THE BIG COMBO PROBABLY STANDS SECOND ONLY TO GUN CRAZY IN TERMS OF THE CULT RECOGNITION OF JOSEPH H. LEWIS AS AN EXEMPLAR OF THE ‘B’ MOVIE/FILM NOIR/UNDERWORLD CYCLE.
It is a prime slice of 1950s paranoia, a dark sadomasochistic thriller which is easily the most compulsive essay on the theme of the hunter wholly fascinated by, half in love with, and by the end unhappily identified with his quarry.
Cornel Wilde is a police lieutenant who has dedicated himself to busting the ‘Big Combo’ — a crime organisation which, quite in keeping with the general claustrophobia of the film, Lewis never bothers to identify beyond a handful of hoods. Its overlord is the anonymously omnipotent ‘Mr. Brown’ (Richard Conte), and the motive for the policeman’s vendetta is that the mistress Brown has kept for three years — willingly, the film suggests, out of a strong sexual attraction — was once his lover. In a way, The Big Combo draws out and intensifies the predicament of the detective hero in Lewis’ earlier Undercover Man. Its originality is that it transforms the staple genre conflict of love and duty into something psychologically more subversive and sexually charged; at the time, Lewis fought (and won) a battle with the censors over one scene in which oral sex between Brown and his mistress is clearly intimated.
The Big Combo is one of the most justly admired of Hollywood ‘accidents’ in which direction, script and photography (the splendid black and white visuals are by the incomparable John Alton) combine in a unique attack on audience sensibilities. — Richard Combs.