Brothers Rico (1957)

Posted on November 12, 2022 by 4 Star Films

I’ll say it again, but Richard Conte is one of the unsung heroes of film noir. He could play ominous villains (Big Combo) or charismatic everymen caught in the pincers of fate (Call Northside 777). But the most important piece is that we buy him in either, whether he’s earnest or simply hard to take our eyes off of.

Digging around in his backstory, it’s telling that he was actually discovered by two fairly auspicious figures in the film and stage community: Elia Kazan and John Garfield. I wouldn’t have immediately drawn the line between them. To my knowledge, they rarely collaborated, and yet Conte does offer something robust and genuine in the majority of his roles. Like a Richard Widmark or a Robert Ryan, he doesn’t get enough acknowledgment, and the dark genre would feel slighter without him.

In The Brothers Rico, he and Dianne Foster are surprisingly frank, and they have a playful rapport between kisses, shaving kits, and showers. It’s all telling character work to set up a more rudimentary story.

It’s difficult to imagine any business more innocuous than running a laundry, but then again, that’s the point because Rico’s somehow connected with a different kind of business: something hot. Although he gave it up long ago with a past that is never fully disclosed, his two brothers are still knee-deep in it.

The film conjures up what can best be described as the fatalistic throes of doom coming back into his life. This growing pull somehow signals the undeniable undercurrents of noir. He gets a clandestine visit from a frightened Gino and learns his other brother Johnny is wanted in the underworld. He’s married a principled woman, and the mobsters are afraid she’ll make him talk. We see the worlds colliding, one engulfing the other, and eating it up.

Eddie’s own marriage is strained as is their dream of adopting a child. Because an old family friend, the kingpin Kublik (Larry Gates), calls on Eddie to search for his missing brother. He needs to straighten the boy out for his own protection. He’s sincere and they have a history. They’re like family. Thusly, Eddie is pulled back into the world.

It deals in terms of family, business, rivals, and all the codes we’ve become familiar with in movies forming the traditions of The Godfather and even an earlier Conte picture like House of Strangers. The family comes first and religion maintains such a crucial moral grip on people and how they make sense of guilt and retribution.

Eddie quickly becomes the seeker hero questioning folks, looking for leads, and going across country to track down Johnny. It’s a bit too convenient how the old world comes out of the woodwork to meet him bearing pretty girls in New York or boasting about gambling in Phoenix, but the point is made.

Finally, he finds his brother (James Daren) in an isolated town, far away from the prying eyes of the urban jungle and salacious gambling parlors. He’s contented himself with a simpler, purer life. Their meeting is inevitable, but it also comes to represent the divergent paths young Johnny wants to take.

It’s curious how Conte who is forever cast as the hero in another’s eyes becomes almost like a specter and executioner himself, representing everything he’s trying to negate. Kathryn Grant has even less to do than in Phenix City Story, but the way she tears across the set beside herself with anguish serves a tangible purpose.

In all his good faith, Eddie has signaled the end for his brother. And even as he finally shows up at his destination, things suddenly seem more tenuous. Although we know what Kubik is capable of, Conte almost makes us believe that some semblance of honor and integrity still exists in the world. And yet it grows more and more suspect.

When he finally reaches Johnny, it’s like the motor of the movie is gone. The story drags until it finds a new focal point. It recognizes the renewed tension in the moment: Eddie is made to talk with Johnny over the phone knowing full well what is going to happen. His little brother is forced to reckon with the welcoming committee that’s waiting for him. And then the picture can only go one place, with Conte on the run like his brothers before him.

The climax is the film at its most mediocre, overblown, and disposable. In a matter of seconds, it brushes off all of the strenuous work of the picture, settling on histrionics over a clearcut actionable ending. It doesn’t even give us the pleasure of one of Phil Karlson’s patented fistfights.

The resulting denouement is one of those overly twee numbers no doubt forced upon the production by the censors. Because as Mr. and Mrs. Rico, that couple we came to appreciate in the opening moments, finally show up at the orphanage to claim their child, there’s something uneasy about the whole scenario. It feels false and disingenuous given what we have experienced already.

Noir sentiments like these can never be so easily smoothed over. It’s almost sickening to think something so saccharine even deserves to be in the same picture. Particularly because it doesn’t seem to be earned. In the end, there are so many shortcuts and liberties taken and while the groundwork is in place, including character dynamics, and the like, Brothers Rico fails to have a viable payoff.

