When the two most interesting scenes involve a hearing aid pulled from Brian Donlevy's ear, I think a good assumption would be that The Big Combo lacks a little something. The plot is simplicity itself. An obsessive cop is determined to bring down a crime boss, come what may. As the cop collects witnesses, the crime boss' two goons turn them into corpses. Eventually, the cop prevails...and maybe even makes a friend of the crime boss' innocent, blond and zaftig girlfriend. In fact, however, I think the Big Combo lacks two big somethings.
First, the movie has a giant, dull center because the two leads, Cornel Wilde and Jean Wallace, are two of the most limited actors Hollywood ever gave star roles to. While Wilde might generously be called a limited actor, Wallace, with her little girl voice and intonations, simply isn't an actor at all. For my money, almost all the actors lack any inherent interest. The implied relationship between the two killers, amusingly played by Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holiman, might have been an inside joke in the Fifties, but it now seems simply an excuse for excessive analysis on Turner Classic Movies. Donlevy, in fact, saddened me. It was disconcerting to see this actor, who had earned major stature in Hollywood in his prime, reduced to playing a broken-down, aging, useless crime boss in a movie of this quickie, low- budget quality.
Second, the dialogue is as flat and stale as yesterday's fried egg. It doesn't power the plot. It doesn't make us sit up because of cleverness or pungency. It's as lifeless as the delivery most of the actors give it, especially Wilde and Wallace. Richard Conte never quite made the A list in Hollywood, but he was always a dynamic and forceful actor, and a good one, too. He's the most animated of any of the actors. His role as the ruthless and smooth Mr. Big, always referred to and addressed as Mr. Brown, gives him more latitude to be interesting than the other players. Yet the silly device of having everyone refer to him only as Mr. Brown brings Conte perilously close to being nothing more than a screenwriter's idea of iconic menace.
What's to like about the movie? Well, the plot is hardly original, yet the idea of a Mr. Big eventually brought down by an obsessed cop while people fall by the wayside is usually satisfying. Most impressively, John Alton, the cinematographer, pulled out all the tricks in his bag to give The Big Combo a great noir look. From dramatic spotlights pinning the bad guy against a wall to the flashes of silent machine guns, from Lee Van Cleef's face looking stark and scary to the opening shots of a woman pursued by two killers through dark shadows and blinding lights, The Big Combo is a pleasure to look at. But if all you can say about a noir is that the lighting was great, that might be faint praise.
First, the movie has a giant, dull center because the two leads, Cornel Wilde and Jean Wallace, are two of the most limited actors Hollywood ever gave star roles to. While Wilde might generously be called a limited actor, Wallace, with her little girl voice and intonations, simply isn't an actor at all. For my money, almost all the actors lack any inherent interest. The implied relationship between the two killers, amusingly played by Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holiman, might have been an inside joke in the Fifties, but it now seems simply an excuse for excessive analysis on Turner Classic Movies. Donlevy, in fact, saddened me. It was disconcerting to see this actor, who had earned major stature in Hollywood in his prime, reduced to playing a broken-down, aging, useless crime boss in a movie of this quickie, low- budget quality.
Second, the dialogue is as flat and stale as yesterday's fried egg. It doesn't power the plot. It doesn't make us sit up because of cleverness or pungency. It's as lifeless as the delivery most of the actors give it, especially Wilde and Wallace. Richard Conte never quite made the A list in Hollywood, but he was always a dynamic and forceful actor, and a good one, too. He's the most animated of any of the actors. His role as the ruthless and smooth Mr. Big, always referred to and addressed as Mr. Brown, gives him more latitude to be interesting than the other players. Yet the silly device of having everyone refer to him only as Mr. Brown brings Conte perilously close to being nothing more than a screenwriter's idea of iconic menace.
What's to like about the movie? Well, the plot is hardly original, yet the idea of a Mr. Big eventually brought down by an obsessed cop while people fall by the wayside is usually satisfying. Most impressively, John Alton, the cinematographer, pulled out all the tricks in his bag to give The Big Combo a great noir look. From dramatic spotlights pinning the bad guy against a wall to the flashes of silent machine guns, from Lee Van Cleef's face looking stark and scary to the opening shots of a woman pursued by two killers through dark shadows and blinding lights, The Big Combo is a pleasure to look at. But if all you can say about a noir is that the lighting was great, that might be faint praise.