The Brothers Rico

Former gangland auditor is persuaded to locate missing brother before mob is compelled to kill him.

For a crime drama, that lengthy opening scene is a surprise. It's marital bliss all the way as Eddie (Conte) and wife Alice (Foster) cuddle up, providing a ton of promotional material for the censored 1950's. But more importantly, all the lovey-dovey defines Eddie's truly reformed character, plus Alice as a wife you'd want to come back to.

For a Karlson crime drama, however, the violence is oddly played down by a director who knew how to make the audience shudder. Instead, paranoia mounts as Eddie sees suspicious characters wherever he goes in search of brother Johnny (Darren). When Johnny is finally confronted by the mob, Karlson oddly passes over the potential of a centerpiece violent scene. I suspect that's because of censorship concerns given Johnny's youth and the emotional buildup preceding it. Also, note how abruptly the final shootout is handled, as if they're suddenly running out of film.

That early scene between Eddie and Kubik (Gates) is a minor masterpiece of treachery that carries through the rest of the film. As the oily family friend, Gates is simply superb. Excellent too is Harry Bellaver's smooth-talking local chieftain, who keeps appealing to Eddie's sense of survival.

As a whole, however, the movie is more a collection of good scenes rather than overall impact. Maybe because there's a curious lack of intensity to heighten the dramatic narrative. Whatever the reason, it's a good crime drama without being first-rate.

It's a long way from the Little Caesars, Public Enemies and Scarfaces of the earliest sound movies to the Godfathers, Goodfellas and Scarfaces Miami-style of more recent decades. Along the way, there were intermediate stages, and director Phil Karlson (99 River Street, Kansas City Confidential) tries his hand at one -- oddly enough, working from material by venerable French pulp-writer Georges Simenon. Richard Conte runs a commercial laundry and, with his new wife, is trying to adopt a child; after a tarnished youth, he's gone straight. The younger males in his family, it so happens, have not, and a syndicate kingpin sends Conte off to smoke out his youngest brother, in hiding, supposedly to save his life; the young squirt is played by 50s recording heart-throb Bobby Darrin. But Conte is just being used as bait.... The Brothers Rico introduces us to an all-American, corporate, impersonal view of organized crime, ranging from New York's Mulberry Street to palm-fanned Florida to the mobbed-up sunbelt of Phoenix -- and to a world where the terms "family" has lost all of its many meanings. Only the bottom line now counts.

An entertaining film noir as the genre was nearing its end. Here we had a look at the gangster-mob life from a different perspective. Richard Conte plays Eddie Rico who worked for his uncle Kubik. The film begins with an ominous phone call as Eddie is told he needs to take in a mob member who is hiding from the justice. Eddie complies although he wishes to not get involved. He is currently trying to adopt a child with his wife.

Eddie is called out by Kubik to find their missing brother Johnny. When Eddie runs into his brothers Gino and Johnny, he tells them to trust the mob and follow their instructions. Eddie believes that fidelity is still a virtue among the mob bosses. He is committed to the cause and will do anything to make sure his brothers continue to survive. As a noir, it moves from Florida to New York to Phoenix and California, becoming one of the few national noirs (there is none I can think of right now).

The film is shot in a minimalist fashion. Most of the sound is diegetic based on the scenes on screen. On several occasions, melodramatic music plays which actually tones down the suspense, but clearly it is a tool used by the director to deprive the viewer of expected non-diegetic music. Richard Conte and his wife are very playful in the early scenes and risqué for the period as they engage playfully in the bathroom. As a mob movie with an Italian background, it continues the early gangster movies but takes the angle of the people down the line who are at the mercy of those at the top.

The Brothers Rico is worthwhile as an entertaining movie if you enjoy film-noir and tracing the developments of gangster films.

Phil Karlson may not be one of the 'great' American directors but he was a very fine genre director, specializing in tough, gritty gangster thrillers of which "The Brothers Rico" is just one. Richard Conte is the retired mob accountant who finds himself drawn back to his criminal past when one of his former associates asks him for a favour on the same day his brother confesses to carrying out a hit and Larry Gates is excellent as the mob boss who drags him back in. Others in a decent cast include Dianne Foster as Conte's wife, James Darren as the younger brother whose actions set the plot in motion, Kathryn Grant as Darren's wife and later director Lamont Johnson as one of the few 'good' guys.

The source material was a story by none other than Georges Simenon though you probably would never guess it. This is a good, old-fashioned mob movie, the kind that would sit nicely on a double-bill with either Siegel's "The Killers" or Boorman's "Point Blank". Conte spends most of the movie chasing after Darren while Gates' heavies close in and until the end action is kept to a minimum. You could say this is an American gangster film reflected through a European art-house lens. With a better actor than Conte in the lead it might have been a classic but even with Conte it still exerts a grip while the excellent black and white cinematography was the work of the great Burnett Guffey.

Towards the end of the noir cycle director Phil Karlsen came up with a really good crime drama about three brothers all involved to a greater and lesser degree with organized crime. The oldest, Richard Conte, was at one time the syndicate accountant. But he's retired now, running a laundry the boys have set him up with. His biggest problem now is that he and wife Dianne Foster are trying to adopt a child.

But brothers Paul Picerni and James Darren are still very much involved and at the dirty end of it. Picerni's a contract killer who just made a major hit and Darren drove the car. Darren's gotten married and disappeared and the syndicate heads are worried he'll turn state's evidence. His brother-in-law Lamont Johnson's already been to the District Attorney.

Conte has faith and trusts in the big boss Larry Gates who's been close to the whole family Rico, including their mother Argentina Brunetti who took a bullet meant for Gates way back when. So when Gates tells him to find Darren, Conte takes it on face value.

Of course it's all not that simple and it becomes a tragedy for The Brothers Rico all around.

The Brothers Rico made in the Fifties as it was could have been an anti-Communist film. The syndicate seems to be really well organized, from Little Italy in New York, to Phoenix Arizona, to Miami, Florida, they've got Conte's movements all tracked. Karlson really builds the tension up as Conte seems to keep running into old acquaintances, but just keeps going on trust.

Larry Gates who usually plays upright moral types on screen has that persona work for him as the syndicate boss who's just pulling the strings from coast to coast. His is the best performance in the film, followed closely by Harry Bellaver an amiable underboss in Phoenix who's just following orders.

Kathryn Grant is in this film as Darren's bride. This year that The Brothers Rico came out, she became Mrs. Bing Crosby. She'd keep working a few more years, but after that retired to raise the Old Groaner's second family. She registers well in her role as a pregnant bride in love.

The Brothers Rico is a gripping noir film, not one for the paranoid minded among us.