Kansas City Confidential
About Kansas City Confidential
A masked planner hires Pete Harris (Jack Elam), Boyd Kane (Neville Brand), and Tony Romano (Lee Van Cleef), none of whom see his face, to rob an armored car with a flower truck copied from Joe Rolfe's. Rolfe (John Payne), an ex-convict delivering flowers in Kansas City, is arrested and then cleared, and loses the job anyway. In Tijuana he beats the meeting place out of Harris, who is killed by police. Rolfe takes Harris's mask and torn playing card and goes to Borados, where the other two are waiting. The planner is Tim Foster (Preston Foster), a former policeman pushed out by a scandal, after a reward and maybe his job back. His daughter Helen (Coleen Gray), a law student, falls in with Rolfe. On Foster's boat Romano kills Kane, Foster kills Romano, and Foster is shot. Dying, he tells Rolfe to take the $300,000 reward and keep Helen from knowing what he did.
Cast & crew
More about Kansas City Confidential
Phil Karlson directed. George Bruce and Harry Essex wrote the screenplay from a story by Rowland Brown and Harold Greene. Edward Small produced it for Associated Players and Producers, the only film of a company he formed with Sol Lesser and Sam Briskin. United Artists released it. Photography ran from 3 June into late June 1952 at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios, with location work on Santa Catalina Island, which stood in for a Mexican resort, and, according to Hollywood Reporter, in Tijuana and Guatemala. The working title was Kansas City 117.
Themes
In film history
The robbers wear masks and know one another only by torn playing cards. Tarantino used that arrangement in Reservoir Dogs (1992).
Making
Buddy Small, Edward Small's son, edited. It was the first of a thirteen-picture United Artists deal Small signed in 1952. The popularity of the title led him to New York Confidential (1955), Chicago Confidential (1957), and Hong Kong Confidential (1958), separate stories sold under the same word.
Reviews
Bosley Crowther in The New York Times called the script an illogical fable and objected that most of the slapping, punching, and kicking is done by the hero. Philip K. Scheuer in the Los Angeles Times praised the sharp close-ups during the crime and said the film sagged once it moved to Borados. George Gilbert in Variety thought Karlson held a grim pace and blamed the soft ending on the script.
Look
George E. Diskant shot it in black and white. Scheuer singled out Karlson's sharp close-ups in the robbery passages.
Music
Paul Sawtell composed the score.
Preservation
Because the copyright was not renewed, the film has been in the public domain in the United States since 1980.
Notes
- John Payne said he owned 25 percent of the profits.
- Small bought the title Kansas City Confidential from Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer.
- In Britain it was called The Secret Four.
- A foreword calls the robbery a perfect crime "the true solution of which is not entered in any case history.
- Entertainer Tony Romano sued United Artists, the producers, and Small for $600,000, saying the gangster given his name had exposed him to scorn.
- The world premiere was at the Woods Theatre in Chicago on 4 November 1952. New York opened on 28 November.
- The copyright was not renewed, so the film entered the public domain in the United States in 1980.
Scenes
- Three masked men take the armored-car money with a truck copied from Rolfe's flower van.
- Rolfe finds Harris's mask and half a playing card in the luggage after the airport shooting.
- On the boat, Romano shoots Kane, Foster shoots Romano, and Foster dies telling Rolfe to collect the reward and lie to Helen.
Influenced
- Reservoir Dogs (1992)
Also available
- Internet Archive (KansasCityConfidential720p)
