Classic Film Noir Review

The Big Combo:
When Brown finds out that Diamond is on the case and means to put him behind bars, he boasts: Joe, tell the man I'm gonna break him so fast, he won't have time to change his pants. Tell him the next time I see him, he'll be in the lobby of the hotel, crying like a baby and asking for a ten dollar loan. Tell him that. And tell him I don't break my word.

Mr. Brown taunts Diamond every step of the way and makes Diamond more obsessed. Brown says: I'm gonna break him so fast he won't have time to change his pants.

Brown's right-hand man, the over the hill and hard of hearing Joe McClure (Brian Donlevy), plots with gangsters (and possibly lovers) Fante (Lee Van Cleef) and Mingo (Earl Holliman) to overthrow Mr. Brown, but he ends up getting killed himself. McClure's hearing aid, in an earlier scene, is used to torture detective Diamond with amplified sound (so as not to leave marks) in a display of violence rare for its time.

Meanwhile, Diamond finds a witness that could finally nail the elusive gangster, Mr. Brown's wife--a woman who was thought to have died years ago. The film ends dramatically in a classic foggy airplane hangar shootout.

The Blue Angel:
The Blue Angel follows Emmanuel Rath (Emil Jannings) through a transformation from esteemed educator at the local Gymnasium (college preparatory high school) to a destitute vagrant in pre-World War I Germany. Rath’s descent begins when he punishes several of his students for circulating photographs of the beautiful Lola Lola (Marlene Dietrich) the headliner for the local cabaret, The Blue Angel. Hoping to catch the boys at the club itself, Professor Rath goes to the club later that evening and meets his eventual downfall: the lovely Lola herself.

Consumed with desire and determined to remain at Lola’s side, Rath returns to the night club the following evening (to return a pair of panties that were smuggled into his coat by one of his students) and stays the night with her. The next morning, reeling from his night of passion, Rath arrives late to school to find his classroom in chaos and the principal furious with his behavior.

Rath subsequently resigns his position at the academy to marry Lola, but their happiness is short-lived, as they soon fritter away the teacher's meager savings and Rath is forced to take a position as a clown in Lola’s cabaret troupe to pay the bills. His growing insecurities about Lola’s profession as a “shared woman” eventually reduce him to a mere shell of the man he used to be, consumed by his lust and jealousy. The troupe returns to his hometown, where he is ridiculed and berated by the Blue Angel patrons, the very people he himself used to deride. As Rath performs his last act, he witnesses his wife embrace, and kiss, one of her former lovers, and Rath is enraged to the point of insanity. He attempts to strangle Lola, but is beaten down by the other members of the troupe and locked in a straight jacket.

Later that night, Rath is set free, and makes his way towards his old classroom. Rejected, humiliated, and destitute, he passes away in remorse, clenching the desk from where he once taught.

Detour:

A piano player, Al (Tom Neal), sets off hitchhiking his way to California to be with his fiancee. Along the way, a stranger in a convertible gives him a ride. While driving, Al stops to put the top up during a rainstorm. He discovers that the owner of the car has died in his sleep. Al panics and dumps the body in a gully, takes the stranger's money, clothes, and ID and then drives off in his expensive car. After spending the night in a motel, he picks up another hitchhiker, Vera (Ann Savage) (a femme fatale), who had earlier ridden with the stranger, threatens to turn him in for murdering the stranger unless he gives her all the money. In Hollywood, they rent an apartment and while trying to sell the car, learn from a newspaper that the stranger was about to collect a large inheritance. Vera demands that Al impersonate the stranger, but Al balks at this notion. When the two get drunk in the apartment and begin arguing, a snubbed Vera takes Al up on his earlier dare to call the police, whereupon Al accidentally strangles her with a telephone cord. Al starts hitchhiking east again, but is apprehended by the police near Reno.