As bracing as a pot of coffee in the face, The Big Heat features a dangerously driven Glenn Ford as an honest police detective whose crusade against crime turns very personal when a car bomb detonates his life, putting him on the trail of sadistic mobster Lee Marvin, whose moll, Gloria Grahame, becomes an unexpected ally. As stark, savage, and cynical as anything Lang made during his German years, and a predecessor to the morally ambiguous and increasingly violent crime dramas of post-studio system Hollywood.