Kansas City Confidential (1952) is a groundbreaking crime drama film directed by Phil Karlson and starring John Penn, Coleen Gray, and Preston Foster. It is a social media bestseller and tells a thrilling story of revenge, deceit, and retribution.
🎬 About the Film
Title: Kansas City Confidential
Year: 1952
Genre: Crime, Drama, Film-Noir, Mystery, Public Domain Movies
Four thieves are robbing an armored truck that gets away with more than a million dollars of cash. Joe Rolfe (John Payne) is the down-on-his-lucky flower delivery truck driver who is alleged to be involved in this and he is beaten up by the local police. Set free on lack of evidence, Joe, on following the leads to a Mexican resort, resolves to pursue the men who set him up and avenge.
🕵️♂️ Overview
The movie was premiered in the UK under the name The Secret Four. A year later Karlson and Payne collaborated on 99 River Street (1953) another film noir, and a color noir Hell’s Island in 1955.
This movie is now listed in the List of movies in the public domain.
📖 Plot
Four robbers have held up an armored car and escaped with more than a million dollars in cash. Joe Rolfe (John Payne), a disgruntled flower delivery truck driver is suspected to be involved and is roughly interrogated by local police. Freed on the basis of insufficient evidence, Joe, on the basis of the evidence, leads to a Mexican resort to find the men who established him to clear his name and seek revenge.
What he is not aware was that the heist is a retired policeman who is also out for revenge.
🎭 Cast
- John Payne as Joe Rolfe / Peter Harris
- Coleen Gray as Helen Foster aka Pumpkin
- Preston Foster as Tim Foster
- Neville Brand as Boyd Kane
- Lee Van Cleef as Tony Romano
- Jack Elam as Pete Harris aka Johnson
- Dona Drake as Teresa
- Mario Siletti as Tomaso
- Howard Negley as Andrews
- Carleton Young as Martin
- Don Orlando as Diaz
- Ted Ryan as Morelli
🎥 Background
The Kansas City Confidential became the sole movie produced by the short-lived Associated Players and Producers, a production company initiated by the three; Edward Small, Sol Lesser and Sam Briskin.
📰 Reception
The movie was a hit so much that it led to a string of so-called Confidential movies on the part of Edward Small: New York Confidential and Chicago Confidential.
Time Magazine said the film
“Combines a ‘perfect crime’ plot with some fair-to-middling moviemaking…. Obviously, the ‘confidential’ of the title does not refer to the picture’s plot, which is a very model of transparency.”
Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that Kansas City Confidential
“Appears designed—not too adroitly—just to stimulate the curious and the cruel. The screenplay by George Bruce and Harry Essex is an illogical fable of crime, the direction by Phil Karlson is routine, and the leading role is bluntly acted by John Payne. Neville Brand, Jack Elam and Preston Foster do not shine in other roles, except as drab exponents of the violence that suffuses and corrupts this measly film.”
When the film was released in DVD format in 2002, film critic Gary Johnson said,
“This is prime Karlson.It is harsh and mean and unsparing, yet livened with a certain line of optimism about it. Whereas other film noir directors favored the deterministic pessimism of out of the past and Raw Deal (1948), Karlson moderated the veneer cynicism of his movies with a subtle optimism.”
Dave Kehr of The New York Times reviewed MGM Home Entertainment’s 2007 DVD release, calling it
“An immeasurable improvement over what had been available: Kansas City Confidential, an imaginative little noir from 1952, exemplifies the bread-and-butter United Artists 1950s in film…. Mr. Karlson concentrates on the story within the story: The leader of the gang is an embittered former police captain who dons a mask when he interviews prospective collaborators whose names he has drawn from police files…. The recruits are three young actors who would come to define menace in the ’50s and beyond: Neville Brand, Jack Elam and Lee Van Cleef, who here has his best role before For a Few Dollars More. Mr. Karlson’s filmmaking has few of the standard noir flourishes: the dark and brooding shadows, the bizarrely canted camera angles. Instead, he works through gigantic close-ups and an unusually visceral treatment of bare-knuckle violence. With refinements, he would continue to pursue this theme (revenge) and this style through the ’70s: Ben (1972), Walking Tall (1973), and Framed (1975).”
💿 Home Media
Film Chest and HD Cinema Classics released Kansas City Confidential in high definition on Blu-ray and DVD in 2011.
👉 Watch Full Movie on Internet Archive:
🏛️ See Also
- Angel on My Shoulder (1946): Watch Paul Muni Outwit Satan in This Free Noir Fantasy
- Texas Terror (1935): Watch John Wayne’s Gritty Early Western Free Online
- McLintock! (1963) – John Wayne’s Wildly Funny Western Rom-Com
📚 Production Details
- Director: Phil Karlson
- Producer: Edward Small
- Studio: United Artists
- Genre: Film Noir, Crime, Drama, Mystery
- IMDb Rating: 4.63
🏷️ Tags
1952 films, 1950s crime drama films, American films, American crime drama films, Black-and-white films, English-language films, Film noir, Films directed by Phil Karlson, United Artists films, Films set in Mexico, Public Domain Movies
