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.
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