User reviews

The Big Knife is not for everybody. Some will find it very literate, well-directed and acted(mostly), handling the tense and satire aspects deftly, while others will find it overdone. Both viewpoints are completely understandable, for me there were parts where the film did fall into the latter camp but most of the time it was the former.

As an adaptation of the stage play, which is very compelling and thought-provoking, it is very faithful and translates well adaptation-wise. As a film, it's far from perfect but it comes over well as a film.

There are a few things that don't come off quite as successfully as the rest of the film. Rod Steiger has a very ruthless character, but for my tastes Steiger plays the role too broadly to the point that Hoff felt more of a cartoonish caricature than a real person, to the extent that it came close to hurting the balance of the film and he didn't come over as very threatening. In his performance, there is a lot of camp and scenery-chewing, but not enough of the menace that the role so ruthlessly written needs. The ending does dissolve into contrived melodrama, which is where it is most understandable as to why some will find the film overdone, and felt rushed as well. Lastly, the film does feel over-scored in places, in the places where there is music the blaring music cues felt intrusive.

With the exception of Steiger, the performances are very good. Jack Palance's powerhouse lead performance is one of his best, while Ida Lupino is heart-wrenching and dignified. Wendall Corey wisely underplays and is very entertaining, and Everett Sloane, Jean Hagen(chilling in a role so different to hers in Singin' In the Rain) and a memorable Shelley Winters(in a performance that hits hard) do equally pleasingly. The script is remarkably literate and intelligent, with the tension being portrayed quite realistically and the satire being boldly lacerating. The story moves deliberately, but the tension present is enough to haunt the mind and the subject matter is a bold one and told in a biting, sometimes fun and poignant way. The Big Knife is photographed with class and atmosphere, the production values are appropriately claustrophobic and Robert Aldrich's direction is more than able, often excellent.

Overall, a very acquired taste, but for this viewer while not without flaws it was a well done film. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Unless you understand that The Big Knife was Clifford Odets's one finger salute to Hollywood and its mores, you will not understand the film at all. Odets after some bad times in tinseltown went back to his first love which was the theater and wrote this play which ran for 109 performances in the 1949 season on Broadway.

In the lead roles of actor Charlie Castle and producer Marcus Hoff, Odets cast a couple of guys who were having difficulty finding employment in Hollywood at that time as well, kindred spirits from the Group Theater back in the day, John Garfield and J. Edward Bromberg. Garfield who certainly could bring his own life into the part plays Odets himself who had as tempestuous personal life as his creation Charlie Castle. He feels starved creatively because of the junk he's been doing in Hollywood, not the stuff of social significance that Odets did back Group Theater days.

Jack Palance plays Castle in the film and while he does justice to the part I only wish John Garfield had lived to do the screen version of what he created. He had an unceasing rebellion against Warner Brothers for the stereotypical tough guys parts he was being cast in. But just after he broke free came the blacklist.

Rod Steiger is malevolence itself as the producer whom I believe was based on Louis B. Mayer. Odets dealt with him through his then wife Luise Rainer over at MGM. Mayer was not liked even by his fellow studio moguls and he had been toppled in a studio power play at MGM a few years earlier. Had he still been in charge at MGM, I'm willing to bet The Big Knife might never have been made even as an independent film with a United Artists release.

Director Robert Aldrich filled out the rest of the cast with familiar Hollywood names like Ida Lupino as Palance's estranged wife, Everett Sloane as his long suffering agent, Wendell Corey in a role that has to be modeled on MGM's fixer who knew where all the bodies were buried Eddie Mannix, Shelley Winters as the bimbo like starlet who can put an end to Palance's career and Ilka Chase as a Hedda Hopper like columnist who is the self appointed keeper of the Hollywood morals. Chase's scenes are at the beginning of the film and she really has the columnist character dead on.

On stage the entire play is set in the living room of the Palance/Lupino Hollywood style mansion. Like the house in Long Day's Journey Into Night, the opulent living room becomes a character itself, showing the velvet and comfortable trap that Palance is in and why he just can't give up all this comfort, even for the art that used to motivate him.

Odets might have done better had someone else a little more dispassionate had written this based on his memoirs. The Big Knife gets a little too personal at times. And it never quite loses the stage origin even with a few scenes away from the house. But the acting his first rate from a first rate cast. I'd watch The Big Knife as a look into the mind of Clifford Odets.

