Detour (1945), Kiss of Death (1947), and The Big Heat (1953)

As dark as they come, these three films unabashedly embrace the elements that most epitomize the genre. With talent from the likes of cinematographer Charles Lang (The Big Heat), Edgar G Ulmer (Detour) - a B movie director who is regarded as one of the top auteurs of his day - and Metropolis director Fritz Lang, one is expertly transported into worlds of duality, corruption, and plundering fatalism.

While these films typify the genre, they are also unusual in that women are, in a large sense, calling the shots. In The Big Heat, women are not simply secondary characters. Rather, they are central to the plot. They help to instigate the plot, create the motivation for the protagonist, and in the end a woman helps to bring the story to its resolve. In Detour, Ann Savage’s sinister Vera may literally be in the passenger seat, but she is clearly in the figurative driver seat. And in Kiss of Death, Henry Hathaway has Coleen Gray narrate the film- setting up the plot and creating for the audience a more holistic picture of its lead character that has the audience rooting for him even before he decides to go straight.

-Olivia

Detour (1945)- 1 hr 8 mins

Filmed in less than a month, Edgar G. Ulmer’s B-film Detour is not only memorable. It’s hard to forget.

Nightclub pianist Al Roberts (Tom Neal) is out of job, without his girl, and on the run for a murder he didn’t commit. His world seems to be crashing down and the girl that he just offered a ride will make sure that it does.

Everything that’s “bad” about this film is, in fact, what makes the film work. It’s a B-movie with at best a B-minus cast. It also has the nastiest and over the top femme fatale that film noir has ever seen. Detour makes its way to A level status with its complete and dark embodiment of the “soul” of film noir.* No one who has seen it has easily forgotten it”

*https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-detour-1945

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Youtube (free, ok quality): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tap67KjjPu8
Tubi(free-no subscription required, good quality): https://tubitv.com/movies/112762/detour?utm_source=google-feed&tracking=google-feed
Purchase DVD: https://www.amazon.com/Detour-Criterion-Collection-Tom-Neal/dp/B07KZBRYNH/ref=pd_lpo_74_t_0/144-2668394-9800432?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B07KZBRYNH&pd_rd_r=10acb55a-f464-4b84-aad1-8232fbd6d972&pd_rd_w=XzAQc&pd_rd_wg=yZYO7&pf_rd_p=7b36d496-f366-4631-94d3-61b87b52511b&pf_rd_r=SPJNHPJY0B56DF30X96H&psc=1&refRID=SPJNHPJY0B56DF30X96H
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Kiss of Death (1947)- 1 hr 41 mins

Unable to find work, ex-convict and three-time loser Nick Bianco (Victor Mature) decides to take part in a jewel robbery. The police intervene and he is the only one caught. The police offer him a lighter sentence if he’s willing to divulge the identities of his accomplices, but he refuses. However, when he realizes the underworld that he has called home for so long is, in fact. a direct threat to him and his family, he decides to go straight. He teams up with the assistant district attorney (Brian Donlevy) and works with them to take down some of the underworld’s filthiest hoodlums. Going straight, though, is going to be harder than Nick suspected. When psychopathic killer Tommy Udo (Richard Widmark) discovers that Nick is trying to take him down, he won’t take this treatment lying down. He’ll do anything to get Nick back and his newly reconciled family is the prime target.

Kiss of Death is enticing from start to finish. Its crew virtually guarantees its success. It’s under the direction of veteran director Henry Hathaway (True Grit). It has a screenplay from legendary writing team Ben Hecht and Charles Lederer (His Girl Friday). But perhaps most (visually) apparent, it has fantastic cinematography that paints a documentary-like and chiaroscuro landscape of one of film noir’s favorite cities, New York.

The cast is also first-rate. Victor Mature gives one of his best performances, actualizing America’s weary post-war sentiments. Coleen Gray (Nightmare Alley) gives a heartfelt performance in her first credited and lead role, but it’s Widmark’s Tommy Udo that makes this film hard to forget. A model for all villains after him, it’s a tour de force performance to say the least!

Availability: Youtube (free) Dailymotion (free), Amazon video, Googleplay, DVD, and Blu-ray.

Youtube (free, ok quality): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgfsdfR4h0I
Dailymotion (free, good quality): https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2145ex
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The Big Heat (1953)- 1 hr 30 mins

When homicide detective Sgt. David Banion (Glenn Ford) is assigned to a case involving the suicide of a fellow officer, he initially thinks it’s just a routine investigation. Further investigation, however, suggests that there is much more to the incident. A world of deep-seated corruption awaits him and he’s not going to back down in his fight for justice, and ultimately, vengeance.

One of the best films and certainly the greatest film noir classic from “The Master of Darkness” director, Fritz Lang, The Big Heat is an ominous and enticing tale of doom and two-faced duality.

The mirrors and contrasts in The Big Heat are what make it so special. Banion’s serene and ideal domestic life is set directly against an underworld of violence and immorality. Those divisions grow far more vague, however, when the death of Banion’s wife (Jocelyn Brando) leads him to reject his “average man status” and become more and more like the men he’s seeking to destroy.* It seems that only his “mirror,” Debbie (Gloria Grahame), can put a stop to Banion’s fatal plunge. Both sides of the same coin, Banion and Debbie were completely and unequivocally content in their habitats- Banion as the perfect family man and cop with the perfect family life and job and Debbie as the comfortably spoiled girlfriend to the “perfect” gangster Vince Stone (Lee Marvin). When each of them steps out too far and questions that perfect status, they’re “divested of their illusion.”*

The Big Heat takes a stab at these illusions. It takes a hit at America. “It is about America today, the venality, vulgarity, and casual bloodletting that exist behind the ever-more flimsy facade of respectability and regard for ‘values’.The brutal simplicity of the movie yields up what seem to be eternal, intractable, uncomfortable truths,” making it a contemporary film even for current audiences.*

*Glenn Kenny’s essay in the boxset booklet of Indicator’s release of The Big Heat, 2017.

Availability: Crackle (free) Youtube(free), Amazon video, Googleplay, DVD, and Blu-ray.

Crackle (free with ads, good quality): https://www.crackle.com/watch/1017/2483277
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