Product: The Big Combo [VHS] (1955)
Rating: 5.0
Good Stuff!
Noir fans know this one, but many more people beyond that select group should know it, too. This is a gripping tale about two men obsessed with destroying each other while they are also simultaneously obsessed with the same woman. It plays like the great pulp novel it most have been, with lurid slices of after dark, gritty urban life: a hardboiled cop who is out of control; a maniacal, singleminded and powerful crook; a confused and desparate blond beauty: a hard-hearted stipper with a soft underbelly; a gay male couple who pay the bills as guns for hire; a syndicate leader in hiding; and a woman driven insane by true revelations. These characters and the intriguing drama that links them are carried off in beautiful, shadowy black and white.