It is no small tribute to Clifford Odets that his return to Broadway after eight years of Hollywood peonage should have roused singular expectations. Although these were not exactly fulfilled in "The Big Knife," it was a relief to learn that his talent had not been eviscerated in Southern California, that he retains his capacity for passion, and that he is still a formidable scene-wright. If one could drive a team of horses through some of the gaps in his argument, if his writing was charged w...

Logic might insist that there are three kinds of plays—good, bad, indifferent—but Clifford Odets' "The Big Knife" is none of these. It represents the state of Odets' soul in 1949; it is exasperating and exciting. As a mechanism for conveying a definite theme, idea or emotion, "The Big Knife" is misbegotten….

["The Big Knife"] is an exposure of the movie capital which must take its place beside the exposures of the advertising business written by bright young advertising men and the exposures of the publishing business written by bright young publishers…. Most of us think of Hollywood as a place where mediocrity is overpaid—in money and in fame; but to Mr. Odets it is, instead, a place where genius is prevented from expressing itself. His hero is a fabulously successful young leading ...