Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Big Combo, The
Collapse
X
Collapse
-
Big Combo, The
Released by: Alpha Video
Released on: 10/26/2004
Director: Joseph Lewis
Cast: Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte, Brian Donlevy, Jean Wallace, Robert Middleton, Lee Van Cleef, Earl Holliman, Helen Walker
Year: 1955
Purchase From Amazon
The Movie:
Directed by Joseph Lewis (of Gun Crazy) with absolutely gorgeous black and white cinematography by John Alton (T-Men, Slightly Scarlet), this later entry crime-noir still manages to prove to be a disturbing and gripping thriller.
A police detective named Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde of Constantine And The Cross) is obsessed with bringing down a shifty mobster named Mr. Brown (Richard Conte of The Godfather Trilogy and Tony Arzenta). While at first it isn't immediately clear why he's so obsessed with putting Mr. Brown behind bars, it's soon revealed that it's related to his equally obsessive occupation with the gorgeous Susan Lowell (Jean Wallace, Corel Wilde's real life wife!), Mr. Brown's dame. Lowell is attracted to Brown not because he's a nice guy or because he treats her well - this is definintely not the case in their relationship - but because of his power.
When Diamond gets in trouble from his superior officers in the police department for going way over budget in his quest, Diamond decides to turn his case up a bit and he starts shaking down Brown's employees for information. He finds out that Brown may have been responsible for the death of his first wife and he hopes to use this information against him. Sadly for Diamon, Brown's two main thugs, Fante (Lee Van Cleef of The Good, The Bad And The Ugly) and Mingo (Earl Holliman of Gunfight At The OK Corral), take the witnesses and stoolies out of the picture before Diamond can get much out of them.
Susan attempts to take her own life when she can't take the pressure anymore, and though she survives, this in turn causes Brown to set his sights on Diamond. More worried about the bad guys getting ahold of his occaisonal lady friend, Rita (Helene Stanton), a woman of loose morals. Once Diamond is able to convince Susan to help him out a little bit, he decides to move forward full throttle and force Brown to a final confrontation.
While the plot is pretty typical double crossing cat and mouse stuff, the movie has a mean streak running through it that really brings this one up a few notches. Having an interesting cast as it does really helps things a lot but there's this sense of evil that permeates the whole movie, the good guys and the bad guys, that makes The Big Combo more than just a typical crime noir. There are all manner of sexual innuendos in the script, and a torture scene as well making this movie pretty strong stuff by the standards of the day.
The fact that all of this occurs in some of the moodiest looking sets one can imagine ensures that the movie has a creepy effect to it that again suggests something sinister below the surface. Shadows and light play a huge role in the look of the film, and the lighting makes the low budget sets on which the film was shot look far more intimidating than they would have been were they lit without the shadows and contrasts in mind.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Alpha's release of The Big Combo looks surprisingly good for a low budget public domain release. The contrast levels are dead on - the blacks, which play such a huge part in the look of the film, are stable and quite dark and the middle and lighter tones look properly balanced as well. Some of the darker scenes do exhibit some mild compression artifacts but they're not a constant and prove to be only a minor annoyance, if that. Print damage, while present, is limited to a few nicks and scratches here and there, nothing too severe.
The film is presented in a serviceable Dolby Digital Mono mix. There are no alternate language dubs or subtitles available of any kind. There are a few scenes that do allow some hiss to come through but overall, for a low budget movie fast approaching its fiftieth birthday, this mix sounds okay. Dialogue is problem free save for one or two slightly muffled lines, and the background music and sound effects are reasonably clear and free of any issues.
There are no extra features on this budget DVD.
The Final Word:
The Big Combo has a great cast of B actors and no shortage of inferred sadism and perversion. The photography brings the sets and shadows to life creating a tense mood and a great look. Alpha's DVD looks and sounds ok and is worth checking out in spite of the non-existent extra features, especially at the low selling price.
Posting comments is disabled.
Categories
Collapse
article_tags
Collapse
- album review (218)
- album reviews (274)
- arrow video (272)
- blu-ray (3225)
- blu-ray review (4162)
- comic books (1392)
- comic reviews (872)
- comics (988)
- dark horse comics (484)
- dvd and blu-ray reviews a-f (1969)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews G-M (1711)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews N-S (1757)
- DVD And Blu-ray Reviews T-Z (878)
- dvd review (2513)
- idw publishing (216)
- image comics (207)
- kino lorber (391)
- movie news (260)
- review (318)
- scream factory (279)
- severin films (300)
- shout! factory (537)
- twilight time (269)
- twilight time releasing (231)
- vinegar syndrome (497)
Latest Articles
Collapse
-
Released by: Kino Lorber
Released on: February 22nd, 2022.
Director: Gianfranco Parolini
Cast: Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance
Year: 1976
Purchase From Amazon
God’s Gun – Movie Review:
Directed by Gianfranco Parolini in 1976, quite late in the spaghetti western boom years, God's Gun (Diamante Lobo in Italy) introduces us to a bad, bad man named Sam Clayton (Jack Palance) who, along with his gang of equally bad, bad men, start wreaking...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 12:10 PM -
-
Released by: Kino Lorber
Released on: October 8th, 2019.
Director: Mario Bava
Cast: Christopher Lee, Reg Park, Leonora Ruffo, Gaia Germani
Year: 1968
Purchase From Amazon
Hercules In The Haunted World – Movie Review:
Directed by Mario Bava in 1961 and featuring a screenplay by Bava (and Sandro Continenza, Francesco Prosperi and Duccio Tessari), Hercules In The Haunted World (also known as Hercules At The Center Of The Earth and...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 12:08 PM -
-
Released by: Cinématographe
Released on: March 26th, 2024.
Director: Jack Nicholson
Cast: Jack Nicholson, Mary Steenburgen, Christopher Lloyd, John Belushi
Year: 1978
Purchase From Amazon
Goin’ South – Movie Review:
Made at the height of his career as an actor, 1978’s ‘Goin’ South’ sees Jack Nicholson once again in the director’s chair, seven years after his directorial debut, ‘Drive, He Said,’ failed to set the...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:29 AM -
-
Released by: Radiance Films
Released on: April 20th, 2024.
Director: Noburo Nakamura
Cast: Miyuki Kuwano, Mikijiro Hira
Year: 1964
Purchase From Amazon
The Shape Of Night – Movie Review:
Directed by Noburo Nakamura for Shochiko in 1964, ‘The Shape Of Night’ follows a young woman named Yoshie Nomoto (Miyuki Kuwano). In the opening scene, she’s working as a streetwalker on the outskirts of town and soon enough, she’s picked...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:26 AM -
-
Released by: Film Masters
Released on: April 23rd, 2024.
Director: Bert I. Gordon
Cast: Richard Carlson, Juli Reding, Lugene Sanders, Susan Gordon
Year: 1963
Purchase From Amazon
Tormented – Movie Review:
The late Bert I. Gordon’s 1963 horror film, ‘Tormented,’ is an effectively spooky ghost story made with an obviously low budget but no less effective for it.
The story revolves around a professional piano player...-
Channel: Movies
04-17-2024, 10:19 AM -
-
Released by: Grindhouse Releasing
Released on: March 12th, 2024.
Director: William Grefé
Cast: William Shatner, Jennifer Bishop, Ruth Roman, Harold Sakata
Year: 1974
Purchase From Amazon
Impulse – Movie Review:
Directed by the one and only William Grefé, 1974’s Impulse is one of those rare films that allows you to witness what it would be like if a really sweaty William Shatner got mad at a lady carrying balloons. Before that...-
Channel: Movies
04-15-2024, 01:20 PM -