Most Helpful Customer Reviews
|
|
19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Deep in the Dark 1950s, March 2, 2001
For anyone like myself who has a fondness for the darker 1950s productions like Don Siegel's Invasion of the Body Snatchers or Alexander Mackendrick's Sweet Smell of Success or Elia Kazan's A Face in the Crowd, this movie--which might well have been called Faust in Bel Air--is an absolute must. Robert Aldrich was a perfect director for this kind of material, although The Big Knife--most of whose action takes place on a single set--is less kinetic than his earlier Kiss Me Deadly. Two great movies, Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard and George Cukor's A Star Is Born, had already wickedly dissected the less glamorous side of life in the movie industry, but The Big Knife not only presents a far gloomier view of Hollywood, but makes the backstage intrigues of the motion picture capital into a metaphor for the rampant political paranoia of Cold War era America. The movie is based on a 1949 play by Clifford Odets--who had himself named names to HUAC in order to continue working in the movies--about an actor being blackmailed by a Mephistophelean producer, but when Aldrich and James Poe transferred the drama into the context of the middle 1950s, no halfway knowledgeable viewer could have missed the analogy to the blacklist--particularly since the movie depicts the producer, brilliantly played by Rod Steiger, as a vicious reactionary in the mold of L.B. Mayer who worships General Douglas MacArthur. In addition, The Big Knife may also be seen as a reply to Kazan's On the Waterfront, which glorified an informer--and tacitly rationalized the director's own collaboration with HUAC--by showing its hero choosing to commit suicide rather than capitulate to the evil Steiger. As the other reviews note, the performances are all remarkable, but I was especially impressed by Shelley Winters as a would-be starlet. She only has one extended scene, but that alone is more than worth the price of the video, which is ridiculously low-priced.
|
|
|
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Red Neon Lights and Drunken Blackbirds, February 22, 2001
The corn is as high as a movie star's eye in the yammer-yammer-yammer of Clifford Odets's Hollywood play THE BIG KNIFE, and Robert Aldrich's bristling film version can't do much to open up the talkfest. But there's some fascinating stuff here. For starters, the model for Jack Palance's cornered movie star is obviously John Garfield, but Odets seems to use the character as a mouthpiece for why he himself had failed to live up to his spectacular beginnings on Broadway. The country of those who have sold out is familiar territory to Odets, and scattered in lots of very purple prose lie nuggets of sharply-observed writing. The players know the terrain, too, and they tear into their roles with gusto. Palance, Ida Lupino, and Miss Shelley Winters (what's with her billing here?) are all marvelous, and Rod Steiger is jawdroppingly good. This is the 50's, remember, when George Stevens (held up here as a model of "meaningful" filmmaking) gave us the ultra-waspy Millie Perkins as Anne Frank, which makes Steiger's Jewish inflections and rhythms in an exceedingly unsympathetic role a risky, but very rewarding, choice. (Hollywood had generally taken the guts and the ethnicity out of Odets, as per the very denatured film of GOLDEN BOY.) When Steiger gets into gear, you can't take your eyes off him. Special kudoes, too, to Jean Hagen. Those who only remember her in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN are in for a shock. Playing a drunken, masochistic adulteress, she manages to be simultaneously childlike, sexy, pathetic and chilling. Good support from dependables like Ilka Chase, Wesley Addy, and Wendell Corey, too. Really worth a look.
|
|
|
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not a Very Cinematic Adaptation. Histrionic but Powerful Performances., October 3, 2005
"The Big Knife" is based on the Clifford Odets play of the same name, adapted for the screen by James Poe and directed by Robert Aldrich. The film is not very cinematic. It is essentially a play that has been filmed. It takes place almost exclusively on one set -a Bel Air living room, the dialogue is mannered, and the performances are often histrionic. This is Clifford Odets, and it's melodrama. The dialogue tends to purple but is certainly intriguing. It's not a natural adaptation of Odets, like 1952's "Clash By Night", which was transformed into a real work of cinema by director Fritz Lang. The actors sometimes deliver Odets' heavy dialogue naturally and casually; other times they go over the top. Moments of high drama are punctuated by drum rolls. Sometimes it seems that director Robert Aldrich should have interpreted the play more cinematically or more realistically for the silver screen, but I suppose that is a matter of taste. "The Big Knife" succeeds on the strength of its performances, which are almost universally excellent.
"Charlie Castle is a man who sold out his dreams, but he can't forget them." Charlie (Jack Palance) is a movie star who made it big under contract to Hoff Federated studios, owned by unscrupulous megalomaniac Stanley Hoff (Rod Steiger). Charlie's wife Marion (Ida Lupino) has threatened to leave him should he renew his contract with Hoff. She can't stand the way that inane movies and virtual imprisonment have turned her once-idealistic husband into a spiritless toady. But Charlie isn't free to do as he pleases, because Hoff holds incriminating information over him. Charlie was in a drunken car accident, for which a friend and studio employee took the blame. And the only other witness to the accident, aspiring young actress Dixie Evans (Shelley Winters), has developed the habit of shooting her mouth off about it.
Most of "The Big Knife" is conversation, so we get to know these characters well. Jack Palance gives a powerhouse performance and is usually able to make the overwrought dialogue believable. Ida Lupino is striking as his wife as well. The tyrannical Stanley Hoff is forceful but over-the-top. He's so thoroughly evil and grand in his speech that he isn't very credible. He's played as if he were on stage, which I don't think was wise. That doesn't go unnoticed by the writers or characters, though. Charlie asks Stanley point blank if he's ever been told that "the embroidery of your speech was completely out of proportion to anything you had to say!?" That line made me laugh. Once you get past the histrionics, "The Big Knife" is a well-articulated, if theatrical, story of an idealist -Charlie, a man who sold out and never looked back -Hoff's assistant Smiley Coy, played perfectly by Wendell Corey, and a person who never met an ideal -Stanley Hoff. We get a fun, cynical take on the players of Hollywood's golden era as well.
The DVD (MGM 2002): This print of the film has not been restored. Most of the flaws are minor scratches, but the picture flickers briefly and shows a big black spot about 1 hour and 23 minutes into the film. The only bonus feature is a theatrical trailer (2 ½ minutes). Subtitles are available in English, French, and Spanish.
|
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
DVD ~ Ida Lupino
DVD ~ Walter Pidgeon
DVD ~ Dan Duryea
DVD ~ Joan Crawford
DVD ~ Edward G. Robinson
Visit our huge selection of magazine subscriptions often to see the latest special offers and bonuses. Check out magazines like
The New Yorker,
Wired, and
Vanity Fair. 
