Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

untold storied of ordinary men and women acting with extraordinary courage. This
picture concerns one of those men. 100
The display of modern technologies evident in the film, inflated with expressionist
stylistic touches and the director’s own natural penchant for the surreal, are some of the
elements which will be found in The Big Combo, as I explain next. Like The Big Combo,
the film is also imbued with sexual allusions, offering an unlikely but potent fusion of
fiscal and sexual interest. On the whole, this film dramatises the pursuit of the US Treasury
Department of mobster Al Capone for income tax invasion. Glenn Ford plays Frank
Warren as both an investigative accountant and a hard-boiled detective, who eventually
cracks the Syndicate. 101
In Lewis’s noir filmography there is no doubt that his visual style is what stands out
and what established his reputation, along with the distinguished camerawork. For this
reason, studio editors would nickname him “Wagon-Wheel Joe”, from the fact that he
directed inexpensive Westerns and his ability to use wagon-wheels (he would often frame
shots through the spokes of a wheel) for constructing fascinating visual compositions
within the frame. His films (his noirs in particular) are usually very rich atmospherically
with lots of suspense which creates both character tension but also adds psychological and
sociological depth to his twisted love stories.
Earlier in 1945, Lewis had directed the first of a series of noir films with My Name
Is Julia Ross, a low-budget imitation of Hitchcock’s Rebecca, released by Columbia that
year. In fact, it marks a long association with Columbia and photographer Burnett Guffey
and is notable for the opening scene of Julia (Nina Foch) drenched from the rain with her
shadow thrown onto the wall of an employment agency. Visually, the Gothic atmosphere
of the film with its enormous mansion, a black cat which is always around, an ill-omened
staircase, a secret passage, and Julia’s room as a prison (fig. 108) all contribute to the
film’s eeriness and emphasise Julia’s state of mind, and tend to keep the spectator just as
unbalanced or disoriented as the heroine herself.
100
See p. 78 about The Public Enemy and the disclaimer at the end of the film.
101
Based on an article called “The Undercover Man: Trapped Capone” by Frank J. Wilson, serialised in
Collier’s in 1947.
369