The Big Heat

Glenn Ford crusades against Mob-led civic corruption and hunts for vengeance in this classic film noir from director Fritz Lang. Its most famous scene, when moll Gloria Grahame is scalded by hot coffee hurled by crook Lee Marvin, was trimmed by the censors before the movie could be released in Britain with an X certificate. Now fully restored, it's tame by today's standards, but still packs a punch. Ford is excellent as the cop with a mission - his character was based on the investigators who uncovered the bile in US cities during the televised 1950s Estes Kefauver Senate inquiry - and Lang gives the vicious exposé a sleek and glossy surface.