Regardless, there is much to recommend. I’m fond of both Richard Conte and Dianne Baker. They had varying degrees of career success, but have much to offer the movie. For Phil Karlson aficionados, it’s worth consideration.

3.5/5 Stars.

Phenix City Story (1955)

Posted on November 10, 2022 by 4 Star Films

“From the ashes of Phenix City has risen the symbol of democracy at work. The power of the ballot will always be the voice of the American People.”

The cut of the film I watched had a rather unique opening prologue complete with interviews by esteemed reporter Clete Roberts (You might remember him from MASH’s Interview episode), and he supplies an instant ethos and credibility to the proceedings.

Faux-newsreel segments have actually been dropped in lieu of actual documentary as he stands on the steps of one of the city’s civic buildings. He takes a moment to talk with a couple notable players including the journalist who broke the story — Ed Strickland — as well as a lifelong resident, Hugh Bentley, who had his home dynamited.

Of course, if we didn’t know any better and we didn’t know these men or see their faces, we might guess this was all for the cause of civil rights. That’s not actually the case. The Phenix City Story is a tale of the criminal syndicate that controlled the city, providing much of its commerce, but also employing rampant coercion tactics.

It’s evident from the first images of Phil Karlson’s actual film, there is an instant dichotomy being created and the two layers of the society. There is the world belonging to the simple, hard-working, God-fearing folks and then the swindlers, gamblers, and generally corrupt subset of society.

Karlson introduces the latter with a knowing visual panache backed by a bluesy dance number. The saucy come-hither floorshow is the epitome of 14th street, and it beckons all men like a greedy seductress looking to bury them. It’s Sin City U.S.A.

What becomes plainly apparent is how evil can come in all shapes and sizes. Rhett Tanner has a gift for southern hospitality. He knows how to schmooze with the locals, chat about the preacher’s Sunday sermons, and keep up appearances. He’s also a shrewd customer behind closed doors as he is the go-to man maintaining the city’s thriving undercurrent of vice. In fact, he’s set himself to be an impregnable despot. No one can topple him because he’s so integrated into society.

Albert Patterson (John McIntire), as portrayed in this storyline, is one of the men who is reluctant to get involved. He’s a lawyer and a good one — he’s one of the town’s best — but he’s also old and feels the fight is not his. He can live on his side of town in relative peace.

It’s his boy, John (Richard Kiley) who really shakes up the status quo. He is a war vet returning to Phenix with his young family after time away, and he’s disillusioned by what he found. He’s faced with the bitter irony of fighting fascism overseas only to see it have such a deathly grip on his childhood home. He’s prepared to fight to give the town back to the good folks around him.

Kiley’s part is actually conveniently whitewashed to make him a more sympathetic hero. In real life, John Patterson ran on a segregationist ticket — although it might have been more pragmatic than anything — he also didn’t have the best track record as a family man.

But in an effort to probe this topic more, James Edwards is one of the characters we must gravitate towards. Edwards certainly never reached star status, and he’s rarely remembered outside of the classic film circles, but through a series of war films, it’s as if he was given an opportunity to exert himself and represent black characters with dignity.

Phenix City Story is one of the few films where he’s not in uniform, and Zeke is not a revolutionary part; he’s only a humble janitorial type, but he has a strong moral conscience. The fact that he, his wife, and his daughter (who becomes a tragic victim) are the only black characters, is also a salient reality of the film’s world.

The movie feels like a microcosm of the whole society, both what is shown and what is not. My historical geography leaves something to be desired, but I think of 1957 and Orville Faubus, or the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing in Birmingham in 1963, and the brutality of Selma after that. My mind starts going places. If this is how they treat other whites in a movie, imagine how it is with blacks. To its credit, the movie resolves to show some of this.

Pound for pound, it doesn’t feel like the Sunday school truth it’s trying to project itself to be, but in the world and qualities of life — especially the exteriors — we do get a real eye into society circa 1955. This is the aspect of many classic films that’s the most enlightening even if the actually perceived mimesis of the film itself is still beholden to the tenets of Hollywood drama. Thankfully, for all its forays into docudrama, it still holds onto Karlson’s always reliable sense of bruised and bloodied physicality. It wouldn’t be one of his pictures without it. But of course, even this has real import.

