The Big Knife

The Big Knife is a 1955 American melodrama film directed and produced by Robert Aldrich from a screenplay by James Poe based on the 1949 play by Clifford Odets. The film stars Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen, Rod Steiger, Shelley Winters, Ilka Chase, and Everett Sloane. The story delves into the dark side of Hollywood, exploring themes of corruption, betrayal, and the destructive nature of fame. Jack Palance delivers a powerful performance as a conflicted movie star trapped by his own success and the manipulations of the film industry. The film is noted for its intense atmosphere and sharp critique of the pressures and moral compromises inherent in show business. It received critical acclaim for its direction, screenplay, and strong ensemble cast, cementing its place as a significant work in 1950s American cinema.

The Big Knife
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Robert Aldrich
Screenplay by	James Poe
Based on	The Big Knife by Clifford Odets
Produced by	Robert Aldrich
Starring	Jack Palance Ida Lupino Wendell Corey Jean Hagen Rod Steiger Shelley Winters
Narrated by	Richard Boone
Cinematography	Ernest Laszlo
Edited by	Michael Luciano
Music by	Frank De Vol
Production companies	The Associates Aldrich Company
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	November 25, 1955 (1955-11-25) (United States)
Running time	111 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$460,000 or $400,000
Box office	$1,250,000 220,066 admissions (France)

Plot

Movie star Charlie Castle “sold out his dreams but can't forget them.” Influential gossip columnist Patty Benedict interrupts his sparring exercise with Nick to get the lowdown on a rumored separation from his wife, Marion, who has taken their young son to the beach. She dismisses studio PR man Buddy Bliss, who arrives on her heels.

Benedict threatens to revive an old scandal involving a fatal hit and run accident that sent Buddy to jail. She asks why the studio took Buddy back. We learn later that Charlie was behind the wheel; Buddy took the blame. Marion comes downstairs as Benedict is leaving. The columnist tackles her, in vain.

Marion has had enough of Charlie's “occasional girls” and of his relinquishing his ideals and surrendering to powerful studio boss Stanley Shriner Hoff.

Hank Teagle, a writer friend, has proposed to Marion. Charlie wants desperately to win her back. She wants the man she married. If he refuses to sign the 7-year-contract Hoff is “offering” him, it will prove he can change.

Charlie pleads with his agent, Nat, to help him. Nat warns him that if he doesn't sign, he goes to jail. Hoff and Smiley arrive at Charlie's house to close the deal. Charlie's defiance enrages Hoff, who threatens him. Castle signs.

Charlie has sex with Buddy's seductive wife, Connie. Later, Marion and Hank have dinner at Charlie's place. Charlie wants her to listen to the reasons they should reunite. She leaves with Hank, who asks her to make up her mind.

Meanwhile, Smiley drops in to tell Charlie that Dixie Evans, a starlet who was in the car with Charlie the night of the accident, is threatening to reveal what she knows. Smiley suggests Castle  persuade her to keep quiet. Charlie tries, and is sympathetic to her feelings about being treated shabbily and disregarded as an actress. She wants to damage Hoff, not Charlie.

Hank brings Marion back to Charlie. Dixie leaves. Marion makes it clear she is willing to try again.

Smiley tells Charlie that Dixie went to Hoff's office and caused such an upheaval that Hoff beat her, brutally. Smiley tries to involve Charlie in a plan to murder her. Charlie summons Hoff and Nat and, with Marion present and now aware of Dixie's presence the night of the accident, defies the ruthless men who employ him. He insists that nothing should happen to Dixie.

Hoff and Smiley try one more extortion ploy, producing secret recordings of Marion with Hank. Neither Marion nor Charlie are moved by this attempt and, finally, an outraged Hoff fires Castle.

While Nick is drawing a bath. Marion plays the rest of the recording, on which she tells Hank why she can never leave Castle. She and Charlie embrace.

Buddy walks in, weeping. He has discovered Castle's fling with Connie. Castle offers to let Buddy hit him. Buddy spits in his face.

On his way upstairs, Charlie asks Marion if he has told her that day how much he loves her. She replies that she loves him and is committed to him. He walks slowly upstairs. Smiley rushes in to telephone Hoff and tell him that Dixie, staggering out of a bar and into the street, was struck and killed by a city bus.

Water is flowing through the ceiling and from upstairs comes the sound of voices calling to Charlie and banging on the bathroom door. Hank enters. Marion walks upstairs to the sound of breaking wood. Smiley runs down, grabs the phone and dictates an obit full of lies to the studio, adding that they should “tell Stanley that Charlie slashed himself three times.” Voices upstairs tell Marion she can't go in. She screams, once.

Nick comes down. “The whole bunch of you killed him” he tells Smiley. Marion descends. She tries to wipe the blood from her dress and her hands.

Hank tells Hoff that Hoff's work is finished, that he will talk to the reporters and tell the truth:  Charlie just could not go on hurting those he loved. Hugging Charlie's jacket, Marion sobs  “Charlie, Help”, repeating “Help” louder and louder as the camera pulls away and irises out.

