The Big Knife (1955)

Truly Dreadful Film

I'll tell you why so serious

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

Overly written, overly acted and without conviction, this movie is a sad version of an Odetts play. In todays world of fine actors, it is hard for the 50's acting technique to compete, but the writing in this screen play is so over the top, and without merit, that it is comedic in spots. Not comedic enough to bring a good laugh, but comedic enough to bring a yawn. Wendell Corey gives the most believable performance while Jack Palance lurches to and fro, grabbing any prop in sight to fulfill his drama coach's instructions to "use objects on the set", a common early Method trick. But no trick helps Palance when he is playing "serious". His later years reveal a very funny dude on screen and it is too bad he didn't discover that early on. Steiger and Winters play the same old characters that have served them well forever and ever, and ever... Ida Lupino is adequate but hardly outstanding in this mess. So all in all, it is a 50's movie. Enougn said.

Charles Castle (Jack Palance) is a successful top Hollywood actor. His wife Marion (Ida Lupino) is about to leave him. She is idealistic and wants him to stop making trash movies. He tries to do what she wants and refuses to renew his contract angering studio boss Stanley Shriner Hoff (Rod Steiger). Smiley Coy had covered up Castle's hit and run and Hoff uses the incident to blackmail him to sign a new 7 year contract. Charles struggles as his dark secret comes back to haunt him when hungry actress Dixie Evans (Shelley Winters) threatens to reveal it.It's Hollywood at its sleaziest. I just have a problem with Jack Palance as the 'Artist'. He is a stiff actor with a limited range and can't convince me otherwise. He's great at what he does but I can't buy him as the tortured artist. It just takes me out of the movie. Shelley Winters is terrific but otherwise the movie is filled with overacting.

Idealistic film star Jack Palance (as Charles "Charlie" Castle) doesn't want to sign a new contract with his studio. Instead, he'd like to patch up a failing marriage with Ida Lupino (as Marion). But tyrannical movie mogul Rod Steiger (as Stanley Shriner Hoff) won't take no for an answer. He reminds Mr. Palance about a scandalous incident covered-up by the studio, and demands the actor sign. Shady henchman Wendell Corey (as Smiley Coy) and Hollywood types hang around Palance's Bel Air estate while we wait for a decision... This was a 1949 Broadway play written by Clifford Odets and directed by Lee Strasberg for John Garfield. Unfortunately, Mr. Garfield died of a heart attack in 1952 at age 39, or he might have starred in this film. At one point, the main character is provided with a phony "heart attack" story... There is a hint of Garfield in Palance's manner; possibly, the director and/or star saw Garfield in the play, or Mr. Odets influenced the proceedings. Film director Robert Aldrich makes this a fine acting ensemble piece, and everyone does well in that regard. Most memorable of the lot is probably Mr. Steiger, who takes a bite out of ruthless studio bosses like Louis B. Mayer and Harry Cohn. Relying mostly on camera angles, close-ups and music cues; "The Big Knife" does not, however, reach full potential as cinematic art. ******** The Big Knife (8/55) Robert Aldrich ~ Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Rod Steiger, Wendell Corey

The Big Knife (1955)You always expect something edgy and a hair impolite with a Robert Aldrich film, from his over-the-top film noir cult classic "Detour" to the bizarre and gripping "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" It's almost as though his rich upbringing and rejection of a nice political life made him a fearless renegade. Give him credit. He cracked the Hollywood doldrums of the 1950s and early 60s like few other directors (Kubrick comes to mind as a big budget parallel). So you can get a lot out of "The Big Knife" in understanding Aldrich. And you can really enjoy a superb set of performances, mainly by Ida Lupino as the leading man's wife, and by Everett Sloan in an aging version of his usual submissive chumminess. Rod Steiger is there, powerful and a bit overacted, if you can overact in an Aldrich movie, and the headliner, Jack Palance, does his best at being a leading man, and is pretty fine, especially since his role is as a Hollywood actor with flaws.Throw in some really crisp cinematography by Ernest Lazlo, one of the best of his generation. Sometimes the camera will take on an angle that rocks you slightly, as when it is looking up from the floor at Palance on the massage table, with his agent towering overhead. More subtle is Lazlo's fluid long takes, or even fluid short takes, where the camera just makes sense of a scene not by framing it right (which is expected) but by moving it during the take. Once you notice it, you appreciate more and more how the interior of this house (the set for the whole movie) is made dimensional and alive.I say all this up front because the movie struggles against the story and writing despite all this. It's a play adapted to the screen, but rather literally, with the one main set for all the shooting. And it talks a lot. I don't see this working even on a stage, where you want and get dialog. Here it's almost deadening. Not that it quite is ever boring, but it tries too hard, and it pulls a couple of sensational twists out as it goes, with another sensational twist at the end. On top of all that is just a level of credibility. None of these Hollywood businessmen strike you as quite right, and what they say or do is all caricature.Not that we expect a movie, especially an Aldrich movie, to be believable. But there has to be some compensating excitement. This one, with a great noir title but no real noir qualities, never quite flies. It's worth watching if you like Lupino or Aldrich in particular, and it has moments of real intensity, but that might not be enough in the big picture.