The ensuing climax feels like a foregone conclusion. People feel a tug or a pull to do something and take a stand. Bystanders can no longer watch. They must act to turn the pervasive tides of oppression. One of them is the young woman Ellie Rhodes (Kathryn Grant before she met Bing Crosby), who saw her boyfriend ruthlessly disposed of. Finally, Albert Patterson resolves to fight as well, and he takes it to the top, running as attorney general. Both of them stick their necks out and pay the consequence. However, these weren’t rash decisions. They knew full well what they were getting into. They counted the costs and pushed forward anyway.

If we are to scan the contemporary movie landscape, something like The Captive City is a comparable movie. Whereas the actual visual plane is more pronounced in individual shots of the earlier movie, Phenix City has the advantage of its world, and if it’s not entirely more expansive, then it certainly feels more evocative. In the dark shrouds of night, we feel the sinister threat hanging over the city’s population.

The Captive City also calls on gangsters who feel like callbacks to the 1930s. The tone verges on social horror. Karlson’s picture is probably even more perturbing because it alights on something that feels fresh and honest in how it pertains to current events in 1955. There’s no escaping reality in this case. We’re still struggling against them over 65 years later. Suddenly, that corny rhetoric at the movie’s opening remains prescient. “The power of the ballot will always be the voice of the American people.”

3.5/5 Stars

Hell to Eternity (1960): The Story of Guy Gabaldon

Posted on February 25, 2021 by 4 Star Films

As someone of Japanese-American heritage, it’s become a personal preoccupation of mine to search out films that in some way represent the lives of my grandparents and their generation. This means the rich Issei and Nisei communities of Los Angeles, the subsequent internment camps, and even the famed 442nd Infantry Battalion.

Obviously, Hollywood has always had a complicated history with minorities, mirroring broader historical context. Thus, the opening images of Hell to Eternity feel like a bit of a surreal pipe dream — something I’ve looked for a long time and finally discovered. You almost have to pinch yourself into believing the industry actually made this movie.

A young punk (Richard Eyer) and his friend (George Matsui) stare down a trio of thugs who look ready for a fight. Its fitting proof Phil Karlson’s bloody knuckles aesthetic can enter the schoolyard as the two battling adolescence are pulled apart by their physical education instructor (George Shibata)

Japanese-Americans and their culture play a rich and integral part in this biography of celebrated war hero Guy Gabaldon. No, he was not one of them, but he might as well be. Coming from a broken home, his only place to turn is the Une family who gladly welcomes him into their home.

In some small regard, these scenes play out quaintly if not altogether conventional. Guy begins to pick up Japanese quickly and even teaches his benevolent “mama-san” a few terms by pointing to objects around the house. Despite, the stilted acting and out-and-out authenticity aside, the images themselves are powerful. And some background is in order on multiple accounts.

We have George Shibata who was the first Japanese-American graduate out of West Point. Then, Tsuru Aoki was one of the premier stars of the Silent Era even before Sessue Hayakawa. But the connections run deeper still because due to their Hollywood roots and the anti-miscegenation laws at the time, Aoki and Hayakawa wedded and remained married until her death in 1961.

The slightly older George is played by an extremely youthful George Takai. Meanwhile, there’s further Japanese-American representation in Papa-san, Bob Okazaki, and the likes of Reiko Sato and Miiko Taka.

It should be noted the Unes are some sort of amalgam of the real-life Nakano family whose son Lane fought in the 442nd and later become a short-lived actor in the likes of Go For Broke! and Japanese War Bride (1953). All of these basic details are based on fact.

However, with this necessary context in tow, it’s about time to turn our attention to the man himself who held such a unique background in his own right. Because make no mistake, Guy Gabaldon is certainly worthy of the biopic treatment even if a picture like this can’t quite do the man justice. That’s fine.

Although what it develops into is an unwieldy drama and having Jeffrey Hunter portray Gulbadon is one of the most hilarious examples of overstated Hollywood casting. It feels like having John Wayne play Audie Murphy. However, what Hunter lacks in similar likeness and physique, he more than makes up for by capturing the resiliency of his subject. He offers believable candor and the embodiment of American exceptionalism.

Allied Artists was a B movie mill and Hell for Eternity was their wealthiest, most expansive undertaking to date, with their number one moneymaker on assignment: industry workhorse Phil Karlson. In one sense, Karlson seems well-equipped for some elements and then woefully disadvantaged for others.

