“The Big Heat,” September 10

Wednesday, September 10, 6 p.m.

The Last Picture House, 325 East Second Street, Davenport IA

A 2011 inclusion in the Library of Congress' National Film Registry, the organization proclaiming it "one of the great post-war noir films," director Fritz Lang's 1953 classic The Big Heat continues the “From Hitler to Hollywood” film series hosted by the German American Heritage Center, its September 10 screening at Davenport venue The Last Picture House treating audiences to a work that, the Registry added, "manages to be both stylized and brutally realistic."

William P. McGivern's serial in The Saturday Evening Post, published as a novel in 1953, was the basis for The Big Heat's screenplay, which was written by former crime reporter Sydney Boehm. In the film, Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is an upright cop on the trail of a vicious gang he suspects holds power over the police force. Bannion is tipped off after a colleague's suicide, and his fellow officers' suspicious silence leads him to believe that they are on the gangsters' payroll. When a bomb meant for him kills his wife Katie (Jocelyn Brando), instead, Bannion becomes a furious force of vengeance and justice, aided along the way by the gangster's spurned girlfriend Debby Marsh (Gloria Grahame). As Bannion and Debby fall further and further into the gangland's insidious and brutal trap, they must use any means necessary, including murder, to get to the truth.

Upon the movie's 1953 release, the New York Times and Variety both gave The Big Heat exceedingly positive reviews. Bosley Crowther of the Times described Glenn Ford "as its taut, relentless star" and praised Lang for bringing "forth a hot one with a sting." Variety characterized Lang's direction as "tense" and "forceful," while Roger Ebert later added the film to his personal canon of "Great Movies." According to film critic Grant Tracey, the film turns the role of the femme fatale on its head: "Whereas many noirs contain the tradition of the femme-fatale, the deadly spiderwoman who destroys her man and his family and career, The Big Heat inverts this narrative paradigm, making Ford the indirect agent of fatal destruction. All four women he meets – from clip joint singer Lucy Chapman to gun moll Debby – are destroyed." On the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, 95 percent of ritics' reviews are positive, with the Web site's consensus reading: "Presented with stark power by director Fritz Lang, The Big Heat is a delightfully grim noir that peers into the heart of darkness without blinking."

The Big Heat will be screened at Davenport's The Last Picture House on September 10, and guests are asked to check in at the German American Heritage Center table in the lobby. Admission is $15, guests will choose their seats upon arrival, and proceeds from ticket sales will go to Heritage Center programming, with $1 from every Twin Span draft beer purchase also going to the museum. For more information, call (563)322-8844 and visit GAHC.org.