The Big Knife

Locations
Call Number: DVD Film-Noir Big
On Shelf At: Downtown Library

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 1st Floor 1-week checkout	DVD Film-Noir Big	1-week checkout	On Shelf

Videodisc release of 1955 motion picture.
From the stage play by Clifford Odets; adapted for the screen by James Poe.
Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen, Rod Steiger, Ilka Chase, Everett Sloane, Shelley Winters.
"Hollywood superstar Charlie Castle has it all ... except a way out. When he tries to leave show business, his tyrannical studio boss Stanley Hoff blackmails him with a lethal, covered-up secret that could land him in jail. A loose-lipped starlet also knows too much, and when she starts talking, Hoff plans murder."--Container.
DVD.
Contents: Big knife.

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Stage Play submitted by rossorr on August 1, 2016, 11:41am I wouldn't categorize this as film noir even if the title does sound that way. It's actors in various forms of psychological anguish delivering complex, literary dialog while mostly confined to one interior set. I suspect Clifford Odets' play was trying to work out his own anxiety, "have I sold out to Hollywood?" (actually his 'Sweet Smell of Success' script was excellent), so unfortunately this film feels a little overwrought.

Rod Steiger is great playing a sociopathic studio chief. It's also interesting to see a large role for Ida Lupino, who by this time had begun her own directing career (including the great noir 'The Hitch-Hiker').