Hell to Eternity proves itself to be wildly uneven because without jumping the gun, the opening scenes are quietly revolutionary and truly unprecedented when you consider Hollywood’s track record. Then, there’s a shift as his family is unceremoniously shipped out to internment camps, and you have Guy rushing to every branch of the service only to be rebuffed at every turn. Still, his remarkable qualifications — namely his Japanese abilities — gain him an in-road.

We also have the introduction of his buddies. Despite getting off on the wrong foot, Sergeant Bill Hazen (David Janssen) proves himself to be an intense adversary and an even fiercer companion. As they foster mutual respect and camaraderie, it becomes evident he’s the type of buddy you want in your corner. And if he’s too intense, the swinging, snapping, undulating lady’s man, Junior (Vic Damone), more than brings the party.

It’s around this time where the film reimagines itself as what could easily be considered an entirely different movie. The midpoint in Hawaii has them left entirely to their own devices with one glorious night of freedom out on the town before they ship out. Not to be disappointed, they are treated to a titillating striptease show, courtesy of Sato, with the steamy hot jazz cutting through the night. The men cheer on the women with a rueful round of inebriated leering.

Where does this all end? How does this tie into Guy Gulbandon’s story; in short, it doesn’t. What does happen is the softening of the so-called “Iron Petticoat,” a woman journalist, who has gained notoriety for her prudish ways. It’s by far the most cringe-worthy sequence as Ms. Lincoln (Patricia Owens) lets her hair down, as it were.

What follows is a barrage of lingering shots over heels, tights, legs — you get the salacious idea — and from a distance, we can admit to it being fairly risque for the 1960s. It becomes amusement for their entire company. The woman’s impregnable defenses have finally been conquered. Whatever that means.

However, with a few abrupt cuts the whole meaning of these scenes is almost salvaged. Effectively, there is no interim. We get thrown directly into the campaign and their wild bender of an evening is only a distant memory as they cut their way across the shores toward the enemy embankments.

Even as Karlson isn’t able to make every crosscut of action fundamentally compelling, he’s far more in his element amid the volatility and constant barrage of bullets and bodies. What felt initially so quietly groundbreaking and devolved into needless exhibitionism, finally settles into his forte.

Here he can dig knee-deep into the nitty-gritty and give us something that packs a wallop. Hell to Eternity is a lot less sanitized than I would have surmised, especially given its era. However, there is no mincing when it comes to what we are privy to on the simulated battlefield. He capably mobilized thousands of extras from Okinawa for some of the most spectacular scenes where the large scale is matched with tumultuous elements of very intimate trauma.

And even as the skirmishes settle into a kind of chaotic equilibrium, Galbadon — using his Japanese skills — earns his moniker as the “Pied Piper of Taipei.” Using the talents he’s been gifted by his incredible upbringing, he does his best to coax the already cowed but testy enemy to surrender using their native tongue.

The one figurehead emblematic of the proud foe is portrayed by Sessue Hayakawa, emulating his similar role from Bridge on the River Kwai as a derisive Japanese officer. Once Galbadon can conquer him, he’s all but won the fight behind enemy lines. More than anything, I’m disappointed in the fact that we never circle back around to his adopted family nor the exploits of his brothers. Still, for more context, Go For Broke! plays as a decent companion piece about the 442nd.

So although it’s an imperfect and often befuddling vehicle, Guy Gulbadon was a hero more than worthy of a biopic. Regardless of any faults, Hell to Eternity is bristling with not only action but specific depictions of a historical time and place that often remain overshadowed in Hollywood to this day. It’s been one of my missions to discover more representations of Japanese-Americans in American cinema, and in this regard, Hell to Eternity is a stirring success. It can’t help but be groundbreaking even in spite of its unassuming nature. I look up at the screen and there’s a personal connection.

3.5/5 Stars

Classic Movie Beginner’s Guide: 60s Spy Spoofs

Posted on October 10, 2020 by 4 Star Films

As part of our efforts to cater to up-and-coming classic movie fans, here’s our latest installment to our classic movie beginner’s guides.

In appreciation of the James Bond franchise and the newest installment that will hopefully still be released early next year, we thought it would be fitting to highlight four spy spoofs that had as much fun with the genre as their inspiration, if not more so!

