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The Big Knife <\/strong><\/em>(1955)<\/p>\n Director: Robert Aldrich<\/strong><\/p>\n Screenplay: James Poe <\/strong>based on The Big Knife<\/em> by Clifford Odets<\/strong> Stars: Jack Palance, Ida Lupino, Wendell Corey, Jean Hagen, Rod Steiger, Everett Sloane, Wesley Addy, Paul Langton, Nick Dennis, Bill Walker, Shelley Winters, Robert Emhardt, Michael Fox, Strother Martin <\/strong>and Richard Boone\u00a0<\/strong>(narrator)<\/p>\n Tagline: A journey to the dark heart of Hollywood.<\/em><\/p>\n The Plot…<\/strong><\/p>\n Charlie Castle (Palance) is a famous movie star.\u00a0 Charlie has all of the benefits of being on top.\u00a0 He’s rich, has a upscale home, a lovely wife and young son.\u00a0 From all appearances Charlie is on top of the world.<\/p>\n Appearances can be deceiving.<\/p>\n Charlie’s contract is up and he’s being pressured by studio owner, Stanley Hoff (Steiger) to sign a long-term deal.\u00a0 Hoff has the power to make or break stars, and he uses it without discretion.\u00a0 Charlie wants out.\u00a0 Tired of Charlie’s career coming before his family, his wife Marion (Lupino) says she will leave him if he re-signs.<\/p>\n But Charlie has a dark secret that would cost him everything if it came out… and Stanley Hoff will tell the world if Charlie doesn’t sign the contract today.<\/p>\n Thoughts (beware of spoilers)\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n Because of the unflattering look at Hollywood several studios turned down the film.\u00a0 Director Robert Aldrich’s company made the movie.\u00a0 After the film’s release Aldrich had trouble getting more directing jobs.\u00a0 He made a couple of films in Europe before returning to the US.<\/p>\n Many thought that Steiger’s character was a take-off of Harry Cohen (Columbia’s studio head).\u00a0 Cohen reportedly thought so as well and was offended.\u00a0 According to director Aldrich, Steiger’s character had characteristics from Cohen as well as other studio heads.\u00a0 Examples include: crying to get a star to sign (Louis B. Mayer) and wearing a hearing aide (Howard Hughes).<\/p>\n Clifford Odets play The Big Knife<\/em> ran for over 100 performances, was directed by Lee Strasberg, and starred John Garfield as Charles Castle.\u00a0 Garfield was scheduled to star, but died before the film was made.\u00a0 Shelley Winters dedicated her performance to John Garfield.<\/p>\n The Big Knife <\/strong><\/em>(1955) rates 4 of 5 stars.<\/span><\/p>\n The Big Knife (1955) Director: Robert Aldrich Screenplay: James Poe based on The Big Knife by Clifford Odets Stars: Jack<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":912,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,54,65,74],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-celebs","category-movies","category-trivia","category-z-view"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/912"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35733"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35733\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35734,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35733\/revisions\/35734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craigzablo.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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