Underrated Gem: "The Big Knife"

I have a terrible weakness for movies about movies. When Hollywood - or Europe, for that matter - turns its cameras on the movie business, I am instantly intrigued. I know where this fascination comes from: Because I have been drawn to the world of movies for so long and since I haven't - and most likely never will - work in the film business in any capacity, I need to view its inner workings, to remain connected, and to feel like a part of it. It may sound like a pathetic pastime, I know, but I remain obsessed just the same, whether it's an all-time stinkeroo like 1966's The Oscar (a famously bad movie); a sentimental tearjerker like A Star Is Born (both the 1937 version and the far more successful production from 1954 starring Judy Garland and James Mason); or a movie like Robert Altman's valentine to the so-called New Hollywood, 1992's The Player, whenever a backstage look at the film industry is on offer, I have to see it. (I even went to see the recent The Last Days of Robin Hood in spite of its 29% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes; in some ways, I'm fearless.)

A European poster in which the film was titled Hollywood Story. For me, the title change pretty much sums up the film.

Which brings us to The Big Knife. Based on the play by Clifford Odets whose original 1949 Broadway production starred John Garfield, the film was directed by Robert Aldrich in 15 days on a budget of less than $500,000. The plot centers on matinee idol Charlie Castle (Jack Palance), a once idealistic actor who went to Hollywood, became a big movie star, and sold out. After years of compromise, his estranged wife (Ida Lupino) threatens to leave him for good if he signs a new seven-year contract with Hoff-Federated Pictures Inc., owned and operated by Stanley Hoff (Rod Steiger), and take their young son with her. Along the way we get glimpses of Hollywood types like the dumb blonde, Dixie Evans (Miss Shelley Winters, as the movie credits bill her), who adores Charlie and knows a big secret about him that he and the studio want her to forget; publicity man, Buddy Bliss (Paul Langton), who took the blame for the car accident Charlie had years earlier in which a young woman was killed; Charlie's loyal agent, Nat Danzinger (Everett Sloane); and Hoff's right hand, hatchet man, Smiley Coy (Wendell Corey). The drama comes from Hoff threatening to use what he knows about Charlie's car accident and the studio-managed cover-up (which Hoff masterminded, natch) to make Charlie continue to sell out by signing his life away for another seven years, making films he hates, and losing his wife and child. Perhaps understandably, the sob story of a Hollywood star didn't appeal to middle America. The Big Knife was a box office failure, losing money despite its meager budget.

Stanley Hoff (Rod Steiger), aka Louis Mayer/Harry Cohn, ready for the kill.

Described by some as overwrought, overacted, over-the-top, and half-baked, The Big Knife was a Hollywood film nobody wanted to make. After being turned away by the major studios, the film was financed by United Artists, which was just emerging in the mid-1950s as a major player in Tinseltown after years of struggling. In 1955 when the film was made and released, it was equivalent to today's independent filmmaking - above-the-line talent working for union scale with a script the filmmakers believed in.

I wrote that the movie was shot in 15 days. 15 days! Can you imagine? Today, even a low-budget, indie film doesn't get made in 15 days and certainly not with a cast like this. And it's the cast and Odets' dialogue that are the stars of this show. Jack Palance's turn as Charlie Castle is effective enough, but the role cries out for Garfield (whom the character was partly patterned on). Ida Lupino as Charlie's wife Marion is fine, but the role is sanctimonious and a bit of a bore. My favorite bits are Wendell Corey's slippery Smiley Coy (great name), Rod Steiger's evil Stanley Hoff (a mix of Harry Cohn and Louis B. Mayer), and Everett Sloane as Charlie's hapless agent, Nat. Corey's Smiley Coy is just as vicious as Hoff but smooth as silk, like the snake in the Garden of Eden. Sloane-as-Nat is the epitome of the agent with a heart of gold, always calling Charlie "darling." Most agents are shown on film as ten percenters, always taking. Everett Sloane, a good, somewhat forgotten actor, despite his appearances in some Orson Welles classics, shows us an agent's humanity, pain, concern, and heartbreak, which isn't seen much on film. Steiger is ham-fisted and way over the top. He took some criticism for it, yet I think his characterization works. Every time I watch him in this film I think of the studio bosses who were better actors - or at least more dramatic - than the actors they employed. Steiger wasn't a very subtle actor, but, for my money, his bombastic interpretation is spot on.

Charlie signs his life away for another seven years as Hoff, Smiley Coy, and Nat Danzinger look on.

The other female roles are basically cliches and not one would make Gloria Steinem proud: Miss Shelley Winters dedicated her performance to Garfield (they had worked together on his last film, He Ran All the Way), but her B-level actress/good-time girl Dixie Evans is a character we've seen a thousand times and feels somewhat phoned in. Jean Hagen as Connie Bliss, the wife of publicity man Buddy Bliss, however, made a lasting impression on me. Her portrait of a woman who drinks too much, fools around a lot, and probably makes life hell for her poor schnook of a husband feels authentic. I don't think she is in the film more than ten minutes, but her presence is felt. Half drunk when she shows up at Charlie's house in the late afternoon of his no-good, very bad day, Hagen plays Connie as a kind of nympho on a bender - sexy, alluring, and slightly dangerous, out for a laugh and a roll in the hay because she's bored and horny. (Movies-about-movies fans can hardly forget Jean Hagen's scene-stealing performance as Lina Lamont in the classic Singin' in the Rain. She got a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for that role, though the rest of her career proves that Hollywood seldom knew what to do with her. The Big Knife shows what she could do given the right material.)

Jean Hagen as Connie Bliss, tempting Charlie with a roll in the hay. The whole film is about Charlie's battle to stay pure and clean in the face of Hollywood's corrupting influences.

Robert Aldrich directed this movie the same year he made the noir classic Kiss Me Deadly. He was just starting out and would go on to make such tough guy classics as The Dirty Dozen, Flight of the Phoenix, and The Longest Yard. His first real success had come the year before The Big Knife with the western, Vera Cruz. Aldrich was an interesting filmmaker who bounced between those rough and tumble films, and Grand Guignol-style films like Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?, Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte, and The Legend of Lylah Claire. Although not as well remembered, The Big Knife shares the mentality of those later films. The Big Knife wasn't a critical or popular success. Director Aldrich felt that casting Palance was a kiss of death for the film. As mentioned, John Garfield was the obvious first choice, but the actor had died at age 39 in 1952, a victim of the House Un-American Activities Committee [HUAC]'s Communist witch hunts. Burt Lancaster had been approached but declined. Palance, though a fine actor when the part was right, was all wrong for Castle. He just wasn't handsome enough to portray a movie star circa 1955, even one who grew up a tough street kid in New York City as Charlie Castle did.

Today, The Big Knife is remembered as a good adaptation of Clifford Odets' play. It carries a decent 6.9 rating on IMDB and 80% on Rotten Tomatoes with the admittedly small sample size of only five critics. . . .  Actually, that may be its very problem: Although director Robert Aldrich has his champions (noir specialist Alain Silver and James Ursini in particular), that support doesn't seem to be enough to pull this film out of semi-obscurity. Though the cast is first rate, none of them have a cult status (like Garfield does) that might draw the attention of potential fans. I personally find the film a fascinating capsule of a time when Hollywood was caught between the studio system of the pre-1950's era and the so-called New Hollywood when actors, directors, and, especially, agents could call their own shots. Unfortunately, The Big Knife continues to exist in a gray area - not quite a cult film, not quite a classic. In other words, it's a movie ripe for rediscovery.