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“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 MagazineFrom 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.
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Event venue
Arkadin Cinema & Bar, 5228 Gravois Ave, St Louis, MO 63116-2310, United States, Southhampton
Tickets
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