Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

RResende By coincidence, I saw Carnage, the new Polansky, shortly after this one. Polansky is a master of small spaces, and moving inside them, and making them part of the dramatic fabric of the film. Space as drama, as metaphor, that's one of the things that made me want to watch films seriously, one of the concepts dearer to me. Robert Aldrich is also a spatial man, a cinematic architect, who also considers and bends the space to take from it wherever he is making out of the material he is shooting. That's specially well done in Kiss me Deadly, a must-see on many levels, but also here in this smaller film. Here we have filmed theater, a one set film. The first problem is that the set is a little bit studio like, and thus is more contrived, giving Aldrich less possibilities for breaking the camera angles and camera moves. Shooting studio was norm, and had advantages, light control, etc, but the downfall proves bad for the kind of visual work that Aldrich liked to try. Well, it's a little bit like Palance's character, trapped inside his golden cage, living profitably at the expense of artistic compromise. But this film is still a worthy experience. The text helps. The inner tensions of Charles Castle, mapped into Jack Palance's own Method approach to acting. All that wrapped about the brilliant vision of Aldrich, supported by the also brilliant Laszlo, a fine cinematographer, we have such great films produced by his camera. This is a one space film, but also a one-man show. It's all about how the environment mirrors how Palance reacts to the world. In that sense this is a kind of noir, in how he only reacts to the adversities, a pawn in an odd world, where he is the odd center. But this is not noir in the wider sense, in the definition that Ted applies to it, which i embrace. Ida Lupino was a clever artist, and she knows enough to support Palance's act. She really helps. We tolerate Steiger's excesses because his character is not too much exposed, but he does go over the top.Anyway, stick to the camera, how it reacts to Palance. The characters movements, what's usually defined as mise-en-scène, is remarkable in how it is reflected always in how the camera moves. This is something that started with Hitchcock's Rope. Sidney Lumet toped this game with his Angry Men, but this is a sensible use of the camera in that respect.My opinion: 3/5, a very pleasant minor work of a very fine director.http://www.7eyes.wordpress.com

Lechuguilla The Hollywood studio system is the villain, personified by studio boss Stanley Hoff (Rod Steiger), in this rather one-note film starring Jack Palance as Charles Castle, a put-upon "movie star" who wants out of the industry. Trouble is, Hoff insists that Charles sign a seven-year contract, and uses a scandal from Castle's past to pressure him to sign.Based on a stage play, the nearly two hour film takes place almost entirely in the living room of Castle's home. As such, the film feels very boxed in, like the characters are in some kind of cage. The camera is quite static. There is nothing interesting about the B&W cinematography. And the amount of dialogue is huge. Indeed, about all that characters do in this film is ... talk. They argue, discuss, complain, threaten, cajole, fume, reminisce, and pontificate. Conflict is entirely verbal, and leads to enormous melodrama.In a movie like this, what counts are the dialogue, casting, and acting. In "The Big Knife", there's too much dialogue, some of which is exposition. But in the second half, the dialogue does create some twists that make the story fairly interesting. Also, the film's title is so trite it sounds like something an eight-year-old would come up with.Rod Steiger is well cast as the villain, and his performance, though over the top, at least entertains. Palance tries hard, but is dreadfully miscast. He does not come across as the leading man that women swoon over, as the dialogue implies. And some of the secondary characters seem unnecessary to the story.There's some background music but not much. Ambient sounds are minimal owing to the interior setting. Costumes are largely irrelevant. Set design is adequate.Whether the viewer finds this film worth watching will depend on his or her affinity to the characters and their drama, and the viewer's preference for, or tolerance of, an enormously talky script and claustrophobic interior setting.

kenjha A Hollywood movie star has a couple of angst-ridden days as he tries to get out of the business. The premise is a little hard to swallow - that it's hell being a movie star - and the execution is a failure on many levels. Based on a play by Odets, the characters don't stop talking for a minute. Aldrich does nothing to eliminate the stagy feel. Pretty much all the action takes place in a living room. The cast is impressive, but they did not get the memo that this is the film version, not the stage one. Palance and Lupino overact, but they are models of restraint compared to Steiger, who is completely over-the-top as a tough studio boss. The score is atrocious.

Steffi_P With the mood of cynicism that permeated the motion picture industry in the years after the war, Hollywood itself sometimes became its own target. With the decline of the studio system and the rise of the independent producer, this was inevitable. Pictures like Sunset Boulevard and The Bad and the Beautiful veiled their attacks, were somewhat playful in their satire, and in any case chose relatively soft victims. The Big Knife however is flagrant and visceral, and put its producer-director Robert Aldrich in the studio bad books for several years to come.Even before The Big Knife went into production, it was hard to get either backers or cast willing to be associated with it. Aldrich eventually took on a supporting actor to play a lead role. But Jack Palance is no second-fiddle player. For his looks and demeanour he was usually cast in tough baddie roles, but here he gets to show his considerable dramatic range. He continually mixes his emotions with exceptional skill – an example being when he snaps angrily at Everett Sloane, showing a hint of vulnerability beneath the surface that is both believable and faintly poignant. This is one of his most impressive performances and he is more than able to carry the picture.The rest of the cast, while similarly not the most glamorous of choices, are a real box of gems nonetheless. Opposite Palance we have Ida Lupino, not an outstanding actress, but always one who radiated great intelligence and dignity. This is by far the best I have I have ever seen from her, and her character's relationship with Palance's is truly touching. Also at his very best is Wendell Corey, a man who tended to play blandly obnoxious types, as he does here, but capable of demonstrating real humanity and depth when it was required. Rod Steiger's performance is, at first glance, a little too surreal and theatrical for a straight drama, but as the picture wears on it seems somehow appropriate for the one absolutely despicable villain to be some kind of bizarre caricature. In any case, he is good fun to watch.The question is begged, if The Big Knife was such a bugbear to the Hollywood establishment, and has such an iconic cast, why has it not been championed by latter-day hipster film geeks? The answer is simple: The Big Knife simply isn't that good. Robert Aldrich was a skilled director of dynamic action flicks, and it's clear he now truly wanted to raise his game and make serious dramatic pictures. But good as his intentions are he's out of his depth. He simply doesn't understand the kind of manipulation needed to make a stage play work on the screen, without it seeming like an endless string of talking, and for all his movement of the camera the narrative still remains dull and static.The production is also scuppered by two seemingly minor factors. First, the set decoration is far too cluttered, and while Aldrich makes some good use of bringing props into view at opportune moments, there is simply too much business there and it upstages the actors. Secondly there is that score by Frank DeVol, which clearly thinks it is modern and innovative, but is frankly annoying, especially since the poor mixing makes it sound as if DeVol's drumming is actually supposed to be taking place on the set, and you expect a guy with a snare to suddenly walk into the frame. When you see how badly it is done here, you can appreciate why the Academy gives awards for such "boring" categories as Art Direction and Sound. The ironic thing is, had a major studio dared to pick up The Big Knife and got a better production team to work on it, they could probably have done a fairly decent job.