The Big Heat

By no means the first thriller about small town corruption (though it was a theme !hen-absent from movies in a while), but one of the best, as a cop (Glenn Ford), told to lie low, does the opposite and uncovers a squalid underworld, ruled by a sadistic mobster (Alexander Scourby) and his side-kick Lee Marvin. The violence, then considered excessive, now seems merely realistic. Perhaps the finest film of the director's late career. (National Film Theatre, Londen)