Kansas City Confidential

Rating:
Summary: Classic Noir...
Review: A great, great noir film starring John Payne(HELL'S ISLAND, 99 RIVER STREET). But the cast doesn't stop there! It also stars Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam and Neville Brand. This really is a gritty little crime caper flick. If you watch it, it will be difficult to ignore how the film might have influenced a guy like Quentin Tarantino in the conception of RESERVOIR DOGS. Great dvd!

Rating:
Summary: My first DVD!
Review: After finally succumbing to the allure of a DVD player, I bought this film noir gem for a song. I had heard about it for years but
could never find it on VHS. A perfect bank robbery netting $1.2 million goes astray when framed patsy John Payne goes after the real criminals. He discovers that the crooks were masked from one another and only the mysterious "Mr. Big" knows who they are and where the money is. Can John Payne break up the perfect crime and end up with Colleen Gray?
(What do you think?)

Rating:
Summary: Solid '50s noir
Review: Director Phil Karlson (whose best-known work is probably the 1972 crime drama "Walking Tall")switched from being a decent director of routine films to one of the most innovative and influential crime film directors of them all with a remarkable series of tough,distinctive thrillers beginning with this one in 1952 and going on to include "99 River Street" in 1953, "The Phenix City Story" in 1955, and "The Brothers Rico" in 1957. "Kansas City Confidential" follows the pulling off of a well-planned and executed robbery that's been carefully thought out by an embittered ex-police officer. He plans it so that Joe Rolfe(played by John Payne) will be framed for the robbery. Rolfe is a WWII veteran who has some problems with the law in his past. After being grilled and ultimately (and grudgingly) released by the police,he pursues the thieves to Mexico,looking for revenge. Payne is fine in a sharp turnaround from the lightweight roles he usually played in the 1940s. Preston Foster is also good as the mastermind of the robbery, as is Coleen Gray as his daughter, a bright,decent young woman. The best performances however,are those given by three of the greatest heavies in movie history: Jack Elam,Neville Brand,and Lee Van Cleef,in the roles of the thieves who pull off the robbery. Elam,who is first seen sweating heavily and rifling through an overflowing ashtray in a dingy hotel room,looking for a cigarette butt with a few puffs left on it,is particularly good, but Brand and Van Cleef ooze menace and bad blood in just about every scene they're in. The film is filled with close-ups,tough,terse dialogue, and brutal (at least for its time) violence. The payoff of the film goes kind of soft, after what's come before, but this is still a first-rate example of cold,tough 1950s film noir,from a real master of the genre.

Rating:
Summary: Good one!
Review: Excellent noir. The cinematography is classic noir, with assured useage of shadow and light, foreground and background and tight close-ups. The action is gritty and realistic, with the slapping around looking positively brutal and much more frightening than the current movie industry standard of blood splattered gore fests. Mr Elam, in fact, was probably cast because of how pathetic he looked being beaten up! The story revolves around two set-ups, one intended and one a secondary effect. "This is America?" my husband queried as our innocent hero is "worked over" in the Kansas City jailhouse. The action moves south to Mexico where our hero pursues the true criminals in order to clear his name. The extent of the crime and the reasons for it as well as the set up are all eventually revealed in the small Mexican fishing village that is too small to hold all these hot tempered men. The pace slows down noticeably in the village, the only major flaw in this otherwise crackerjack film noir which must have influenced every current young urban crime-film director. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Think Tarantino's ideas are original? Watch this.
Review: Great little noir that proves films made 50 years ago can have an impact. Well-acted by a good cast and sharply-scripted, KCC involves a masterful bank heist and an innocent fall guy who seeks out the masked robbers, all the way to their intricately-planned rendezvous in a sleepy Mexican town. Reservoir Dogs only thinks it's this good.

The transfer is not as poor as you may think, and they're practically giving it away. Try it, you'll like it.

Rating:
Summary: Good one!
Review: No need to comment on the story, it is engrossing. For a Gotham/Alpha release the sound and image quality is good, suprisingly good. Don't misunderstand, there is no crispness here. It's probably worth the money to purchase the Image version if the quality is better. There are some extras on Image version and none on the Gotham/Alpha version.

