Joseph Lewis (1950's Gun Crazy) directs Phillip Yordan's script.
John Alton's photography is superb. Light and Dark combine to form an always present yet silent character who helps us understand the habits of each individual in the narrative.
The lighting and photography dictates much of the criticism of the film. The following is a typical description:
The movie opens with Susan Lowell (Jean Wallace) splashed in slanting shadows as she runs through tunnels beside a boxing ring. She's chased by two hitmen, Fante and Mingo (Lee Van Cleef and Earl Holliman), who have been hired by her Napoleonic lover, Mr. Brown (Richard Conte), to keep an eye on her. Cornered, she emerges from Alton's poetic darkness and agrees to stop running. By contrast, the hitmen remain in the dark, shapeless. Susan, centered in a spot-effect, looks stark, pale, and nearly naked.This contrast early in the film can distract a viewer with issues of female guilt, for example. Susan is naked throughout the film, awash in light. But the darkness takes the form of the closet in this film and, for the viewer who wishes to look beyond the naked woman, lurks an entire story about how men love each other and hurt each other and compete with each other to please each other. (Susan may often be filmed awash in light, but early in the film she is presented awash in light only shoulders and above. Her body is often obscured or completely blacked out.)
Aside from the odd ridiculous assessment of the film, The Big Combo is generally well received. For all the attention to the relationships between the men--the gangster and the cop, the gangster and his righthand man, the two hitmen, and a cop and his partner--I find it more than worthwhile to reflect on why it takes Turner Classic Movies interest in the film during Gay Pride Month to get more people talking about its explicit exploration of sexuality, masculinity, and violence.
I'd like to screen this in as a double feature with Miller's Crossing.
