“Shadows and lies are the stars of The Big Combo, a spellbinding black-and-white chiaroscuro with the segmented texture of a spider’s web” – Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine

From the aching strains of its jazzy opening theme to a gunfight climax bathed in fog, Jospeh H. Lewis’s The Big Combo delivers everything you want from a noir and more. Cornel Wilde stars as Lt. Diamond, who claws his way through a city of shadows on his obsessive quest to put away gangster kingpin Mr. Brown (Richard Conte), whose silky smooth voice and icy cold cruelty chills the city’s back alleys and corridors. John Alton’s rich, shadowy B&W cinematography envelops the film’s violent underworld in an atmosphere of poetic mystery. Spotlights blind, silhouettes melt into fog, and smoke chokes the air, as anyone who gets in Mr. Brown’s way meets a brutal fate—including a musical torture scene that inspired Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs.

This film is screening as part of Arkadin’s NOIRVEMBER series, $3 Sunday matinees of film noir classics that spotlight the broken dreams and bitter paranoia of this distinctly American genre.

Arkadin does not generally provide advisories about subject matter or potentially triggering content in films, as sensitivities vary from person to person. However, we encourage researching titles to determine if a screening may contain content that could be upsetting to you. Please feel free to contact us for guidance on specific films. Information about content can also be found on Common Sense Media, IMDB and DoesTheDogDie.com, as well as through general internet searches.