The Big Combo is a 1955 American film noir crime film directed by Joseph H. Lewis and photographed by cinematographer John Alton, with music by David Raksin.

The film stars Cornel Wilde, Richard Conte and Brian Donlevy, as well as Jean Wallace, who was Wilde’s wife at the time. It also included the final screen appearance of actress Helen Walker.

Plot
Police Lt. Leonard Diamond is on a personal crusade to bring down the sadistic gangster Mr. Brown. He is also dangerously obsessed with Brown’s girlfriend, the suicidal Susan Lowell. His main objective as a detective is to uncover what happened to a woman called “Alicia” from the crime boss’s past.

Mr. Brown, his second-in-command McClure and thugs Fante and Mingo kidnap and torture the lieutenant, then pour a bottle of alcohol-based hair tonic down his throat before letting him go. Diamond eventually learns through one of Brown’s past accomplices that Alicia was actually Brown’s wife. The accomplice suspects that Alicia was sent away to Sicily with former mob boss Grazzi, then murdered, tied to the boat’s anchor and permanently submerged. Diamond questions a Swede named Dreyer, who was the skipper of that boat but now operates an antiques store as a front, bankrolled by Brown. Dreyer denies involvement and does not want to disclose anything to Diamond, but is nonetheless murdered by McClure shortly after leaving his shop later that day.

Diamond tries to persuade Susan to leave Brown and admits he might be in love with her. He shows her a photo of Brown, Alicia and Grazzi together on the boat. Susan finally confronts Brown about his wife and is told she is still alive in Sicily, Italy, living with Grazzi.

Brown next orders a hit on Diamond. However, when his gunmen Fante and Mingo go to Diamond’s apartment, they mistakenly shoot and kill Diamond’s burlesque dancer girlfriend Rita instead. Diamond sees an up-to-date photo of Alicia but realizes it wasn’t taken in Sicily (since there’s snow on the ground). This leads Diamond to suspect Brown did not kill Alicia but his boss Grazzi instead. Diamond is able to track Alicia to a sanitarium, where she is staying under another name. He asks for her help.

Meanwhile, Brown’s right-hand man, McClure, wants to take over. He plots with Fante and Mingo to ambush Mr. Brown, but they betray and murder him.

At police headquarters, Brown shows up with a writ of habeas corpus, effectively preventing Alicia testifying against her husband. Brown also takes a big stash of “money” to Fante and Mingo while they are hiding out from the police, but the box turns out to contain a bomb that apparently kills both of them.

Brown shoots Diamond’s partner, Sam, and kidnaps Susan, planning to fly away to safety. However, Mingo survived the assassination attempt by Brown, so he confesses to Diamond that Brown was behind all the murders while sobbing over the body of his cohort. Alicia is able to help Diamond figure out that Brown took Susan to a private airport where he intends to board his getaway plane.

However, Brown’s plane does not show up and the film climaxes in a foggy airplane hangar shootout. Susan shines the fog lamp from Brown’s own car in his eyes, effectively blinding him, so the lieutenant is able to arrest him. The last scene shows the silhouetted figures of Diamond and Susan in the fog, considered to be one of the iconic images of film noir.

Cast
Cornel Wilde as Police Lt. Leonard Diamond
Richard Conte as Mr. Brown
Brian Donlevy as Joe McClure
Jean Wallace as Susan Lowell
Robert Middleton as Police Capt. Peterson
Lee Van Cleef as Fante
Earl Holliman as Mingo
Helen Walker as Alicia Brown
Jay Adler as Sam Hill
John Hoyt as Nils Dreyer
Ted de Corsia as Bettini
Helene Stanton as Rita
Roy Gordon as Audubon
Whit Bissell as Doctor (scenes deleted) (as Whit Bissel)
Steve Michaell as Bennie Smith – Boxer
Baynes Barron as Young Detective
James McCallion as Frank – Technician
Tony Michaels as Photo Technician
Brian O’Hara as Attorney Malloy
Bruce Sharpe Detective
Michael Mark as Fred – Hotel Clerk
Philip Van Zandt as Mr. Jones (scenes deleted)
Donna Drew as Miss Hartleby