it without making this post sound unnecessarily convoluted. Skipping this post if any of those things are triggers for y'all is A-OK.
The Big Combo (YouTube)
A 1955 movie that begins with Susan (Jean Wallace) running away from a boxing match. She gets caught by two thugs who work for Susan's boyfriend, a mobster called Mr. Brown (Richard Conte.) Rather than return to the match, she demands going to dinner elsewhere. While at a restaurant, she meets an old friend of hers. They start dancing. Susan faints cuz it turns out she'd taken a whole bunch of pills. She's rushed to the hospital.
Meanwhile, police Lt. Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde) has spent at least 6 months pouring a lot of time and money in trying to nab Mr. Brown without much success. After a terse interaction with Mr. Brown and his second-in-command at the hospital Susan is recovering at, Lt. Diamond latches onto something that Susan mumbled: Alicia. Feeling that this is THE big piece that he needed to take down Mr. Brown, Lt. Diamond is DETERMINED to unravel Mr. Brown's whole empire.
Now, watching this movie in 2024, there's plenty abt it that feels v. contemporary. Well, with the exception that no one curses and there's zero nudity. Like, if my first thought halfway thru the film is "wow, this is rough stuff!", then I can't even imagine watching the same movie back in 1955. Cuz so many things happened onscreen that made me go WHAAAA?
Frex, there's a scene in which Mr. Brown goes to Susan's apartment. They kinda argue for a few minutes. The scene ends with Mr. Brown kissing her body as he kneels until he's out of the frame while she's moaning and looking quite aroused. IDK what he's doing, but there are SEXUAL THINGS happening, IJS.
Anyways, this movie is super well cast. Wilde as Lt. Diamond projects a heavy cynicism that's at odds with his desire to do good. Even if everything is against him. Wallace's Susan is great at showing someone who is trapped in a relationship she feels she can't escape from unless she shuffles off her mortal coil. And then, there's Conte's Mr. Brown. HE'S SO SLEAZY AND SADISTIC. A great villain to hate cuz there's NOTHING good abt him. Like, he took over his boss' empire and turned his now ex-boss into his second in command. Who he keeps mocking from the v. beginning of the movie onward. It's not as if the second-in-command is a great person, but you can't help but 😬 at the way he's treated by everyone in the movie.
This is the grittiest noir I've watched. It did the most within the confines of the Production Code.
Do I have any criticisms?
This is gonna be a bit nit-picky, but there we are.
In one of the scenes, Mr. Brown tortures Lt. Diamond by using noise. I found it borderline distressing because it goes on for a while. Or, at least, that's how it felt to me. (Yes, this is less of an actual criticism and more of a regular complaint, LOL.)
Do I recommend it?
Yeppers. Well, that is you can sit thru the tough scenes and some of the darker themes that are shown.
So many of the characters are moving through life feeling hopeless, getting stuck in cycles of potential self-destruction (like Susan and, to an extent, Lt. Diamond too). Also, Mr. Brown's gleeful and shameless evil feels quite timely.
I feel it's quite accessible kinda like Gilda. That movie is a good entry point for noir because it has a fairly straightforward plot. Meanwhile, The Big Combo is quite familiar to anyone who has watched movies from the 1980s forward. Although there's nothing explicit, the way that the movie approaches some strong themes is less sugarcoated than movies from, say, 1945.
I'm giving it a 3.8 out of 5.
Because of some copyright misfiling, this movie became part of the Public Domain. So you can watch it in most free movie apps as well as YT.
Queerness level: High-ish. Mr. Brown has two main henchmen (Fante (played by Lee Van Cleef) and Mingo (Earl Holliman) who are unusually (for 1955) close. There are 2 scenes that have domestic vibes including one late in the movie in which Mr. Brown calls their home late at night. Mingo answers, talks to his boss, then (after hanging up), talks to Fante (who happens to be sleeping in the bed next to his). I…OK, good times I guess.
It's pretty clear that they're a package deal is all I'm saying.
