1952 Directed by Phil Karlson
A down-on-his-luck ex-GI finds himself framed for an armored car robbery. When he's finally released for lack of evidence--after having been beaten up and tortured by the police--he sets out to discover who set him up, and why. The trail leads him into Mexico and a web of hired killers and corrupt cops.
John Payne Coleen Gray Preston Foster Neville Brand Lee Van Cleef Jack Elam Dona Drake Mario Siletti Howard Negley Carleton Young Don Orlando Ted Ryan Orlando Beltran Ray Bennett Chet Brandenburg Barry Brooks Charles Cane Edward Coch James Conaty Tom Dillon George Dockstader Paul Dubov Paul Fierro Eddie Foster Dick Gordon Tom Greenway William Haade Al Hill Harry Hines Show All…
The Secret Four, Канзас Сити: Поверително, Der vierte Mann, Ο 4ος άνθρωπος, El cuarto hombre, Le Quatrième Homme, Egymillió dolláros zsákmány, Il quarto uomo, 캔자스 시티 컨피덴셜, Os Quatro Desconhecidos, Os 4 Desconhecidos, Тайны Канзас-Сити, 4 maskerade män, Kansas Sırları, 边城蒙面侠
USANR
Chicago, Illinois
USA
FranceU
Brazil12
Brazil
France
USA
“Kansas City Confidential” flips the heist film on its head, and sends the criminals off to solve the mystery of their own job.
With contemporary influences as direct as the narratively twinning “Reservoir Dogs,” to the likes of “Rififi” and “Oceans 11,” which see the schemers plotted against one another’s vices, “Kansas City” sits on the map as a cultural icon in all of noir and con artist cinema.
While it visually works within the language of the genre, it takes only a momentary deconstruction to realize that “Kansas City” is subverting standards as fast as it tosses them out. The realization might only hit you hours after; that the crime at the crux of the picture takes up only…
An absolutely knockout noir, with burly criminal mastermind Preston Foster hiring three career crooks (Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef and Neville Brand) to pull off the perfect crime, snatching $1.2m from a Kansas bank. When they escape in a flower van, florist's driver John Payne is picked up by the cops, who start to sweat and swat him...
Startlingly directed by unheralded genre giant Phil Karlson, this one's packed with breakneck twists, and has fantastic performances across the board. Elam and Van Cleef are particularly good as giant-featured gunmen for whom the tables are forever being flipped, while Payne excels in an unusually embittered role.
Though the film has none of Out of the Past's dark poetry, it has concessions…
Wow! This was unbelievable! After sitting on Karlson for about a year, this still managed to go way beyond expectations. It's explosive: the bounding, seemingly leaping camera, the sometimes abstract compositions, the extreme violence. Karlsons cutting of suspense sequences is astonishing; We begin seeing John Payne approaching a door in a dolly-shot, then Lee Van Cleef preparing in the room, getting ready for action, mostly in master, letting us forget that it is a suspense sequence, before returning back to that initial dolly-shot! It's a formally expansive work, the movie always seems to lilt, constantly rising and falling, while angles are always up close, shots always in our faces and also theirs.
It's a really clever play on the innocent…
Kansas City Confidential is an excellent hard boiled crime thriller that focuses on "the perfect crime" by way of a character drama. Apparently Quentin Tarantino lists this film as one of the influences for Reservoir Dogs and its not hard to see why. The film begins with an intricately planned heist that involves all participants wearing a mask for anonymity from each other. The heist goes off without a hitch - with the only loose end being the ex-convict who finds himself wrongly framed for the job and now unable to find work. The film works through employing a number of genre tropes - we have the heist set up, a bunch of criminals out for themselves and a man…
Packed with ugly, sweaty faces and voices that hit the ear like sandpaper. God Karlson.
Spoilers ahead.
Exploring the aftermath of a meticulously planned 'perfect crime' in which four thieves (well, three thieves and a Mr. Big, who is too fancy to get his hands dirty with things like robbing, but who still gets a full cut for his big brains) steal over $1M, Kansas City Confidential takes the unusual step of placing the crime's patsy at its center.
An ex-con, Joe Rolfe (John Payne) is angry but unbreakable when he's interrogated by police about his alleged role in the crime, which took place using a getaway car detailed to match his work vehicle. The scenes in which Rolfe deals with the police are horrific, because "police work" is nothing more than "beat the shit…
A rather unusual and definitely trailblazing noir with steady pacing and an infallible storyline. The extreme close-ups and the continuity shots during the neat bare-knuckled fight scenes were especially well utilized. Cinematographer George Diskant deserves all the praise: his camera, constantly roaming and shifting around, never fixed in one place, brought the excitement to a whole new level. Also, crowning the year as cinematographer of two movies like The Narrow Margin and Kansas City Confidential (and On Dangerous Ground a year before those!) is no small feat.
"I need the sweatiest Noir you have."
(watches KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL)
"No, that's too sweaty."
Listen to me discuss Phil Karlson on an episode of The Important Cinema Club Podcast
Your past as an abyss, constantly pulling at you, dragging you down; cops and criminals alike give in to this gravitational duress, but one ex-con patsy resists it, tries to rise up by doing the right thing
Undeniably the world of film noir, but unique in that it's one of the most hopeful entries I've seen in a while
Excuse me while I pick my jaw off of the floor. It was knocked off by a pair of flying fists. Four pairs of fists, to be exact - fists belonging to John Payne, Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef, and Neville Brand. Don't worry, though. I really enjoyed the experience. I don't know what that says about me. Oh well.
The fists start flying when a forced-into-retirement cop (Preston Foster) lures three con men (Elam, Van Cleef, and Brand) into a million dollar bank heist scheme. To keep anyone from turning into a stoolie, Foster stipulates that they all wear masks to keep their identities a secret even from each other. Despite the distrust, the heist goes off without a…
What's waiting for you, Harris? The chair, the gas chamber, or just a rope?
-Tim Foster
A great film noir that probably had a hand in inspiring Reservoir Dogs. It’s the planning of the heist that I’m referring too, as the rest of the film is pure near perfect noir pulp. What prevents it from being perfect is what seems to be a last minute addition of a romantic interest in the third act of the film.
Colleen Gray, who would be memorable in The Killing, plays the romantic lead. A character that is purely good in a film where every character is a different shade of gray. Her character just seems so boring compared to the rest of the…
Prisoner's Dilemma: The Movie!
You could barely ask for a better trio of sweaty ne'er do wells than Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam, and Neville Brand. The gang in this has great masks, which frankly, goes a long way for me. Good twists and turns in the plot in this one, but geez does the ending seem totally unearned.
