The Big Heat (1953)

 I had a couple of days off unexpectedly because of the snowstorm so I watched this with my friends.  It's one of my absolute favorite noirs.  Content warning:  violence against women

Philly cop Dave Bannion (Glenn Ford) is investigating the suicide of another policeman, Tom Duncan, which seems pretty cut-and-dry until Duncan's mistress (Dorothy Green) comes forward to contradict the grieving widow's (Jeanette Nolan) assertion that Duncan was in poor health.  Then the mistress ends up dead and Bannion is warned not to keep pursuing the matter.  Obviously, now he can't let it go and decides to go straight to the top and confront mob boss Mike Lagana (Alexander Scourby).  

This is a very straightforward noir that doesn't spend a lot of time on how Bannion solves the case.  He mostly just yells at people until someone tries to kill him.  This is apparently good police work.  But who cares?  The important people in this movie are the women.  Ice-cold Bertha Duncan.  World-weary Lucy Chapman.  Katie Bannion, the paragon of housewife-ly virtue.  And top of them all, bored, callous, gun moll with a heart of gold Debby Marsh, played by the criminally underrated Gloria Grahame.  

What's great about this movie is how it subverts the tropes that were already well-established by giving Debby the emotional impetus, instead of Bannion.  **SPOILERS FOLLOW** Bannion gets a little when he confronts Katie's killer, but Debby's reaction to her disfigurement and subsequent path of revenge, leading ultimately to her blowing the lid off the whole criminal conspiracy maker her a much bigger catalyst to the plot.  **END SPOILERS**  Even though she does ultimately fall prey to the Hays Code-imposed morality, she has much more agency than other femmes fatales of the era.

The Big Heat is one of the most highly regarded noirs by critics, so you don't have to just take my word for it.  It is well worth your time.  It's unfortunately not available for streaming but I already owned it so I just watched my copy.

As a side note, apparently the studio originally wanted Marilyn Monroe for the part of Debby Marsh, which would have been fascinating.