Starring:

John Payne as Joe Rolfe
Neville Brand as Boyd Kane
Lee Van Cleef as Tony Romano
Jack Elam as Pete Harris

This classic 1952 film is an absolutely compelling film noir starring three of the greatest ‘bad guy’ actors of the golden era: big boyish-faced tough guy Neville Brand, wiry nervous wonky-eyed Jack Elam, and Spaghetti Western great Lee Van Cleef in one of his earliest roles. Starring as the good guy in this movie is John Payne, now sadly not well known but a good ‘strong silent type’ lead in his day. They just don’t make ‘em like any of these four anymore.

It's a gripping story of an innocent man who has been randomly framed for a major robbery, by persons unknown. He sets out to find out who did this to him and why, meeting with lots of unsavoury characters and twists and turns along the way.

The story starts with a middle-aged man in a suit watching the comings and goings outside Southwest Bank from the several-stories-high window of a building across the street. We, and the man in the suit, see Joe pull up in his delivery van, take out a pile of boxes and deliver them to the florists’ shop next door to the bank. The man in the suit checks his watch, and then goes off to consult a map depicting the bank and the road in front of it as well as a timetable of the arrival and departure of the florist van at the same time every day. Then we see a couple of uniformed men leave the bank carrying large money bags and getting into their armoured van.

We next cut to a shabby hotel room in which we see Pete Harris (Jack Elam at his endearingly neurotic best) looking frightened as the phone starts ringing. It’s the man in the suit from the previous scene, and he makes Pete an offer he can’t refuse, to do with a big heist in which Pete’s share would be 300 grand, if Pete will come to his hotel room.

Pete decides to do so, and when he arrives he is greeted by Mr Suit wearing a mask. Frightened, he pulls his gun on Mr Suit, who grabs him, slaps him around and knocks the gun out of his hand.

‘What makes a two-bit heel like you think a heater would give him an edge over me?’ Mr Suit demands. ‘I oughta ram it down yer throat! What’s waitin’ for ya, Harris? The gas chamber, The Chair, or just a rope?’

Well, Pete decides if you can’t beat ‘em you might as well join ‘em, and agrees to Mr Suit’s proposition. Big bank robbery, everyone wears a mask so that they can never identify each other – a foolproof plan.

Mr Suit next drops in on Tony Romano, a very youthful Lee Van Cleef in a snazzy wide-brimmed hat and bowtie, and stitches him up into joining the heist too by threatening to snitch on him for various previous crimes. ‘But no dames, understand?’ demands Mr Suit. ‘No dames!’

Tony replies, with a big grin ‘If you don’t like it, don’t knock it.’ Looks like Tony is a bit of a stallion, then. Although I’m not sure what that remark says about Mr Suit.

Boyd Kane (Neville Brand looking like a cool dude in his nifty 50s sunglasses) is the final name on Mr Suit’s list of thugs to bully into carrying out his heist: ‘You’re a cop killer,’ Mr Suit says contemptuously. ‘You killed one on that last deal.’ ‘I don’t like heroes,’ sneers Boyd. ‘You can tell that to the warden when they burn ya,’ Mr Suit replies. Well, so Boyd is on board now too.

The next day Joe Rolfe makes his delivery to the florists’ shop and when he drives off, an identical van zooms around the corner and parks in the same place, but this time three men in masks leap out. They jump the uniformed men departing with the money bags, and zoom off as quickly as they arrived.

Police broadcasts go out for the florist van, and they capture the hapless Joe. They drag him out of his van and rough him up, asking where his buddies are and where the money is. Joe, of course, has no idea what they’re on about. After throwing him in jail overnight, the next morning a detective discovers that not only has the identical getaway van been found, but Joe’s movements the previous day have been thoroughly checked into and he has come up clean. Joe is told he’s free to go. But is he free? He’s lost his job because of this and his reputation has been ruined. So, he decides to set out to find out who framed him. He ends up facing loads of twists and turns over the next hour and twenty minutes.

This is such a fantastic dark film, full of tough-talkin’ tough guys, suspense and menace, with great convincing performances and a gripping story that will keep you glued to the screen. It's so much fun to see Lee Van Cleef as a young guy, all jaunty in a really silly bow tie and snazzy hat, cocky as anything and a real smoothie with the ladies. Neville Brand is so great at playing psychos, who always come across all the more menacing due to his boyish face and equally boyish floppy hair, and I always love seeing Jack Elam with his trademark out-of-whack eyes (the result of a boyhood fight at a Boy Scout meeting of all things, where one eye caught the wrong end of a pencil) and twitchily neurotic persona.

John Payne is someone I remember seeing many times in 1940s and 1950s films on TV when I was very little, but have not now seen any of his films on TV or DVD except this one in many years. It is a shame as he was an attractive guy (so much so that managed to have a romance with sexy actress Jane Russell, then famous for her role in the notorious film 'The Outlaw'!) with good presence, adept at playing the strong silent type. Here he plays an ex-con gone straight and trying to make a decent life for himself only to have it shattered by these nameless and literally faceless villains, and we do share his payne, er, pain.

As with pretty much all of these noir-style films, the camerawork and cinematography utilise shadows and camera angles that add a stark, atmospheric and dramatic edge to the black and white photography. The musical score is dramatic and well-orchestrated, adding to the tension. The overall effect is one of gritty and punchy drama.

I’ve watched this one several times and am sure I’ll watch it several more – the performances, direction and story are just SO good, a real quality classic that should be much more well-known than it is.

A great late-night film for when you can give it the undivided attention it deserves.

Also on Ciao.com as EsmeraldaDragon, on dooyoo.co.uk as thereddragon, and partially on http://www.archive.org/details/kansascityconfidencial (yes, that is a spelling error on the part of the Internet Archive website, not me!) as IAmTheRedDragon.