"The Big Knife" is really a stage play recorded on film. It's a Hollywood soap opera that features a lot of good actors eating the scenery. Rod Steiger and Everett Sloan are great as the monstrous studio honcho and weaselly agent, respectively. Jack Palance is a competent actor but was woefully miscast as the sensitive, tortured matinée idol -- nobody would ever confuse Palance with a matinée idol. Nevertheless, he does an adequate job.

The power of the studio system in the '50s is well depicted, if a bit overwrought. Steiger's performance is particularly delicious as his toweringly self-centered character cries, wheedles, and intimidates his underlings into doing what he wants.

The movie is showing its age but its excesses, especially its colorful language, are a lot of fun. Recommended, 7 out of 10.

Too talky for some, too stage-bound for others, too strident for all, this is not a movie for everyone. Yet The Big Knife continues to fascinate at the same time it annoys. Maybe it's the savage depiction of Hollywood politics and the amoral glamour industry surrounding it. After all, neither blackmail nor murder is off-limits to ego-maniacal studio boss Stanley Hoff ( vintage Rod Steiger), while the human sharks swimming around him behave nothing like opening night at the Oscars. Maybe it's the sterling cast, featuring such 50's exotica as Steiger, Jack Palance, Wendell Corey, and Shelley Winters. In the end, of course, everyone gets to explode on screen except the ice cold Corey whose chronic bemusement proves ultimately more satanic than cynical. Whatever the reason, the result is an over-the-top cavalcade of unusual flair.

It's likely that producer-director Robert Aldrich targeted the film in behalf of blacklisted mentor Abraham Polonsky with whom he had collaborated on 1948's Force of Evil. After all, the year was 1955 and the all-powerful list could not be attacked directly, so what better vehicle than Clifford Odet's corrosive stage play adapted for all America to see. (Odets would do the same for Broadway in 1957's revealing Sweet Smell of Success.) It's fun to imagine how Aldrich's resulting indictment played in studio screening rooms where real reputations were at stake. Then too, much of the film's dirty laundry appears based on fact. The hit and run on Clark Gable's hushed-up 1933 episode; the Palance character on John Garfield's death at 39, listed officially as heart attack. It's hard to picture the producers ever believing such curdled fare would actually make money. Of course it didn't, angering many ticket-buyers with a title that seemed to imply real action instead of endless palaver. Still, this overheated exercise in shameless baroque remains an interesting oddity. A permanent record not only of individual styles, but of artistic protest amidst the throes of cultural repression.

A truly memorable film with tough and rugged, but hardly handsome, Jack Palance as Charlie Castle playing of all people an actor who's always playing matinée Idols and great lovers. As Charlie's boss and studio owner Stanley Hoff,Rod Steiger, says of him throughout the film :"He makes all the women of America heart's swoon". "The Big Knife" is worth the price of admission just to see how and if director Robert Aldrich can pull it off and make the film both entertaining and believable.

You see Charlie is getting tired of playing all those roles over the years as a heart throb to the women of America and wants to get out of his contract with the Hoff Studios and go independent; That was a big thing for actors back in the 1950's. Charlie wan't to do films that are worthy of his extraordinary talents as a serious and Shakespearian actor. It's that Charlie's off the wall and possessive boss Stanley Hoff, the Big Knife, doesn't want his meal ticket to leave and take his fans with him! So Stanley rolls out the heavy artillery and plays his trump card. It seems that Charlie has a dark secret that the studio has been covering up for years and if Charlie leaves that secret won't be a secret any more! Get It Charlie!

The film "The Big Knife" can really be described as one of the most multi storied soap operas ever put on film with the audience needing score cards just to keep up with the story and even then they'll get lost. Whoever coined the phrase "Seeing is believing" must have based it on the the incredible performance of Rod Steiger's Stanley Hoff which goes from a Saturday Night Live impersonation shtick of a big Hollywood producer to an Oscar winning interpretation of Hamlet all at the same time! It's really incredible to watch and believe what your seeing in Steiger's over the top performance.