Rating:
Summary: ALPHA/GOTHAM QUALITY?
Review: No need to comment on the story, it is engrossing. For a Gotham/Alpha release the sound and image quality is good, suprisingly good. Don't misunderstand, there is no crispness here. It's probably worth the money to purchase the Image version if the quality is better. There are some extras on Image version and none on the Gotham/Alpha version.

Rating:
Summary: Kansas City Confidential
Review: Nobody played the accused innocent any better than John Payne. Tall and good looking, Payne exuded a quiet moral strength combined with an ability and willingness to mess it up with the bad boys whenever the situation dictated. An Eagle Scout with a merit badge in bar brawling.
KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL is a smart little crime drama that features Payne as the unluckiest of flower delivery drivers in motion picture history. It seems that Mr. Big, bad guy Preston Foster, has been meticulously plotting a bank heist, and an integral part of his plan involves using an exact duplicate of Payne's truck as the getaway vehicle. Nothing personal, John. The bad guys don't even know you.
Mr. Big has recruited three thugs (Jack Elam, Lee van Cleef, and Neville Brand) to pull off the heist, taking the precaution of insisting they always wear masks while in each other's presence. That way, if things go wrong, nobody will know who his accomplices are. For a good part of this movie the only one who has anything going wrong is poor John Payne, who is promptly fingered as one of the bank robbers. In this movie, Payne seemingly can't walk into a room without getting pounded by some burly cop or surly con.
KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL is briskly paced and offers enough small surprises to keep us on our toes. Phil Karlson was a great director, under-appreciated in his time and relegated almost exclusively to B-movie duties. KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL is one of his best. Strongly recommended.


Rating:
Summary: Gripping story, good acting, a solid film noir
Review: The DVD version (Gemstone Entertainment 40315) I purchased of this film-noir flick (which I've never seen before) caught my eye because it featured a large close-up of Lee Van Cleef's mug, giving the beady-eyed villian top-billing.

Well, it's a trick that generic companies use to lure customers -- it worked on me. Van Cleef actually has fifth billing, but nonetheless has a substantial supporting role as one of the heavies.

This movie actually stars John Payne, a B-actor of considerable talents, whom I've only seen in one other movie, "Miracle On 34th Street" (he played the lawyer defending Edmund Gwynn's Santa Claus).

Payne portrays Joe, an ex-con who inadvertently gets framed for a bank heist. The plot is more Hitchcock than film noir, as it revolves around Payne dashing off to Mexico to clear his name and nail the baddies.

The cast is very solid: Jack Elam plays Pete, the man Joe gets mistaken for. Yet, even though both men's destinies collide, Pete is the real patsy -- it is his weakness that leads to his death, while fall guy Joe plays it cool and ultimately triumphs.

Preston Foster, Van Cleef and Neville Brand round out the cast, and provide a good mix of personalities to play off Payne. The only bit of unfortunate casting (as well as scripting) is Coleen Gray as Payne's love interest, who tries to get him out of the jam. It's clear that her character was written purely as a foil, to move the plot along. This, too, is more Hitchcockian than film-noir, but I would have preferred a cool dame like Ruth Roman or Peggy Knudsen in that role.

I can't exactly say it's one of the movie's flaws, but there's no "femme fatale"; Payne draws nearer to his demise solely through the actions of evil men, not wicked temptresses.

For a B-movie, this flick has a lot of good production values: The cinematography, pacing, fight scenes and music are all excellent, though hardly quintessential of the genre. For the best examples of film noir, check out Jacques Tourneur's "Out of the Past," Billy Wilder's "Double Indemnity," Howard Hawks' "The Big Sleep," John Huston's "The Maltese Falcon," Orson Welles' "The Lady from Shanghai" and Raoul Walsh's "White Heat."

Nonetheless, this movie easily has earned its place alongside such noir classics as "Murder, My Sweet," "Johnny Stool Pidgeon," "Detour" and "One Lonely Night."