Hollywood Hell: The Big Knife (1955)

The Big Knife

1955 Pressbook

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Director Robert Aldrich's 1955 film adaptation of Clifford Odets' play The Big Knife may not have been a triumph, but neither is it a travesty.

The story of Hollywood movie star Charlie Castle, played against type by Jack Palance, who wants out of his studio contract so he can make art and maybe save his marriage, only to run up against Machiavellian studio boss Stanley Shriner Hoff (Rod Steiger), the film still packs a wallop, even if it has problems.

The Big Knife was something of a "hot potato." None of the major studios would touch it, but United Artists ultimately green-lit the picture, without much of a budget and a three-week shooting schedule.

While Palance may not have been the first choice to play the sexy leading man ("He makes the hearts of all the women in America swoon") having a mid-career crisis – Brando, Kirk Douglas, or Burt Lancaster seem more likely candidates for the role – he manages to capture the inner torment of the character, turning in one of the best performances of his career.

Steiger chews the scenery as the nasty studio head, crying one minute and menacing the next ("I'll break you!"). Stanley is often speculated to be based partly on Columbia's Harry Cohn (the menacing) and Louis B. Mayer (the crying). Cohn certainly didn't appreciate it, and blackballed Aldrich while he still had the clout to do so.

Steiger is larger than life here, and imbues the character with passion and intensity, even if he is somewhat over-the-top. It's a fully committed performance, to be sure.

Ida Lupino play's Charlie's long-suffering wife, Marion, who may or may not be leaving the actor for a screenwriter, played by Wesley Addy (Kiss Me Deadly). Everett Sloane has his best part since Citizen Kane, playing Charlie's agent, Nat Danzinger. Wendell Corey is appropriately reptilian as studio hatchet man "Smiley" Coy, a man who has traded his conscience for a fat paycheck. He has a telling exchange with Charlie, asking him, "What do you think of women, kid?"

"Oh, there's room in the world for 'em."

Rounding out the cast are Shelley Winters as Dixie Evans, a doomed lush who has worn grooves into many a casting couch ("I don't care if I do see a snake. I'm sure I'd much rather see a snake than a Hollywood producer."), and Jean Hagen (Singin' in the Rain) as Connie Bliss, the unfaithful wife of Charlie's best pal. The character name is an ironic play on "connubial bliss."

The film's origins as a stage play are readily apparent, as it's more than a bit on the talky side, and mostly played on one main set. Aldrich manages to open things up a bit, but stays true to the text for the most part. Therein lies one of the film's main problems, in that the dialogue is often overheated to the point of curdling, and the melodramatic plot twists are soap-operatic to the extreme.

Still, the movie sucks you in and holds your interest for its 111 minutes, as you become invested in the characters, hoping along with Marion that the big lug will liberate himself from his amoral, sybaritic lifestyle and escape the clutches of Big Bad Hollywood.

The performances are uniformly great, and the actors make the most of the big speeches and profound one-liners. The Big Knife is far from perfect, but is a brave indictment of the movie biz made at a time when the industry was complicit in destroying the careers of dozens of artists. It would make a nice double bill with Vincente Minelli's 1952 film The Bad and the Beautiful or 1992's The Player, Robert Altman's satirical condemnation of the modern-day studio system.

The Big Knife airs on Turner Classic Movies Sunday March 7th at 9:15 p.m. Central Time. If you're watching the Oscars, it would be worth setting the TiVo to record the other side of the Hollywood Dream.

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