And Jack Palance, determined not to be shown up his co-star, really did pull it off in him Playing a role so out of character and yet evoking real and genuine sympathy from the audience that he should have, but didn't, won the 1955 Academy Award for best actor hands down! As the tortured soul with a dark past who only wanted to do Art Films and get away from playing debonair and charming movie parts that make women go ape all over him. In the end of the film when Palance went all out, or was it underwater, in the final few minutes of the movie he was so convincing that I just couldn't keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks!

No matter how much people criticize Robert Aldrich's "The Big Knife" and with good justification this is one movie where you can really say that the acting actually overwhelmed the script!

Bel Air. The well-manicured area of LA where the successful actors, producers and directors in Hollywood live. So says the opening voice- over.

Jack Palance, not the obvious choice for a leading man (& director Robert Aldrich's lame excuse for the film's box office failure) has never been better, nor has he had such a meaty role. His portrayal of pent-up anger and frustration is powerful yet still believable.

He's the washed up star who's unravelling at the seams, wrestling with a dark secret and Rod Steiger, complete with blonde hairdo as his studio manager who is out to keep a lid on bad publicity at all costs. He will stop at nothing at getting a new contract signed.

Ida Lupino is also extremely fine as Charles Castle's (Palance) wife. Their marriage is on the rocks and she pleads that Charles takes the rest that he desperately needs and to not sign. She won't go back to him otherwise. There's good support from tease Shelley Winters and as Charles' agent, Everett Sloane plus Wendell Corey as a ruthless producer.

Much of the action takes place in the Castle's vast living room, nodding to the theatrics of the original play by Clifford Odets.

This is a slow-burning, quite talky, intelligent character-led and well scripted study of Hollywood's mechanics - its layers of people. Not as flashy or melodramatic as some and certainly not as well known, but still directed with surety and skill. Today's viewer will have to adjust to the pace and style but that's easy and the rewards to those attuned can be high.

There's enough depth to the material for a second viewing, which helps bring out the characters even more vividly.

This film is a thinly veiled discussion of various rumors about various big-name actors. Many times over the years, studio heads reportedly paid to bail big stars out of legal jams. And, while you can't prove exactly what happens, people talk and say that the studios paid people off and hid the crimes of its stars. A few examples of the cases which MAY have been covered up would include: Thomas Ince's death aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht, the death of Jean Harlow's husband, the beating death of Ted Healy (recent stories say Wallace Beery was responsible) and MANY other scandals too numerous to list here. It's like "The Big Knife" is trying to expose these scandals without being too specific--otherwise the filmmakers could have either been sued or blackballed. This film is a lot grittier and cynical than other previous films that look at the dark side of Hollywood (such as "What Price Hollywood?" and "A Star is Born")--and I am pretty sure the studio execs breathed a deep sigh of relief when "The Big Knife" failed at the box office!

"The Big Knife" is not exactly what you'd expect given the film's title or that it's about a killing. You'd think it was an action film, but it isn't. In fact, the film is very non-action--with almost all of the film taking place in a guy's home--and often in just one or two rooms. The only action is when folks TALK about what has already happened or when the ego-centric main character shows his guests an old boxing film he made years earlier.

Jack Palance plays Charles Castle--a famous movie star who has been making a lot of movies which, in his and other people's opinions, are beneath him. He's bored with these sort of films and unhappy about the state of his life. However, his divorce and the crap that the studio forces him into are all his own doing. He cheated on his wife repeatedly and as for the studio, there comes the interesting part of the film. Apparently, years before, Castle was driving drunk and killed someone. But, the studio's 'fixers' came in and got a guy to take the blame--and allowed their money-maker, Castle, to keep on making films. So, when Castle pushes the execs for better films, their ultimate trump card is to expose Castle's guilt in killing someone! He's stuck. At times, the viewer might be inclined to feel a bit sorry for him--but throughout the film he keeps reminding the viewer that down deep, he is a jerk--as are most of the folks in this film. And, just how big an amoral jerk he might be is tested when a fixer (Wendell Corey) has to take care of one more loose end...and wants Castle's help.

For the most part, this is a very good film. Palance and the rest (particularly Corey) are very good. There is one exception, however. While Everett Sloane was a wonderful actor, here he is oddly miscast. Seeing him play an agent and saying 'darling' all the time to Palance just didn't seem believable in the least. They really needed someone oilier--someone who could just drip fake charm--though he WAS very good later in the film during his big scene (at about 90 minutes into the movie). I might have enjoyed seeing someone like, perhaps, Zachary Scott in this part--as he could ooze snake-like charm. Apart from this minor problem, the film delivers--with a resounding indictment on the sleazy dark side of the film industry. It also really helps that the film ended as well as it did--the finale is impressive. Well worth seeing provided you don't mind that the action is all on the cerebral side and not in the great outdoors.

