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30 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :-
The first Payne/Karlson collaboration: Everyman thrown to the wolves, 18 April 2004
8/10
Author: bmacv from Western New York

Driving a truckful of posies for a florist seems about as safe an occupation an ex-con could hope for. But for John Payne in Phil Karlson's Kansas City Confidential, it gets him framed for a million-two robbery. His trouble is that you can set a clock by his punctual rounds, and that one of his deliveries coincides with the arrival of the armored car at the bank next door. His comings and goings have been meticulously stop-watched by the mastermind of the heist (Preston Foster), a disgruntled policeman forced into retirement who seeks his weird sort of revenge.

Foster's plan assembles a gang who wear masks during the plotting so they can't recognize one another, or him. Payne's just the innocent fall guy who's thrown to the cops. Those cops try to beat a confession out of him, but it won't stick. He nonetheless loses his job and ends up on the front pages as the prime suspect. So he goes on the earie and follows the robbers (Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef and Neville Brand) down to Mexico, where they're to meet with `Mr. Big' again and divvy up the take.

The spanner in the works proves to be Foster's daughter (Coleen Gray), striking sparks with Payne as he poses as one of the conspirators killed in Tijuana en route to the rendezvous. Gray's an aspiring lawyer in ignorance of daddy's scheme – which is to turn over the robbers, thus rehabilitating himself with the force, and to collect the insurers' reward of $300-large.

Those south-of-the-border resort bungalows, during the noir cycle at any rate, were hotbeds of passion and gunplay. Karlson gives us a little of the former (not his long suit) but plenty of the latter. Over cardgames in the lobby and chance meetings amid the subtropical foliage at night, the unknown players try to sniff one another out and gain whatever edge they can. Their final gathering, aboard a boat called the Manana, shakes out as a crashing intersection of cross-purposes.

Like Dick Powell, Payne started off as a crooner and hoofer, a light leading man (his best remembered role is as Maureen O'Hara's fiancé in Miracle on 34th Street). But in three films under Phil Karlson's direction (plus Robert Florey's in The Crooked Way and Allan Dwan's in Slightly Scarlet), he ended up one of the most convincing ordinary-guy protagonists in the noir cycle. He's tough, all right, but still shows the flop-sweat of fear; and he's smart, too, but because he's forced to be – what he's trying to hang onto is all he's got.

Off-screen, he was even smarter, seeing the potential revenue in color films (like Hell's Island and Slightly Scarlet) when selling to television was at most a pipe dream. But as an actor in the ambiguous world of film noir, he's seldom given the credit he deserves. He's every bit as good as Powell or Glenn Ford, if not quite so emblematic as Humphrey Bogart or Robert Mitchum or Burt Lancaster. Karlson's brutal, accomplished works late in the noir cycle gave Payne his place in the dark sun.

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22 out of 23 people found the following comment useful :-
"All right, so I'm flying blind, but I've got you as a bird dog.", 30 September 2005
10/10
Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

Kansas City Confidential is one of my favorite noir films and films of John Payne. It's one you can watch over and over again and still be entertained.

John Payne is a ex-con who drives a florist truck and one of his usual stops is a delivery next door to a bank. Three masked robbers use the same kind of truck to pull off an armored car heist and Payne is suspected of complicity. It don't help he's an ex-con.

This robbery has been organized a fourth man and the beauty of his scheme is that the robbers all wear masks with him and with each other so that no one can rat anyone out. They're supposed to meet in a small Mexican fishing village for the split.

Payne is freed, but the Kansas City cops are still suspicious. He gets a lead on a possible participant and tracks him down to Mexico. And that's where the fun really starts.

The suspense in Kansas City Confidential is not about who did it. The three robbers are Neville Brand, Jack Elam, and Lee Van Cleef, three of the nastiest dudes in film history. The suspense lies whether Payne can put it all together. As he says to one of them, he's flying blind in this one. After all the men don't even know each other or Mr. Big. The viewer knows all, but I won't say more.

John Payne gives a riveting performance of a desperate man and one you don't leave holding the bag without consequences. This is one of the best noir films ever done, not to be missed.

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17 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
Oh, What a Tangled Web We Weave...., 13 October 2005
9/10
Author: theowinthrop from United States

If you examine any major film or novel or play defects pop up. If the work is worth watching or reading you won't mind them - and if you are considering directing or producing a version of the written work you will find a way to overcome the defect. Most film noir plots do have defects in them. Given how he has romanced his late partner's wife, and how he knows that some of the police (like Barton MacLaine) would like to ruin him, in real life Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade would fully cooperate with the San Francisco police regarding Jerome Cowan's murder in THE MALTESE FALCON. Given the homicidal nature of Lawrence Tierney in BORN TO KILL, Walter Slezak would probably not try to blackmail him and Claire Trevor. In fact, he might find an excuse to drop Esther Howard as a client.

KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL is a taught and exciting film noir at the tail end of the period when such films were being made. Preston Foster is the former head of detectives for the Kansas City Police, who was forced to leave his post because of a change in city political structures that he did not prepare for. He is bitter about this forced retirement, and so he creates a scheme to commit a major armed robbery of a bank, using three low-lifes (Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef, and Nevil Brand) as his bandits. But he arranges for them to wear masks when they all meet (he is wearing one too) so that none of them know each other or him. They are given half a playing card as a key of mutual recognition when they are to reunite for the splitting of the money (some six months after the robbery, in a resort in Mexico).

Now, in real life the three convicts would (of course) be dying to know who their partners and boss were. I can't believe they would not make some effort to find out (compare this to Humphrey Bogart's clever way of tracing down Edward G. Robinson's phone number in THE AMAZING DR. CLITTERHOUSE, to see what is more likely to occur). But as this film is going in a different direction, I am willing to suspend my disbelief and just accept that Elam, Van Cleef, and Brand - despite all being thoroughly dangerous and nasty customers - are willing to go along with this witless demand by Foster.

There have been comments made here (understandably) that Foster's attitude to John Payne, accidentally framed by the scheme as being the thief, are not consistent. Actually they are. Foster never intended for the three goons he used to split the money and get away with their shares. He was planning to spring a trap on them - as though he had solved the robbery himself - and so reclaim his job with the Kansas City police. Precisely how he would do this we never learn (presumably he would have somehow killed them before they could identify him by his voice). But his plot miscarries when he gets involved with Payne, seeking to clear himself. Suddenly, watching Payne's involvement (and realizing that Payne has been romancing his daughter (Colleen Gray) he is conscience-stricken. You see, framing Payne was never part of the scheme.

The scenes with Payne are among the best acting that performer ever made. John Payne, in the 1930s and 1940s, was mostly in comedies or in supporting parts, and in many musicals for 20th Century Fox. It was only in the aftermath of his best recalled role (the attorney for Edmund Gwenn in MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET) that he began appearing in off-beat noir regular films or noir westerns. It turned out he was a fully capable performer in negative (or quasi-negative) roles. Here he has the misfortune to be fingered by his ex-convict past, and his chance appearance as the driver of a similar florist van to the one used in the robbery. He gets the third degree from the police, before they find out his alibi is checking out. But the newspapers have plastered his face and history all over the place, so he loses his job and can't get another. He is only able to hang on and locate his first clue with an assist from an old friend who understands what he is going through.

The performance of Foster is good given the odd situation he faces of having set up a scheme to go from a to b to c to d, and finding it is thrown off kilter by something he never intended. I like the performances of Jack Elam, who has a serious drug problem (in the days that drug addiction was rarely discussed in movies - but notice how many "cigarettes" he's smoking, and how he is shaking), and of Lee Van Cleef, as a totally amoral criminal. Elam's death scene (he is unarmed, but by force of habit lunges for a gun that Payne has on his own person, and is shot by the police) is surprisingly sympathetic as he is crying and laughing as he dies. Van Cleef, smart enough to figure out that Payne is not who says he is, is as ready to kill Payne as he might be ready to kill his temporary ally Nevil Brand. Actually, Brand's performance (compared to the others) is not developed. Maybe part was cut. Colleen Gray is wonderfully controlled and sexy as Foster's daughter and Payne's love interest.

For a "B" feature, it gets remarkable strength - comparable to the original THE NARROW MARGIN. I give it a "9" out of a possible "10".

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12 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Good, But Tough To Live Up To That Opening, 25 July 2007
8/10
Author: ccthemovieman-1 from Lockport, NY, United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I liked this film but I got spoiled with the first 20-30 minutes. It started off so intense that I thought this was going to be fantastic: an incredibly edgy film noir. It still wound up good overall, but it never lived up to that great beginning.

The story slows down a bit once the scene shifts from the heist in Kansas City to the rendezvous of the bandits down in Mexico. It has as a full lulls here and there but still does enough things right to keep your interest.

