Sunday, March 04, 2018

TCM's Sunday Film Noir of the Week Returns on Sunday, March 4, at 10 a.m. ET with Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953)

 

Forty or so years later, after it became respectable to write doctoral dissertations on film noir, Turner Classic Movies commissioned by far the most stylish and evocative Big Heat poster of them all
 

By David in TN
Friday, March 2, 2018 at 10:31:00 AM EST
 

 

TCM's Sunday Film Noir of the Week returns on Sunday, March 4, at 10 a.m. ET with Fritz Lang's The Big Heat (1953).

 

From l-to-r: Lee Marvin, Gloria Grahame, and Glenn Ford: Note how Marvin's face is shrouded in darkness, while Graham's and Ford's are bathed in light
 

Glenn Ford stars as a police detective who goes vigilante, after his wife (Jocelyn Brando) is killed by a bomb meant for him. Ford's main target is mob boss (in these films every town has one) Alexander Scourby and his sadistic goon, Lee Marvin, in one of his best/worst bad guy roles.
 

 

Gloria Grahame is a good-hearted femme fatale. This is the film where Marvin throws hot coffee in her face.

 

The Italian poster
 

A theme is Ford's detective character takes on the mentality of the criminals he pursues.
 

This poster is so obscenely suggestive by 1953 standards that
I wonder if it hadn't been photoshopped, or if it was made
many years after the film's theatrical release, say, for the
the video market
 

The original paperback sold for 25 cents, and
worth every penny. Can today's paperbacks say
as much?
 

Spanish version
 

 

Sorry, David, for getting this up late.


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

jerry pdx
The consequence of blacking up the Oscar's, just too funny: http://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/oscars/frances-mcdormand%E2%80%99s-alleged-oscar-thief-arrested/ar-BBJTJ13

David In TN said...

Our host, Eddie Muller, in his intro called Glenn Ford's character "The Dirty Harry of the Eisenhower Years."

I picked up a well-worn copy of William P. McGivern's novel, The Big Heat, for $1.50 in a used book store a year or so ago. I'm going to read it right after I get through with the book I'm on at present. It was a 1987 edition.

On Amazon, paperback copies range from $5 to almost $50.

Anonymous said...

Nig caught stealing "Best actress Oscar".
An official at the Los Angeles Police Department told the Daily News that Terry Bryant was arrested for allegedly swiping Frances McDormand's trophy and taken into custody at 11:50 p.m. on Sunday.

"The incident did occur," Officer Rosario Herrera said. "The person who was arrested goes by the name Terry Bryant. He was arrested for grand theft, a felony."
GRA:Looking this up,I found the guy to look like a freak monster,that only Hollywood would permit to associate with backstage.He's a regular at celeb events,but his inner nigga couldn't resist stealing a white woman's Academy Award.The cops caught him.
-GR Anonymous

Anonymous said...

Not one black person on any of those covers or movies. Not a one.
I am so offended. NOT.

David In TN said...

TCM's Film Noir of the Week has slightly changed their format. They now have a showing at Midnight ET Saturday night and again at the old time of 10 am ET Sunday morning.

This week's noir is Stranger on the Third Floor (1940). This is considered the first Film Noir by many. Peter Lorre has a brief but memorable role.

On Saturday night, March 10, TCM shows two John Payne noir films, Kansas City Confidential (1952) at 8 pm ET and The Crooked Way (1949) at 10 pm ET. The aforementioned Stranger on the Third Floor runs at Midnight ET, repeating at 10 am ET Sunday.

Kansas City Confidential is a well-known noir with Payne's character framed for a holdup by a gang led by a crooked cop. The Crooked Way has a common trope of the time, a World War II veteran with amnesia stumbling around Los Angeles, a crook before his war service who doesn't know what he did.