"The Big Knife" caused a sensation when it came out. After all, no one in his right mind would dare to criticize the movie industry, after all, it was the studio and its ruthless executives that were exposed as the bad guys, even at the time where the old studio system was disappearing.

Clifford Odets wrote the original play, which under Robert Aldrich direction doesn't translate to the screen because it feels claustrophobic in many aspects. The movie treatment was by James Poe, did not make the material come alive because of the theatricality of the source.

Charles Castle, an actor working in Hollywood, is about to commit himself to a renewal of his contract to a major studio. That means another seven years of his life working in whatever pictures the higher ups have in store for him. It couldn't come at a worse time; his wife, Marion, who evidently hasn't a good relation with Charles, is fed up with the idea of staying in Bel Air. Marion pleads with him to give up the movie business so they could have a normal life bringing up their young son.

Castle has had his share of adventures in Hollywood, something that Marion is aware of. In addition to that, he has a dark secret, something that involved a terrible accident for which his publicist has taken the blame and has even serve time in jail. A couple of women are also in the picture, threatening Charles' marriage.

To make matters worse, Charles is visited by the head of the studio, Stanley Hoff, who has brought his assistant, the oily Smiley Coy, to help him convince Castle to sign the contract. Charles Castle is finally defeated at the game as Stanley plays his cards right since he has the upper hand. The result is a bitter loss for the actor, who sees no way out of the situation at hand.

Jack Palance, who, up to this film, had only minor parts, rose to the challenge of playing Charles Castle, who in a way, he had the background, having been a boxer, to play. His work, although a bit unsure, was a revelation to the movie going public at the time. Ida Lupino, an excellent actress, is probably the best thing in the picture. Rod Steiger shows up as the studio head Stanley Hoff, a man that knows well his opponent's weaknesses and uses all in his power to get his way. Wendell Corey, in a small part, also does good work. Jean Hagen and Shelley Winters also contribute to the film.

Ernest Lazlo's cinematography works well, as does the musical score by Frank DeVol. Robert Aldrich, a man with a lot of experience in the business, was a natural choice to undertake the direction of this picture. His only problem was a basic one, how to open the play to cinematic terms.

This 1955 film was adapted from a play by Clifford Odets and James Poe. It is a dark study of the seedier side of Hollywood of it's time. Making all involved not such pleasant people. It centers around a top movie star, Charlie Castle (played brilliantly by Jack Palance) who wants out of the movie limelight in order to move on to better high grade films. But, the movie studios are not that eager to lose their sexy star. Most of the film is about Charlie and his struggle to come out ahead. With the studio boss (one of Rod Steiger's better roles), his wife (the wonderful Ida Lupino in another terrific performance); the sleezy studio promo man (Wendell Corey in a delicious underplayed role); and the agent (one of Everett Sloane's best performances). Also rounding out this stellar cast are Jean Hagen, as the wife of Charlie's best friend, and a gal out to get Charlie in bed, and Shelly Winters, who does well as a sort of dumb blonde being used by the studio to entertain executives. Thinking this is the way to become a movie star.

Robert Aldrich directed this classic with a deft touch and excellent interplay with his cast. A simple set allows the actors to do their work without the Hollywood tinsel. Made in black and white, this is drama at its best and the stars at their best. See this amazing film if you're an actor. It will teach you much.

One of the few films in which you see grown men cry. If the title 'The Snake Pit' hadn't already been used it would have been perfect for this extremely talky melodrama (obviously based on a play) with an amazing cast written by Clifford Odets; one of several writers active in Hollywood who by the nature of their profession could put their frustrations into words.

Jack Palance as a movie star earning a mere $5000 a week makes an unlikely victim; but you have to feel sorry for anyone who has to put up with Rod Steiger's tears (based on Mayer) and tantrums (based on Cohn).