While we’re partial to Don Adams’ Get Smart on the small screen (or The Man from U.N.C.L.E), here are four franchises to consider if you’re interested in the spy fad of the 1960s. Here we go!

Fantomas (1964)

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France’s answer to the Bond craze came with retrofitting a national comic book hero and supervillain for the ’60s. The blue-faced mastermind Fantomas (Jean Marais) is constantly avoiding capture by the bumbling Inspector (played by comedy’s best-kept secret Louis De Funes). Thankfully, he has the help of an intrepid journalist (also played by Marais). Two more installments would follow.

Our Man Flint (1966)

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Not to be outdone by his compatriots, James Coburn also got his chance to be a top-class secret agent named Derek Flint, who fits all the parameters of a world-renowned spy, including playmates, gadgetry, and continual globetrotting. His travels bring him in contact with a deadly adversary (Gila Golan) and the nefarious Galaxy! One more Flint film with Coburn would follow.

The Silencers (1966)

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Dean Martin is no one’s idea of a James Bond (a drunk one maybe), but his good-natured persona and womanizing ways make him the best off-beat answer to Bond as impregnable agent Matt Helm, also based off some serialized literature. It’s campy, low-grade spy spoofing at its best (or worst?). A bevy of sequels came out in rapid succession.

Casino Royale (1967)

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Definitely not to be confused with Eva Green and Daniel Craig’s iteration, this is the most unwieldy and extravagant of all the spoofs. The cast is absolutely stuffed with big names, and it really is an excuse to roll out the talent. Everyone from David Niven, Peter Sellers, and Ursula Andress masquerade as the incomparable Bond. The best thing to come out of the movie might be “The Look of Love,” but there are lots of memorable cameos.

What other classic Bond or spy spoofs would you recommend?

Gunman’s Walk (1958): A Cain & Able Western

Posted on August 25, 2020 by 4 Star Films

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“I think it’s high time for this state to remember its history!” – Van Heflin

The whistling intro to Gunman’s Walk is one of the most insouciant beginnings to a western you might ever see. Regrettably, the opening lines of dialogue, penned by Frank S. Nugent, don’t stand up on their feet. It’s easy enough to understand Tab Hunter is a sharp-tongued pretty boy with a big chip on his shoulder. His reticent more unassuming brother Davy acts as his complete antithesis. This is the source of immediate tension, even visually, with the casting of such disparate actors as Hunter and James Darren.

Given these elements, the words coming out of their mouths aren’t of much use. It’s not simply in the opening arguments either but in their later verbal skirmishes. Even the brief interludes of candor, they are not always capable of holding a scene. They need a Van Heflin to work with, and he certainly makes them both better and more compelling. Because it is their conflict and confused relationship with him speaking to all other facets of the movie.

Gunman’s Walk finds its footing not only with the introduction of Heflin, but also when it settles into a story with ideas fueling relationships. We come to understand it to be more nuanced than mere bickering. Because with every fight there is an underlying trauma of some form. In the nucleus, you have the archetypal dichotomy between the two male progeny with divergent paths ahead of them. They are like Cain and Abel.

It’s their father who looks to guide them toward the straight-and-narrow or at least the western equivalent, which means molding them to be like he was when he was a boy. In fact, it goes further still. He wants to be one of the lads, even chiding them to call him by his first name.

Quick drawing, carousing, having a good time, and generally cultivating a “boys will be boys” mentality are all part of his regimen as their sole guardian. One boy shies away from this based on his natural tendencies and the other rebels more blatantly still, determined to be his own man, greater than his dad ever was.

Beyond their initial quarreling, we begin to comprehend the spirit of the brothers when they wander into the local mercantile. Tab Hunter notes the pretty “half-breed” working inside, and it’s the immediate barb to suggest this is also a drama about racism.

It cannot help but come front and center when Ed pushes a half-Sioux off the cliffside as he selfishly sprints after a prized white stallion, with no consideration of human life. The man killed, named Paul, happens to be the older brother of Clee (Kathryn Grant). She works in the mercantile and faces the debilitating, inbred bigotry of the town day in and day out.

What must come out of this is a trial. Because two bystanders speak up on behalf of their friend. They think it was murder, and it might as well be. But Lee will have none of it. He’s not about to let his son get railroaded by two natives.

