Coffee and Noir: THE BIG HEAT
every scene of coffee in noir films - 002
You learn a lot about a noir character by their coffee: sugar? cream? more whiskey than caffeine?
As more of my film and TV analysis migrates to Shot Zero, I’m here cataloging coffee-making scenes in noir — two things I love to make and consume, both involving rote and ritual, which I take soul-dark and no sugar, machinations evolving over the years while base ingredients and effects remain the same.
In the first entry of this foolhardy series, Gloria Grahame was making coffee and having a crisis of faith.
In The Big Heat, coffee is more directly involved in her pain.
During a loaded conversation between Grahame’s Debby and her ‘heavy’ boyfriend Vince, there’s a carafe on a hot plate nearby.
Their words foreshadow what’s to come:
“got a hot flash for you”
“Tierney wouldn’t know a gag if it hit him right in the face”
“that’s a real pretty kisser”
As Vince’s anger boils over at 1:21, bubbling noises louden, reminding us what’s been in the background all along . . .
We don’t get a clear look at Debby’s face right after the attack; this makes some practical sense (as even bad burns caused by boiling liquid wouldn’t be immediately striking in black-and-white), but narratively it serves to prolong curiosity and drama.
In the next scene, Debby shows up to Dave’s apartment (the same Dave she and Vince were fighting about) — the direction takes its time revealing her, before she comes in, turns her face from the light, and tells Dave what happened:
“Vince threw hot coffee in my face . . . I’m gonna be scarred.”
The scene isn’t just a key character moment and narrative turning point, it’s dramatic enough to be the image featured on the film’s poster, making it easily one of the most iconic scenes of coffee in noir.
Though too often we forget this scene is not where The Big Heat’s use of siphon coffee ends.
Debby refuses to live as and be remembered as a victim; she plots a revenge which fits Vince’s crime, and uses the same methods which ruin her to exact it.