What about Mingo and Fante? I can't believe they got their scenes past Joe Breen. I really enjoy Lee Van Cleef,the pride of Somerville, New Jersey.

Breen retired the year before The Big Combo was released, but that's neither here nor there. Tell me which scenes or what dialogue you are thinking would have caused a problem with the film getting a certificate.

It's true that the characters are suggested to be homosexual partners, but as I recall, there as nothing overt about it in the film, and nothing which would not have passed the censors who were reading the shooting script. In the 1942 proto-noir version of Hammett's The Glass Key, there were two similar characters portayed- Actor William Bendix and I can't think of the other actor, but the relationship of those two characters was similar, but not to the same degree as Mingo and Fante. It seems to me that the PCA censors reviewing the shooting script would have thought nothing about these characters other than being two henchman who were close friends, one weak (Holliman) and one strong (van Cleef). Then again, it's been a while since I viewed the film, so...