Rent The Big Combo (1955)

Noir Classic. - The Big Combo review by Steve

 The Big Combo is a face off between detective Leonard Diamond (Cornel Wilde) and sociopathic mob boss 'Mr Brown' (Richard Conte).  Brown defines high achievers as those most able to hate, as they will destroy others to reach their goals.  Which also applies to Diamond, who will use any means to destroy his bête noire .  

He will even sacrifice Brown's traumatised moll (Jean Wallace) who Diamond has fallen in love with. She is a cultivated, educated woman in an environment where those accomplishments have no value. The detective badly uses his murdered, stripper girlfriend too: 'I treated her like a pair of gloves. If I was cold, I called her up'.

Brown's deputy (Brian Donlevy) is a traumatised punch bag who can't take it anymore. Or dish it out. Empathy is his tragic flaw. His demise, shot in silence when Conte removes Donlevy's hearing aid is classic noir: 'I'm gonna give you a break. I'm gonna fix it, so you don't hear the bullets'.  

The Big Combo is expressionist art, photographed by noir legend John Alton. There is a tough, ominous screenplay from Philip Yordan which sometimes tender but usually brutal. In 1955, censorship was being eased. The murders are violent and onscreen, and there's a pair of obviously gay hitmen. It's one of the great gangster noirs.