New York Confidential 1955

 

Based on a pot boiler book by Lee Mortimer a one time columnist for the New York Mirror and Jack Lait who collaborated on a series of “confidential” books on different cities ie “Washington D.C. Confidential” and were filled with rancid homophobic rantings. Happily nothing of their take on gays made to the screen.

The plot is familiar for a crime movie, except the gangsters are now part of a syndicate instead of the mafia. Using cheap looking sets with no on location footage of New York which is a shame and would have added much to the atmosphere. Instead we get window views of black and white blowups of the skyline, with a few whiffs of smoke blowing past it.

The cast is headed by Broderick Crawford as the main man of the New York branch of the syndicate who lives well and easy with his mama mia and his good looking distraught and unhappy daughter played by a gorgeous Anne Bancroft. Crawford delivers his usual blustery performance, that seems left over from his Oscar winning performance in “All The King's Men.”

Bancroft who was wasted in film (“Gorilla At Large” is a good bad example) finally gave up on the movies and headed back to New York where she starred in “The Miracle Worker” on Broadway and started her march to fame and an Oscar.

Things in gangster land are falling apart what with rival gang fighting and hits, investigations, bribes and kickbacks to congressmen so Crawford calls on Richard Conte who is a hit man in Chicago to take down a few rival gangsters, which leads to Crawford hiring him for a permanent place in the New York syndicate.

Peopled with a good supporting cast including J. Carrol Naish, Marilyn Maxwell, Mike Mazurki and lots of familiar character actors all doing the best they can do with the somewhat familiar material and production values below par. Directed and co written by Russell Rouse who also co wrote and co directed the well received little 1951 film “The Well” about a little African American girl who falls down a well and the racial turmoil in the small town where the film takes place. “New York Confidential” would have benefited if a better director like Sam Fuller, Anthony Mann or Henry Hathaway had helmed it and would have brought their snap, crackle and pop to it. The cinematography by Eddie Fitzgerald is lackluster and has a t.v. look to it which is no doubt because he was mainly a cinematographer for the little box. Russell who was married for a long time to that dynamite bombshell Beverly Michaels would have done much better with her in the Marilyn Maxwell part.
The ending is good and cynical but is marred by some awful narration which was common back in the day.