The Big Combo

It is surprising that the brilliance of this film has not been adequately recognised by the viewing public or the critics. Probably inspired by the prototypical rogue cop in Fritz Lang's "The Big Heat", this film features the crusade of one man - Lieutenant Diamond (Cornel Wilde in a super performance) to pin down Richard Conte's smooth-tongued gangster. Struggling to keep away the departmental bureaucracy, he battles singlehandedly against organised crime with a devotion to duty bordering on the obsessional ("It's my sworn duty to push too far").

Despite the absence of any big name in the cast, this film presents all the elements that we have come to love about American film noir - great lighting and photography, tight script ("First is first, and second is nobody"), a great storyline, and some superb performances (Susan Lowell as a society girl - the gangster's moll - is ravishing).

Watch this film. It's time it got recognition amongst the greatest films to come out of Hollywood. Ever.