It goes far to suggest a type of privilege not only earned arbitrarily through skin color but also in attributing who is memorialized in the history books and how they get remembered. Lee’s demonstrative cry to remember history is itself a highly ironic evocation, given the circumstances. Just what version of history is he talking about? Undoubtedly his version.

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There’s a trial to follow and of course, Ed gets off. A crooked witness comes to his defense — upon hearing what a generous soul Hackett is — though the conniving passerby is no better than a horse thief. Meanwhile, Davy finds himself in a Romeo and Julietesque romance, at least in considering his father would never agree to a union with a Sioux.

Ever disconsolate, Ed dodges jail once only to end up there again, this time for gunning down his father’s blackmailer. His attempts to frame it as self-defense fool no one in town and Lee is flabbergasted. Why would he do such a thing? Ed feels like his father has gone against his own principles. They’re further apart than they have ever been.

There is no turning back when Ed blasts himself out of jail, murdering another man, with a posse now out to get him. Lee has no choice but try and beat them to his boy — to try and do anything he can to shield him. One wonders if it’s already too late.

The final showdown feels like a foreign dynamic — father pitted versus son — there is no other way to go about it with the law bearing down on them. It ends unceremoniously, though the emotional toil remains heady.

Tab Hunter absolutely blows through his clean-cut, boy-next-door image and tramples on it with the hooves of his horse for good measure. As a result of constantly fighting the demons of his own malice and being cast in his father’s shadow, he remains all but unrepentant to the last frame.

Each subsequent film I see featuring Van Heflin cements my estimation of him as a giant among the unsung heroes of Hollywood’s elite. This is by no means a great western, but in the moments unearthing some semblance of deep emotional truth, it is Heflin who guides them with a craggy vulnerability. The final two scenes are pure class. They tear your heart apart.

It’s quite the statement given that during much of the film we wouldn’t mind tearing him limb from limb. He hobbles off with his boy and the boy’s wife, and we actually have sympathy stored up for him. It’s an extraordinary achievement in a relatively minor western.

3.5/5 Stars

Scandal Sheet (1952)

Posted on November 13, 2018 by 4 Star Films

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There’s no need to mince words here. With a film christened Scandal Sheet you already have a good idea of what you’re probably going to get before it arrives. That’s fine. Straight to the point can be good.

But the media angle is only a half of it. It’s as much a film of lurid cover-ups and back-alley beatings as it is about dirty journalism. You need those lightning rods for a juicy scoop and it’s precisely these types of events that bring the newspaper hounds out of the woodwork.

If Samuel Fuller couldn’t wind up being the director of his original story, The Dark Page, then there’s arguably no better man to take up the project than Phil Karlson who has comparable sensibilities and an appreciation for gritty crime pictures and pulp fiction though he’s not quite as dynamic.

It’s true at one point Howard Hawks even had the project flagged to star two of his past favorites in Humphrey Bogart and Cary Grant. What a film that would have been. But when Karlson came aboard John Payne was offered the role (he would work with Karlson later on) that ultimately went to John Derek.

He and his faithful cameraman (Henry Morgan) are integral pieces of one of the most parasitic relationships on the Bowery that develop between newspapermen and the police. They’re rather like scavengers picking over the carrion or any other delectable scraps that might perchance be tossed their direction.

However, oftentimes the methods of an organization are employed from the top down. In fact, Steve McCleary (Derek) has become the star reporter under the tutelage of Mark Chapman (Broderick Crawford) the man who has taken over the helm of the New York Express. He took the once reputed but faltering behemoth and turned it into a sensationalized tabloid that subsequently has the highest readership it’s been able to attain in years. There’s no denying the stuff sells like hotcakes fresh off the griddle. What can you say? Sensation is tasty stuff and scandal is the favorite food of the masses.

The paper’s latest gimmick in pursuit of ever-rising levels of circulation is the implementation of a Lonely Hearts Ball trying to play up the angle of a few nobodies falling in love. It’s a real sob fest with all the trimmings for a great story. No one knew how right that assertion was.

What follows is a conflict of interest that’s ripe with dramatic irony. There’s a murder investigation and the paper is embroiled in the middle of it trying to drudge up the answers with the help of their readership. With such hysteria at its core Scandal Sheet shares, some of the same journalism beats of While the City Sleeps (1956).

