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The Big Heat
Directed by
Fritz Lang
Passed
1953
89m
Crime
,
Thriller
,
and more
7.9
94%
90%
Add to Watchlist
Tough cop Dave Bannion takes on a politically powerful crime syndicate.
More
Where to Watch The Big Heat
Amazon Video
Rent $3.59
Buy $12.99
Apple TV
Rent $3.99
Buy $12.99
Fandango At Home
Rent $3.99
Buy $13.99
+2 more
Cast of The Big Heat
Glenn Ford
Det. Sgt. Dave Bannion
Gloria Grahame
Debby Marsh
Lee Marvin
Vince Stone
Jeanette Nolan
Bertha Duncan
Alexander Scourby
Mike Lagana
Jocelyn Brando
Katie Bannion
Peter Whitney
Tierney
Willis Bouchey
Lt. Ted Wilks
Robert Burton
Det. Gus Burke
Adam Williams
Larry Gordon
Carolyn Jones
Doris
Howard Wendell
Police Commissioner Higgins
Chris Alcaide
George Rose
Michael Granger
Hugo
Dorothy Green
Lucy Chapman
Ric Roman
Baldy
Dan Seymour
Mr. Atkins
Edith Evanson
Selma Parker
Harry Lauter
Hank O'Connell (uncredited)
Michael Ross
Segal (uncredited)
Phil Arnold
Retreat Waiter (uncredited)
Sidney Clute
Retreat Bartender (uncredited)
Michael Jeffers
Retreat Patron (uncredited)
Linda Bennett
Joyce Bannion (uncredited)
Charles Cane
Police Guard Outside Lagana Home (uncredited)
Byron Kane
Police Surgeon (uncredited)
John Close
Policeman (uncredited)
Phil Chambers
Hettrick (uncredited)
John Crawford
Al - Bannion's Brother-in-Law (uncredited)
John Doucette
Mark Reiner (uncredited)
Al Eben
Harry Shoenstein (uncredited)
Douglas Evans
Councilman Gillen (uncredited)
Fritz Ford
Sailor (uncredited)
Donald Kerr
Cabby (uncredited)
Lyle Latell
Moving Man (uncredited)
John Merton
Man (uncredited)
Celia Lovsky
Lagana's Mother in Portrait (uncredited)
Ted Stanhope
Lagana's Butler (uncredited)
Herbert Lytton
Martin (uncredited)
Mike Mahoney
Dixon (uncredited)
Laura Mason
B-Girl (uncredited)
Paul Maxey
George Fuller (uncredited)
Joseph Mell
Medical Examiner (uncredited)
Patrick Miller
Intern (uncredited)
William Murphy
Reds (uncredited)
Ezelle Poule
Mrs Tucker (uncredited)
Norma Randall
Jill (uncredited)
Robert Stevenson
Bill Rutherford (uncredited)
William Vedder
Janitor (uncredited)
The Big Heat Ratings & Reviews
Varun
January 4, 2025
I was digging the movie 3/4ths of the way but the last portion fell flat to me. I liked that the movie was flushed with a sinister overbearing of corruption that the hero needs to wade through, it’s an uphill struggle and Detective Bannion’s steadfast and smug character is entertaining. Even though it’s understandable why his character changes later on, his broodiness gets a bit boring to watch. The ending is completely disappointing, it’s way too easily resolved, they don’t even show a scene with the main villain who also comes off as stupid for not protecting his biggest loose end. Their fates are just shown in one newspaper clipping. Would’ve been a great noir if the landing stuck, but it’s an alright movie.
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
That's the beauty of Lang's moral ambidexterity. He tells the story of a heroic cop, while using it to mask another story, so much darker, beneath.
New York Times
Bosley Crowther
Mr. Lang can direct a film. He has put his mind to it, in this instance, and he has brought forth a hot one with a sting.
Chicago Tribune
John Petrakis
In many ways, Fritz Lang's The Big Heat, scripted by former crime reporter Sydney Boehm, laid the groundwork not only for "Dirty Harry," but for the whole sub-genre of 'rogue cop' films that began to surface during the Vietnam era.
Variety
William Brogdon
Ford's portrayal of the homicide sergeant is honest and packs much wallop. Lang's direction builds taut suspense, throwing unexpected, and believable, thrills at the audience.
Chicago Reader
Don Druker
Brutal, atmospheric, and exciting -- highly recommended.
Newsweek
Newsweek Staff
Most of the film's characterizations are sensibly written and played, and there is a highly effective performance by Gloria Grahame as a gangster's moll who doesn't deserve the terrible things that happen to her.
Austin Chronicle
One of Fritz Lang's very best films.
Detroit Free Press
Helen Bower
It has the kind of socko that will lies behind a good many small items in the newspapers and behind the big stories that make the evil deeds of the Medicis amateurish and simple in comparison.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Mildred Martin
Ford has seldom been seen to better advantage than as Bannion... Miss Grahame adds another fine performance to those that already stand to her credit; while Scourby, Marvin and Adam Williams create genuinely terrifying portraits of beasts of prey.
Boston Globe
Marjory Adams
The action is fast, [and] the work of both Ford and Gloria Grahame... are of top excellence.
New York Daily News
Dorothy Masters
Although the studio has not gambled on slowing up the action by attempting anything profound in the way of character building, performances are so good and the settings so effective that everybody in the cast is unmistakably tagged for what he is.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Myles Standish
The melodrama is clipped and taut, well played by Ford, Miss Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby and others, and often erupts with shocking impact.
Los Angeles Times
Edwin Schallert
Outside of some highly specialized touches of brutality, the picture travels old familiar highways. Wherefor only the fact that Lang was involved in The Big Heat gives it more than the ordinary distinction of a crime melodrama.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com
Eleanor Wilson
It's a tightly packed melodrama filled with a variety of unsavory characters.
Washington Post
Richard L. Coe
That all these things exist one has only to read the newspapers to realize, but how much easier The Big Heat makes the country's wholesale criminality to believe.
Chicago Tribune
Mae Tinee
The film leans heavily on violence for effect, and especially in the last scenes, it is poorly plotted.
Harrison's Reports
P.S. Harrison
One of the best produced crime melodramas to have come out of Hollywood in some time. It is taut and exciting, and the direction and acting are so skillful that one is made to feel as if present at a real-life occurrence.
Hartford Courant
M. Oakley Christoph
[The Big Heat] has Gloria Grahame in so amazing a performance as a gun moll that if you miss going down to see her, boy, oh boy, you are cheating yourself.
The Nation
Manny Farber
The characters seem to be wrapped thinly around steaming amounts of vengeance, avarice, or cruelty, but Marvin and Ford make it a well-acted movie that offers interesting impressions of how a practical-minded American male operates in crises
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