• Jack Palance as Charlie Castle
• Ida Lupino as Marion Castle
• Wendell Corey as Smiley Coy
• Jean Hagen as Connie Bliss
• Rod Steiger as Stanley Shriner Hoff
• Shelley Winters as Dixie Evans
• Ilka Chase as Patty Benedict
• Everett Sloane as Nat Danziger
• Wesley Addy as Horatio "Hank" Teagle
• Paul Langton as Buddy Bliss
• Nick Dennis as Mickey Feeney
• Bill Walker as Russell
• Michael Winkelman as Billy Castle
• Strother Martin as Stillman

Production

In March 1955 Aldrich signed a contract with Clifford Odets to make the film. A script by James Poe had already been written and Jack Palance set to star. The film was made for Aldrich's own company.

Aldrich said in 1972 he was "terribly ambivalent about the Hoff character". When he made the film many old time tycoons were still in power.

We'd had twenty years of petty dictators running the industry, during which time everybody worked and everybody got paid, maybe not enough, but they weren't on relief. Seventeen years later you wonder if the industry is really more healthy in terms of creativity. Are we making more or better pictures without that central control? But when everybody worked under those guys, they hated them. So we took the drumroll from Nuremberg and put it under the Hoff character's entrances and exits. It wasn't too subtle... The Hoff crying came from Mayer, who is reported to have been able to cry at the drop of an option. But the big rebuff that Odets suffered was at the hands of Columbia, so there was more of Cohn in the original play than there was of Mayer.

Aldrich later said he wished he and the writer had cut down Odets' play. "At the time, I thought that kind of theatrical flavoring was extraordinary. I'm afraid neither Jim Poe nor I were tough enough in editing some of Odets' phrases as we should have been."

Release

Critical response

New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther, was disappointed and believed the plot lacked credibility. He wrote:

Actually, it looks as though The Big Knife originally was written and aimed as an angry, vituperative incident of the personal and professional morals of Hollywood. This is the clear implication of what is presented on the screen...But the simple fact is that Mr. Odets—and James Poe, who wrote the screen adaptation—were more disposed to extreme emotionalism than to actuality and good sense. They picture a group of sordid people jawing at one another violently. But their drama arrives at a defeatist climax. And this viewer, for one, was not convinced.

The Chicago Tribune wrote:

This tale of blackmail, intended murder, marital infidelity and eventual suicide boasts some excellent performances. It is laid in Hollywood, and Rod Steiger gives his role—that of a domineering, outwardly emotional but inwardly cold blooded producer—such conviction that it just about carries the film….The basic plot was cunningly conceived, and there are some bluntly effective scenes, but unfortunately the story is turgid with typical Odets dialog. The author seems to be in love with the sound of his verbose and often meaningless prose, and most of the characters are forced to deliver it in long and boring speeches…..The audience accepted these wordy flights stolidly, but reacted definitely to Everett Sloane as a mealy-mouthed agent, to Wendell Corey as an efficient hatchet man for the ruthless producer, and to Jean Hagen and Shelley Winters as a couple of aggressive females.

Film critic Dennis Schwartz wrote in 2004:

Robert Aldrich... directs this intelligent noirish melodrama...The film did not have a good box office according to Aldrich because the public never felt sympathetic to Palance's character and Palance himself didn't have matinee star good looks to make his part believable as a Hollywood star. No major studio would make this exposé on tinseltown, so it was made by United Artists on a low-budget and shot in 16 days...The movie stresses that the struggle is a personal one over survival and redemption rather than idealism, which allows the sparks to fly among the disagreeable leading characters as they trade lines only an insider could pen. The masterful performance by Palance as the tormented artist defies the clichés of his insulated and self-absorbed character. He expresses all his anguish and hurt in the star system he willingly signed on for to reap the benefits of the rewards, and shows the futility that boggles his mind to the point he doesn't realize when he's acting or speaking for real. It was shocking when first released in 1955 but is now considered tame by modern standards."

Film critic Jeff Stafford wrote in 2008:

[Of the previous Hollywood-exposé dramas] none...can match the negative depiction of the movie business and its power brokers offered in The Big Knife...The use of long takes by cinematographer Ernest Laszlo adds greatly to the film's claustrophobic tension and the mingling of fictitious names with real ones (Billy Wilder, Elia Kazan, William Wyler and others) throughout the dialogue gives The Big Knife a candid, almost documentary-like quality at times.

Film critic Nathan Rabin wrote in 2022:

The Big Knife is a film of excess. It's over-written, over-acted, overwrought and over-emotional. It's full of bombast and shouting and actorly monologues but the film has the courage of its convictions. It's unrelenting and unsparing in its depiction of the film industry as a hellscape where the worst of capitalism meets the worst of the arts.

Rotten Tomatoes rates the film 91% based on 11 reviews.

Box office

Aldrich later claimed that although the film cost $400,000 and made over $1 million it lost him money because the distributor took the profits.

Awards

Wins

• Venice Film Festival: Silver Lion, Robert Aldrich; 1955.

Nominations

• Venice Film Festival: Golden Lion, Robert Aldrich; 1955

Home media

The Big Knife was released to DVD by MGM Home Video on April 1, 2003 as a Region 1 widescreen DVD.

It has been shown on the Turner Classic Movies show 'Noir Alley' with Eddie Muller.

See also

• List of American films of 1955

External links

• The Big Knife at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
• The Big Knife at IMDb
• The Big Knife at AllMovie
• The Big Knife at the TCM Movie Database