What it does is right is emphasize two things that a good film noir provides: tension and paranoia. All the crooks are assembled in one spot but only the boss knows who the others are. They don't know what any of the gang members look like since all of the thieves had to wear masks throughout the planning and execution of the crime. However, since the boss hired them, he knows them all. Also, down in Mexico, the good guy in the film, "Joe Rolfe" (John Payne) is an impostor, pretending he's "Peter Harris," one of the crooks who got caught by the cops and knocked off just before heading south. Rolfe doesn't know, however, that the boss knows he's a phony. Payne's character got unfairly fingered in the robbery so he's down there trying to clear his name. All of this may sound complicated, but it isn't once you watch the film. Suffice to say it's interesting to see how all these guys slowly figure out who's who.

I thought "Tim Foster," played by Preston Foster, was the best character in the film, probably because he was right in the middle of everything. He was a bitter ex-cop and the brains behind the whole scheme, which could easily have been pulled off . He was just wasn't lucky, because he had a great plan.

One of the people he had to fool was his daughter, who surprises him down in Mexico and further complicates the situation. Colleen Gray plays "Helen Foster," but she doesn't really come into the story much until the last half hour. Her character did one implausible thing after another, things NO woman would do and softened the rough edges of this movie, which was a mistake. "Helen" wasn't even needed in this film. It would have been better as a straight male- only tough film noir.

Speaking of tough: how about this "Rogue's gallery:" Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef and Neville Brand? Now there are three good faces for this genre of film. They were the other gang members

There are a number of holes in this story, but you have to ignore them and go along for the ride which, for the most part, is a good one. It's recommended for all film noir buffs.

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10 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
Absorbing & Well-Crafted Crime Drama, 12 October 2005
Author: Snow Leopard from Ohio

This absorbing crime drama is also one of the most well-crafted movies of its genre. It tells its story with few frills, but with plenty of interesting details and a well-timed pace. John Payne gets one of his best roles, with a very good supporting cast. A strong sense of danger and uncertainty is built up early, and is effectively carried through the whole movie, right up to the end.

Payne is well-cast as an ex-convict who gets framed by a very clever criminal mastermind, and who then determines to seek out the truth. In itself, the setup is a familiar one, but "Kansas City Confidential" gets quite a lot out of it, and it is hardly predictable. The story moves from one hazardous situation to the next, with very little pause for relief, maintaining the tension constantly. Preston Foster is also very well-suited for his role as the ex-police captain, and the roles of the three lowlifes are well-acted by Neville Brand and young-looking Lee Van Cleef and Jack Elam.

The atmosphere and characters both work particularly well. The story has perhaps a couple of implausible turns, but in itself it is so carefully constructed that this really doesn't matter. Director Phil Karlson certainly deserves praise for putting things together so well. Very few B-movies are this well-conceived, and as a result it still holds up very well.

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9 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
A terrific vintage film noir, 30 May 2000
9/10
Author: (jesse.cohen) from New York, New York

This is a suspenseful, atmospheric film noir that is well worth checking out. I'd only seen Payne in musicals, but here he has a real understated intensity as a World War II vet out to clear his name. (In looks and affect he bears a resemblance to Kevin Spacey.) Preston Foster and a young Lee Van Cleef fill out the nest-of-vipers cast nicely. The wordless opening sequence is especially well done.

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7 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Exceptional Noir--a must-see for fans of the genre, 7 February 2007
8/10
Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

This is an exceptional Film Noir movie that almost merits a score of 9--it's THAT good. Like good Noir, it features some of the ugliest and scariest actors and I applaud the producers for finding such a motley group! Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef and Neville Brand are definitely the ugliest and toughest looking heavies of the age and here they all work together on a heist. The movie also stars John Payne and Preston Foster. While these two guys weren't as hideous as the other three, they were both well past their handsome prime--hence they were great Noir characters! In addition, the film is bloody and violent--definite pluses for Noir. While this may sound like Noir films are super-violent, they were compared to the average picture of the day but pale in comparison to more recent films. I like them because they are so gritty and realistic in their blunt portrayal of crime. In this case, watching John Payne slap the snot out of Van Cleef is an amazing scene. As for the plot, it's amazingly complex and interesting. So good, in fact, that I don't want to talk about the heist--lest if ruin the suspense. Suffice to say, it's well worth seeing with great writing, acting and all the elements you are looking for in Noir. A must-see for lovers of Noir.