Wow...overwrought, overacted, over-the-top melodrama trying ever-so-hard to be *about* something. But it's really not about much, despite the putative 'Corrupt-Hollywood' theme. Just a series of intermittently-entertaining, scenery-chewing set pieces in a Bel-Air living room.

A whole lot of talent wasted here--acting, writing, not so much directing. Fans of the film's several excellent actors will survive this viewing more readily than others. Everyone's finest chops--and then some--are on display, over and over, desperately in search of significance. Even the music is ridiculously overdone. "Pay attention! This is wrenching drama!" Only, it's not.

"The Big Knife" reminds me of nothing so much as a lame stage play where shouting and noisemaking take the place of genuine dramatic tension. This whole mess was generously forgotten in a couple years, thanks to 1957's vastly superior "Sweet Smell of Success" --check that one out instead.

Jack Palance gives an amazing performance here in a part that so many other actors must have been dying to play. You can picture a lot of actors of the time - Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Marlon Brando - as Charlie Castle, but I can't picture anyone as good as Palance. It's a riveting movie from start top finish with one great line after another. Almost Shakespearean in breadth, depth & power.

The quality you're likely to remember after viewing The Big Knife is how claustrophobic it is. It's pacing is sacrificed to a uniform texture of dialog. It's talky in the extreme. Modern viewers will feel every point has been made (and then some) but the movie will still not move on, or do the viewer a favor and change the scenery. It's very inert. At the 45 min mark I was sure I had watched two very slow hours. My beleaguered response was, "Good God, where is this going?" It feels like Odets was paid by the word...

This is a good place to note the decline of drama from it's high point in the 40s through the conceit-laden projects of the 50s and 60s until actual filmic merit was rediscovered in the 70s, only to vanish again. Here we get show-offy, conventional, emotional outbursts from Steiger, Lupino et al. and camera moves pre-arranged to meet over-practiced blocking. This is due to the rise of the Method; the regrettable trend of sacrificing every other merit of film, to grant actors their most selfish wishes. "Great acting," ho-hum, has killed thought in movies.

Jack Palance's forehead & pompadour retract and thrust forward every time he reacts to something. It's disturbing.

This is awfully boring stuff.

The Big Knife is a mostly good adaptation of a Clifford Odets play about a Hollywood actor who's being blackmailed into studio servitude while trying to patch up his failing marriage. This is a movie for which the word powerful was truly invented. Most of the film takes place on one set and places heavy emphasis on speeches from the individual characters for its really riveting moments (as I would expect from a stage play), but those moments definitely get across. The whole cast is good, but Jack Palance in a nuanced and fiery performance as the actor Charlie Castle, and Rod Steiger, giving a deeply felt and passionate realization of the corrupt studio boss are nothing short of superb. The screenplay is full of smart, incisive, biting dialogue as well. Except for a melodramatic turn at the end, that, for me, takes a lot of the edge off the story, this is a well-acted film that is solid, though not spectacular, entertainment. 3*** out of 4

A charged, stage-bound melodrama, with Palance as a movie star in servitude to the studio boss (Steiger) who's blackmailing him. His wife (Lupino) won't agree to live with him until he's his own man again, which means not renewing his 7 year contract.

Palance does his best, but he's not the kind of actor who can show a character going through real transitions and hold the audience's attention for an entire film. Steiger is allowed to go over the top a few too many times, but Corey provides some of the film's best moments as his more ruthless, and at the same time gentlemanly, henchman. Sloane provides an unusual characterization as a somewhat sissified agent.

Ultimately, too cramped in its one room location (which may have been done deliberately to show the character's isolation from the world, but still produced a stagey effect that bind the film too tightly).

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.

One of the 10 best of '55 with sparks flying between Palance & Steiger. Subtle performance by Ms. Ida Lupino and intensity personified by J. Palance. Rod Steiger with white hair and hearing aid is pretty scary. Written by Clifford Odets, this realistic Hollywood tale cuts no corners and does not see out.

An 8 out of 10. Best performance = Rod Steiger. Too grim for some. Beautiful B/W cinematography and terrific script and the entire cast is deliberate and impassioned. I don't believe it was nominated for anything, but should have been. I'm not sure if this is on video or DVD, but check it out!

