The Big Combo (1955)

Director: Joseph H. Lewis

Cast: Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Brian Donlevy, Jean Wallace

Have I Seen it Before: Never.

Did I Like It: I worry I’m slowly running out of things to say about the noir genre, or at the very least I’m running out of things to say about the rank and file of the genre. Some of the dialogue is very much like the other examples, the plot is relatively cookie cutter, and I’m becoming increasingly of the opinion that at some point someone shot a few dozen feet of a squad car pulling into the covered garage of the Los Angeles Police Department and leading a clown car’s worth of local hoods into the station for questioning. I think I’ve seen it in at least three films now.

That’s not to say the experience is negative. If you are both inclined to and have the opportunity to watch this film*, you’re probably going to have a nominally good time. The film’s characters are a bit more on the eclectic side. Two button men (Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman) are far more obviously in love with each other than one might have thought would make it through in the 50s, and if you ever really wanted to see a scene heavily imply Richard Conte performing oral sex on a woman, then brother, are you in luck**. The real pleasures, though, are likely in the cinematography from John Alton. A—if occasionally frugal—symphony of playful shadows keeps one interested in the film when the trappings and restrictions of the genre blend into the background.

*Such opportunities should be plentiful, as the film tripped over itself into the public domain. Could you imagine a film released today that just “forgot” to register its copyright? It boggles the mind.

**Why that had to be more obliquely displayed, where two men in a healthy and committed—if murderous—relationship is completely beyond me, but that’s a topic for a different time.

Gun Crazy (1950)

Director: Joseph H. Lewis

Cast: Peggy Cummins, John Dall, Berry Kroeger, Morris Carnovsky

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: Here’s the problem with writing a review for a movie nearly a month after actually watching it. Unless it was overwhelmingly memorable, the whole thing might have disappeared from my memory, and only insists on becoming a viable review because it’s not like its going to suddenly leap off my to-do list.

The film hits all of the right notes for a noir. There’s a hapless protagonist (Dall), probably ultimately a bad egg, but he goes full blown villain the moment he drifts into the proximity of a woman (Cummins) who is either the anti-christ, or possibly just a sociopath who enjoys far more money than their mate is ever likely to come up with via honest means.

What’s the twist here? Well, take a look at that title again. There are lots of guns here. Too many guns? And maybe just a bit too much of a semi-sexual obsession with the items on the part of the two main characters. I’m not sure if any of this was intended to be a comedy, but your humble correspondent and the people around him just couldn’t help ourselves when it turned out these two murderers were capable of love, but only for their revolvers.

I might have found the film more memorable if those two main performances left more of an impression. It’s difficult to look at Dall as anything other than the murder enthusiast from Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), but that’s hardly his fault. Unfortunately, Cummins fails to display much of a personality in her role, so the frisson that can really ignite the watchability of film noire never quite comes to pass. There is no tension—and probably not a lot of believability—as Dall falls for her, and there is no tragedy when they come to their inevitable end.