The Big Heat

Fritz Lang’s career in the US was anything other than stable. From 1936 to 1956, he made 22 features there, over half of his oeuvre. Yet he was still never able to reach the level of his early successes in the silent film era and repeatedly had to change production company after just a few films. Fritz Lang thus became one of the few directors working in classical Hollywood cinema who worked at all five major studios. The Columbia production THE BIG HEAT tells the story of a hard-boiled police officer who uncovers a network of corruption and violence following the suicide of a colleague. In Lang’s film noir, the expressive contrasts between light and shadow typical of his works from the 20s give way to a harder, more sober style that corresponds to the mercilessness of the plot.