WilliamJones's Full Review: Kansas City Confidential
I caught Kansas City Confidential (1952) on TCM the other day and all I can say is thank you, Ted Turner: what a terrific film. You're probably unfamiliar with it, but if you're a fan of respected "B" movies, the name Phil Karlson might ring a bell—or at least it should. Along with directing this film, Karlson also directed the little-seen, but highly regarded The Phenix City Story. That one is a Scorsese favorite and made it on Chicago Reader critic Jonathan Rosenbaum's list of the 100 all-time best American films.
Like The Phenix City Story, Kansas City Confidential is a tough Fifties crime melodrama. I've seen a lot of such fare, but Confidential has a harder edge. The punches here seem a little rougher, the slaps more painful. And I like the no-flab, blunt way the story unfolds. There's no padding here; no dumb sub-plots or time-wasting foo foo, just honest, straight-forward storytelling.
John Payne stars as Joe Rolfe (Payne was also in Karlson's 99 River Street but is probably best known for Forties-era musicals and schmaltz like Miracle on 34th Street).
As the movie opens a clever armored car heist is being planned and Rolfe, who is an ex-con, is implicated in a crime he had nothing to do with.
The set-up here is really terrific. Timothy Foster (played by Preston Foster) is a pipe-smoking ex-cop who's been forced into retirement. He's planned one of those "perfect crime" scenarios—the kind that run on a strict timetable, where the perpetrators all wear masks and never see each other.
It's sort of reminiscent of that Steve McQueen film, The Thomas Crown Affair, but grittier, sweatier, less interested in camera tricks and "sexy" direction.
Foster hand picks three ex-cons for the job. The idea is that the job will be "cop proof" and "stool-pigeon proof" because each of the men haven't seen each other. They don't know who they're working with, or for. After the job is over, Foster dispatches all three to different countries, gives them enough money to live decently on until he decides to wire for them. That's when the cash is to be split up, at some undisclosed location.
Each of the three is called to Foster's apartment where, masked, he explains the job. The first one to be interviewed is Pete Harris (well played by Jack Elam). We know he's a loser when we first see him pawing through his ashtray looking for a butt that can still be smoked. He's a two-bit player, jumpy and quick to pull a gun. Foster slaps him around really good for that ("I oughta ram it down your throat").
Next is Tony Romano (Lee Van Cleef), a bow-tie wearing, girl chaser who's a "three-time loser." Foster explains that he's looking at life with no possibility of parole under the habitual criminal act.
And lastly there's Boyd Kane (Neville Brand), a gum-chewing cop-killer ("I don't like heroes") eager to make a big score.
They're each looking at a $300,000 slice of pie and each, albeit reluctantly, goes for it. And the job is pulled off without a hitch. It goes down like clockwork and Joe Rolfe is the patsy in the identical florist delivery vehicle. He gets picked up and they make a clean getaway.
Rolfe loses his delivery driver job and is thrown in jail, but the cops let him go when they find the other identical car abandoned ("These things happen," he's told). "Thanks for nothin'," he angrily sneers, "Maybe you didn't hear what I said, I said for nothin'!"
Unable to get a job and looking to clear himself, the veteran who received both the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart seeks out the real guys. The name Pete Harris comes up because he's known to have beat it to Tijuana. Rolfe is told to look for a guy with a weird eye (Elam lost his left eye in a childhood fight) and Harris is quickly spotted at a Tijuana crap game. There's some wonderful, smoky atmosphere here as the crap dealer can be heard—more than once—telling the players "you can't go wrong with the Big 6 and the Big 8" (which is one of, if not the worst bet on the crap table).
I won't give away much more, we're only maybe 30 minutes into the film at this point, because it's fun to see how the story plays out. I've seen a lot of these types of movies and this one doesn't disappoint, this one's a favorite.
Really the only negative is the last minute (literally) when the movie goes soft and mushy. It's a flaw and I'm not ignoring it, but up to that point Kansas City Confidential is the real deal: a modest film that ranks right up there with some of the finest in this genre.
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