It has no film noir elements, only talk of a possible murder, to silence an actress (Shelley Winters) from divulging what she knows about Charlie Castle, the main character played by Jack Palance. Which Jack Palance is not bad in the role, but still he is not the best choice, he is not convincing enough. Rod Steiger is much better as Stanley Hoff, an unscrupulous film producer, but he also has a slightly exaggerated performance. Wesley Addy as Hank Teagle, Paul Langton as Buddy Bliss, Everett Sloane as Nat Danziger, Ilka Chase as Patty Benedict and Jean Hagen as Connie Bliss, they are all very good, natural. Very special are Shelley Winters as Dixie Evans and Wendell Corey as Smiley Coy. And the best of the whole cast is Ida Lupino as Marion Castle, the protagonist's wife. The film is much too long, static, monotonous, boring, it is watchable only because of this whole group of very good actors. 99% of the "action" (just talk the whole movie) takes place inside a big house, in the living room. Robert Aldrich has made many, many better movies.

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.

There is very much room for debate on The Big Knife. The casting of Palance and Steiger, good 'ol whinny Winters, the stage-related lack of locales, etc., etc. Each of these can be parsed to illuminate why the film works or doesn't. In a way that's a sign of a good film, one that has made bold choices, and risks it's essential qualities. I liked it. The thing that stood out for me though, was the seeming-multiple-endings. About three times I felt an ending, only to have another character enter, another scene. This may be Odets the writer, or Aldrich the director. In any case I loved Palance. I am a fan of his, and in a lead, a somewhat straight lead, his casting is inspired. I felt he was emotionally resonant, quickly rising and falling with the clipped Odets' poetics. I watched it last night on TCM, and Robert Osborne remarked in the opening that this was a film about "weird people, Hollywood types" (paraphrase). I think that poorly sells the story, limiting it's scope and personality. Palance as Charlie Castle is a wreck because of his life in Hollywood, sure, but he isn't weird for it. His close relationships with his trainer/masseur and his publicist, among others, highlights his isolation and need for loving contact. Which makes Ida Lupino, as his possibly-leaving wife Marion, and her dilemma such a good parallel to Charlie's wanting to leave Hollywood. And Rod Steiger....Over the top? Yes. But it a beautiful thing to watch. I love his commanding physical presence, his melodramatic crying, his hand-wringing. It may be scene-chewing and distracting to some, but again, it works within the story and the character. His psychological make up is so apparent, especially when he fears Castle will strike him, how he crosses his arms and tucks in. Ida Lupino, who looks like she could be Stockard Channing's mother, was strong and poised despite her rancorous life, and I appreciated her for it. Her character was winning because of the strength she debated having to exert. Again, a Hollywood consequence. Character actors, one and all, Smiley, Connie, Shelley Winter's wonkie Dixie, Hank (who could be Grey Davis' father), Nat (his slapping of Stanley Hoff's glass was awesome) , they all embody the inherent lack of stability in Hollywood. The message is clear, and the execution (pardon the pun), was dramatic and interesting.

The Big Knife was a Broadway Play starring John Garfield and when John passed away, Hollywood made this story into a film in which Jack Palance played the role of (Charles Castle) along with Ida Lupino, (Marion Castle) who plays Charles's wife who also have a young son. Charles has been a successful actor and made many films in Hollywood and really wants to quit the movie industry and get back together with his wife and child who he has been separated from. However, Rod Steiger,(Stanley Shriner Hoff) is a famous Director and Producer who wants Charles to sign a seven ( 7 ) year contract and will not take no for an answer. Stanley does everything possible to make Charlie see his way and uses all kinds of strong arm tactics which creates a real drama. Great film and great acting by the entire cast. Enjoy

I attempted to watch The Big Knife on TCM over the weekend. This was Noir Alley's film noir of the week. What a stretch! No wonder so many reviewers of older dramas which mention a crime consider them noir.

The Big Knife is an overwrought, over acted, over the top talky talky talky drama from Clifford Odets. The majority of movies based on plays are similarly talky and stagey and this film is no exception.

The over acting and the uber angst displayed by Jack Palance and Rod Steiger screamed Method Acting. This movie in no way resembles film noir.

I made it through about 45 miserable minutes and fell asleep. The thought of trying to finish it tonight feels like a chore.

I gave the review two stars for the cool mid-century modern house and Ida Lupino. The soundtrack was horrible, the acting was grating and the inclusion of it in Noir Alley was ridiculous! Don't waste your time!