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5 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
The Perfect Heist, 7 June 2008
8/10
Author: Claudio Carvalho from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

In Kansas City, the criminals Peter Harris (Jack Elam), Boyd Kane (Neville Brand) and Tony Romano (Lee Van Cleef) are individually hired by a stranger (Preston Foster) that plots the robbery of an armored car after receiving the money from a bank in the next door of a flower shop. However, each one of them wears masks and does not know the identities of the others; therefore they can not recognize each other. They succeed in the heist of 1.2 million dollars and escape in a van of the Western Florists, and the mentor of the robbery gives tickets to them to travel abroad, promising to share the money later. Meanwhile the decorated soldier and ex-con driver of the Western Florists van Joe Rolfe (John Payne) that is delivering flowers in the shop is framed. He is accused of participating of the heist, arrested and tortured by the police, loses his job, and when the police recognizes the mistake, he is released. Unemployed, he discovers that Peter Harris went to Tijuana, and he decides to chase the criminal and request one fifth of the amount.

"Kansas City Confidential" is a great film-noir, with a good story and development of the characters. John Payne has an excellent performance in the role of a former war hero that tries to have a straight life after some gambling problems, but is framed, loses his job and the rest of his honor and sees his picture in the front page of the news, becoming impossible to find a new job. This injustice triggers his search for the real criminals, not seeking for justice, but a share of the money. The characters, with the exception of the sweet Helen Foster, have some sort of amoral behavior, as usual in this genre. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): "Os 4 Desconhecidos" ("The 4 Unknown")

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Nicotine Meets Noir, 17 June 2008
7/10
Author: dougdoepke from Claremont, USA

What a burst of casting inspiration-- three premier baddies, Elam, Brand, and Van Cleef all together in the same film, menacing the heck out of a vengeful John Payne. Elam should have gotten extra pay since everybody and his brother knocks the skinny wild-eyed guy around. Actually, for awhile I thought the movie was one long cigarette commercial or at least a chain-smokers' revival meeting. Speaking of casting, Preston Foster really delivers in a sly role that runs the gamut from tough-talking mastermind to nice-guy fisherman, all in convincing fashion.

"Kansas City" is, I believe, the first and clearly the best of a number of "Confidential" films made during the mid-fifties. For example, note the unusually brutal cop interrogation of fall-guy Payne. Keep in mind, this was during a Cold War time when the TV mega-hit "Dragnet" was professionalizing law enforcement's image nation-wide. Here, however, we get quite a different picture that certainly goes beyond the norm of the day. In fact, director Karlson, like noir filmmaker Anthony Mann, built a reputation for emphasizing the raw nature of thuggish violence, at least as much as the censors would allow. And this is certainly one of the more graphically brutal films of the era.

All in all, it's a fine imaginative script, with a number of unconventional surprises. The robbery is cleverly plotted along with the get-away. I like the way the screenplay parcels out needed information instead of laying it all out at the beginning. That way, viewer interest is kept up since a new wrinkle might pop up at any moment. Even pretty girl Colleen Gray's part is nicely woven in at the end, after I thought she was just a romantic interest. I guess Dona Drake's role was a touch of local color or a favor to somebody since she adds nothing to the plot, but apparently her Mexican girl does sell more than just souvenirs.

There are echoes from this movie in such later caper films as The Killing, Plunder Road, and Mark Steven's underrated Timetable. Some might consider this a noir film since Payne is trapped by unseen forces through no fault of his own. Nonetheless, other traditional noir elements are noticeably absent, such as the angular shadows of expressionist lighting and the lack of a customary spider woman. But it doesn't really matter how the movie's categorized because it remains something of a sleeper with a number of genuine surprises.

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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
The almost perfect crime, 3 August 2001
7/10
Author: jcholguin (jcholguin@lycos.com) from los angeles

Timothy Foster, forced into retirement as a cop. But the years of experience of catching criminals that made mistakes which lead to their being caught has given Foster a perfect plan for an "1,200,000" heist. His crew always wears masks so no one "except for Foster" knows the identity of anyone. Go to different parts of the world and no one spending the "hot" money until each of the four members divide the money are planned by Foster. Find a "patsy" Joe Rolfe played by John Payne, an ex-con that drives a flower truck, but have a duplicate flower truck for the real heist and let the police follow and arrest Rolfe thereby allowing the criminals time to leave the city. All time schedules timed to the minute of the armored car. Everything works to perfection but one thing that Foster did not figure on, Rolfe setting out to track down the real criminals and clear himself. This leads to Mexico. Another thing Foster cannot predict is the his own daughter falling in love with Rolfe. Is this enough to ruin the perfect plan? Watch and find out and you will be surprised by the ending.

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