Sophienoire — 2 years ago(December 26, 2023 12:41 AM)

The Big Knife
(Robert Aldrich, 1955) 8/10 (rewatch)
This is first-rate all the way. Palance plays pretty boy movie star Charlie Castle, who has some skeletons. Besides the fact that he sold his idealist soul to make crap movies for a studio that makes him rich, he also allowed his publicist and the studio to cover up the fact that he was behind the wheel of a drunken hit and run accident that killed a child (the publicist, who worships Castle, took the rap and did the time).
The play, er film, is filled with chewy moral choices. For instance, Castle is threatened with the loss of his wife (brilliantly played by Ida Lupino) because of his affairs - also, she doesn't initially know the full story of the accident. Does he reveal all to her and risk losing his family? She is dead set against his re-signing with his studio, but studio head (Steiger at his most outsized and oiliest, by turns) and his flack (Wendell Corey) have him by the balls, since they helped cover up his accident. Will he re-sign? A talentless ingenue (Shelley Winters, in yet one more of her wonderful turns as a shat-upon bombshell) was also bought off by the studio with a contract because she was in the car - now she's threatening to drunkenly spill the beans. The studio flack is angling to kill her. Will Castle cooperate?
This is immensely talky and yet never palls, in part because of the poetry of the script. And frankly, Palance is a revelation in the role. He was always a good actor, but his range in this role is enormous. He looks and sounds like a tough guy but even though he is a head taller than everyone, every last person in the film knows he's a pussy. A gossip reporter calls him 'child'; his agent calls him 'darling'; the flack calls him 'kitty' - never before (or probably since) was a Palance character on screen so infantilised and feminised. He rolls with it, however: his character is, as a writer friend says, 'half an idealist'. He is a tortured, anguished soul from beginning to end and he sweats blood throughout. Just a great performance.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047880/reference
https://letterboxd.com/film/the-big-knife
https://mubi.com/en/de/films/the-big-knife
the sound of your racing heart