The Big Knife |  | Director: Robert Aldrich
Actors: Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen, Rod Steiger
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Category: DVD
List Price: $19.98
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Rating:  20 reviews
Sales Rank: 50311
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Dolby, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 1
Running Time: 111 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.3 x 0.6
MPN: MGMD1003896D
ISBN: 0792853687
UPC: 027616880147
EAN: 9780792853688
ASIN: B00006FDAT
Theatrical Release Date: November 25, 1955
Release Date: October 15, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com
After 1952's The Bad and the Beautiful skewered Hollywood with a scathing attempt at self-analysis, The Big Knife (1955) finished the job of exposing the slimy underbelly of the studio system. This high-gloss noir, cynical to the bone and altogether hysterical in its potboiler theatrics, is a deliriously entertaining mid-'50s melodrama, adapted from the play by Clifford Odets (who brought a similar brand of vitriol to Sweet Smell of Success) and starring Jack Palance in a role that transcended his trademark villainy. Palance is quite effective as rising star Charlie Castle, whose continued ascension in Hollywood depends on his willingness to renew a contract with studio bully Stanley Hoff (Rod Steiger), who treats Charlie like an indentured servant and, even worse, has plenty of dirt to hold against Charlie if he doesn't cooperate. Trapped between stardom and a desperate desire to reconcile with his neglected wife (Ida Lupino), Charlie's facing a no-win scenario, haunted by the indiscretions of his past. Palance's overwrought performance is perfectly keyed to director Robert Aldrich's typically histrionic approach; he's eclipsed only by Steiger, whose Method madness has rarely been as outrageous as this (his character was partially based on studio honcho Jack Warner). Set primarily in the well-appointed den of Charlie's Bel-Air manse, The Big Knife is stagy but stylish, with Charlie's home taking on the appearance of a gilded cage as his predicament intensifies. Add a stellar supporting cast, and you've got film noir at its finest--dark souls baking in the California sun. --Jeff Shannon
Product Description
No Description Available.
Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: NR
Release Date: 15-OCT-2002
Media Type: DVD
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
A rare and uncompromising look inward from Hollyweird March 16, 2010
K. Swanson (Austin, TX United States)
4.3 stars
"The day you first scheme, you marry that scheme...and the scheme's children."
That line is but one of many memorable moments in this over the top, stagey, yet very effective noir drama from '55. Palance does a fine job with Odets' occasionally campy dialogue, and every actor is at least decent, with Steiger winning the prize for Best OverActor. He really reminded me in voice and tone of early Brando here; not sure who was aping whom, though.
One major flaw in TBK is the complete absence of chemistry between Palance and Lupino; those kisses made it look like they would both rather eat poison. But there are so many crisp lines, so much intelligently worded vitriol towards Hollyweird from Odets, and such a sense of honesty here that the cheese melts on top of the burger and ends up making it that much tastier. (Odets' bitterness stemmed no doubt in part from his ratting out fellow writers in '49 to the HUAC...which perhaps he's trying to blame here on Jack Warner, who Steiger was supposedly channelling.)
The other great flaw here was shooting it all in one locale. This is a movie, not a play! Move that camera around...show us some of what made Hollywood so alluring that people would sell their souls to be there...use the studio's wealth to damn itself. But no, we just get that one house and one backyard, which may add to the gilded cage vibe but sorely holds the movie down in some ways.
Nonetheless, it's a uniquely dark view of the inner workings of the contract player days, and one of the best acerbic looks inward at Hollywood I've seen, as good as The Last Of Sheila but not quite as fine as The Player or Sunset Boulevard. It's always a rare and welcome glimpse any time the movie industry is willing to be somewhat honest about the entire enterprise of hypnotizing the masses. Hollywood has always been about bread and circuses on a huge scale, and they continue to misdirect our attention as our pockets are picked ever cleaner by the Boys Upstairs, yet I haven't seen a movie this harshly honest about the whole enterprise for many a year.
Well worth seeing.
Better than today's October 15, 2009
L. Edgar
No matter how overdramatic, the acting blew me away. I had forgotten there were such good actors.
 sticks in the heart of 50's hollywood April 11, 2009
Zara (Greenville nc)
excellent!five stars or more Rod Steiger is a souless monster, and most likely ruffle some feathers of real studio heads of that period he is so evil that its a fatting desert! and hedda hopper witch like character is to die for and Wendell corey performance is a knockout! it can too much at times but so what it was the fifties.
Campy but substantial. August 14, 2008
Yasha Banana
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Ok, ok, I know, this movie is campy, "over the top." But, still, it's a damn good movie.
It's serious, well-acted and other than the fact that he's a rat because sang to HUAC you've got to admit the screenwriter, Clifford Odets, does know how to write.
Note to any would-be Rich Little-wannabee ---- This is the movie to see if you want to perfect the definitive Rod Steiger impersonation. ("Ho-ho ho-ho! If you don't start reacting out there in the auidence, I'm gonna machine gun everyone of you. And-I'm-not-kidding. Oh-but-I-am-kidding Ho-ho-ho!")
The production values are not great. The direction is choppy. The style, as noted, is campy and and over-the-top. But give me 10 of these movies for 10,000 of today's so-called "blockbusters."
More of a filmed "Playhouse 90" production than a movie, see it, you won't be disappointed. ... Or else: ho-ho-ho, I'll machine gun every one of you.
Between a Rock and a Hard Place July 9, 2007
gobirds2 (New England)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Who ever thought that Jack Palance could ever deliver an emotionally wrought performance at this stage in his career? He does just that. He gives such a performance that it is just heartbreaking to watch him. Jack Palance had more range than he was ever given credit for having. This is a brutally well scripted realistic film directed by Robert Aldrich. Wendell Corey also gives a rationally based, cold and detached, but curiously humane performance driven by the system and in too deep for his own good but his conscience reminds him that he really should know better. Perhaps all the characters actually do know better and know that there truly is no way out.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 20
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