Noir Stepping Closer To The Line


The Big Combo Is A Bracing 50's Slap




Getting goods on the "Organization" is mission for bitter cop Cornel Wilde, who's hobbled by love interest in moll Jean Wallace, she having begun as a good girl corrupted by Richard Conte's untouchable hood. Conte was a last minute substitution for Jack Palance, the latter dropped when he insisted that his wife be given a top female spot. There is violence bracketed by talk (lots) staged in dark spots like RKO once used for economy. Trade ads promised shock along lines of recent Dragnet and On The Waterfront, both hits, and positive reviews looked back further to Scarface and Public Enemy. Cornel Wilde's independent Theodora Productions teamed with producer Sidney Harmon and writer Phillip Yordan's Security Pictures to do The Big Combo, set for tee-off on 9/10/54 in color/widescreen (later down-sized to black-and-white), Allied Artists aboard as of 7/54 with commit to distribute. The latter's Steve Broidy was busy upgrading AA product from humbler Monogram origin, The Big Combo to open February, 1955 with two others of crime-thrilling category, Murder Is My Beat and Dial 116.






Combo got bumped a month on AA's decide to up its advertising budget and saturation-book the thriller for March '55. Cornel Wilde and wife/co-star Jean Wallace guested on NBC-TV's Colgate Comedy Hour and reenacted seven-minutes from The Big Combo to hypo its imminent release. That same month, Broidy hectored an exhibitor conference re over-reliance on blockbusters that left his smaller pics in the cold, warning them that if product like AA's dried up, they'd be at the mercy of big companies who'd then ratchet up terms. For guys like Broidy, it was non-stop war for playdates, his outfit obliged to crowbar The Big Combo and others of AA label into theatres.  Combo's director Joseph H. Lewis and cameraman John Alton would drive later interest among noir fanciers who might have embraced the pic tighter had decent prints been in circulation. You'd havethought it was a lost film for ugliness of DVD's, but these were rotted fruit of Combo's Public Domain status. Now there is, at long last, a Blu-Ray of excellent quality from Olive.

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