However, in this picture, Donna Reed is the moral center because how could we ever suspect her of being anything other than that clean, respectful, Midwestern gal with heaps of integrity? She’s much the same here not wanting to besmirch her editorials with sleaze and believing in old washed up writers when no one else will give them the time of day. Even when her boyfriend is guilty of precisely that. In fact, that’s where a bit of their romantic tension is founded.

Steve’s good at his job and a real bloodhound on the beat and a handsome devil at that but a fairly ignorant stiff, the most aggravating reality about the picture being just that. The case is right under his nose and he doesn’t see it for the entirety of the film.

The easiest way to try and explain it away is much the way Walter Neff did in Double Indemnity (1944) though the roles are reversed, “The guy you were looking for was too close. Right across the desk from ya.” Except Broderick Crawford is no Edward G. Robinson and there’s not the same genial relationship that can be attributed to the earlier picture. It’s all business.

That’s why his romantic ties are so important. Because that’s the one area where he is steered in the right direction. Once again, Donna Reed is that crucial moral compass in a choppy sea lacking any amount of rectitude otherwise.

But then again, you get the feeling Donna Reed would never turn up in a Sam Fuller picture if this was his. Still, that should not completely neutralize what Karlson was able to do here — developing a film that’s pretty much as advertised. A gritty bowels drama that cases the insides of New York drudging up all sorts of drama in the name of yellow journalism. If that’s what you’re looking for you’re in for a treat.

3.5/5 Stars

Kansas City Confidential (1952)

Posted on January 3, 2017 by 4 Star Films

Saying that Phil Karlson has a penchant for gritty crime dramas is a gross understatement. And yet here again is one of those real tough-guy numbers he was known for, where all you have to do is follow the trail of cigarette smoke and every punch is palpable–coming right off the screen and practically walloping you across the face.

Like all heist films, there must be a point of inception, however, Kansas City Confidential finds its story after the crime has been committed and the perpetrators have split up without a hitch. The man who takes the heat, their fall guy and the unsuspecting stooge is Joe Rolfe (John Payne who is adept at playing such roles) a nobody truck driver and a convict once upon a time.

It seems like the perfect crime as the three hired hands all wore masks and had no connection to each other, except for the stocky and demonstrative Mr. Big, the mastermind behind the whole operation and the one calling the shots. He sends each man off with enough money to tide themselves over until he contacts them to reconvene for their big payoff. Whether or not he will actually cough up the 300,000 clams he owes each of them is quite another story.

Still, each man heads his own way and Joe is getting grilled by the cops day after day in the hopes that he will crack. Finally, he is released, but with no prospects and no job, he sits in a bar stewing in his anger. The story takes it’s next big turn when he follows a lead down to Mexico to tail one of the hoods in on the job Peter Harris (Jack Elam). And although Joe is going in blind, he soon catches wind of the impending rendezvous in Barados and decides he’ll just show up as well, to get to the bottom of the entire mess.

It’s there where he first crosses paths with two other leering hoods, the beady-eyed Tony Romano (Lee Van Cleef) and the silently brooding Boyd Kane (Neville Brand). However, while keeping tabs on these cronies, he keeps company with a budding lawyer Helen Foster (Coleen Gray), who has come to call upon her protective father, the former policeman Tim Foster. If this set up isn’t plain enough already, it certainly becomes increasingly interesting as the gears continue to turn towards the story’s inevitable climax.

Most certainly Kansas City Confidential boasts jarring close-ups, low budget facades and perpetually sweaty faces that accentuate its unsentimental noirish qualities. However, Coleen Gray acts as a more enlightened noir heroine, who does not grovel for her man or weep incessantly at the thought of danger. Instead, she’s training to be a lawyer, and rational but still unequivocally kind. Despite not having a proper meet cute, the chemistry between Gray and Payne still works surprisingly well.

What makes the film inherently more interesting is how the crime is embroiled with family issues. Because, as an audience, we know Mr. Big’s identity: a corrupted cop who got a bum steer and now is going to reap the benefits of setting up some real losers. Still, that doesn’t excuse what he did and Joe got dealt a similarly sorry hand. The fact that Foster’s daughter is involved sheds him in a more humane light and in the same instance makes Joe a more likable figure. In many ways, she brings out the best qualities of both these characters. It’s the darker recesses that lurk behind their characters. Those are made more evident by the likes of Lee Van Cleef, Jack Elam and Neville Brand, a real rogues gallery of baddies if there ever was one.

4/5 Stars