New York Confidential

That's the third or fourth time I see this authentic and unfortunately underrated film noir from the fifties. A true fierce, brutal, and so realistic tale of gangsters where the mob is presented as a big company and their members normal family men, such as Broderick - machine gun talking - Crawford, who is here at his best. So is Richard Conte, here as a cold, ruthless but also attractive killer. Many movie buffs speak of the GODFATHER when they present this feature. Yes, they are not wrong. If you compare with the other gangsters films made before, this one is rather close to the Francis Coppola's films. This movie is for me a little masterpiece, far better than more known gangster movies. Russel Rouse was also a damn good director. I have seen all his films, which I also have in my huge library. I confound this movie with Ken Hughes's JOE MACBETH, made at the same period, and starring Paul Douglas who, a long time ago, I confounded with Broderick Crawford. This another film noir was also a gangster family tragedy. Like this one.

A nice bridge from the gangster pictures of the 30's to the modern day mafia flick. You can see echoes of this film in GODFATHER and GOODFELLAS and others. Going inside a crime syndicate and also the private lives of the gangsters, it's a pretty satisfying drama with a lot of facets. Richard Conte is superb as a polite but cold-blooded hit-man turned consigliere, and there are also memorable performances from Anne Bancroft and the reliable heavy Mike Mazurki. Broderick Crawford is generally quite good although he does deliver a few stiff line readings. Unfortunately, the film suffers from utterly bland cinematography, and we spend so much time in well-lit rooms that it often feels like a stage production. A very good script, but the execution only provides a few exciting moments.

This is Richard Conte's role of a lifetime. He makes the most of it. The story of the syndicate in the US, and what happens when some of its machine parts are damaged is a riveting film. Broderick Crawford and his mother, however, are about as Italian as I am Norweigan. Both very fine actors in their own right, Crawford is miscast here as an Italian mobster, whereas Conte is letter-perfect. And even though Crawford is miscast as an Eye-Talian, he is still, nevertheless, extremely entertaining, and always fun to watch.

. Anne Bancroft is outstanding in one of her earliest film appearances; and this film helped launch her highly successful career. The film is a notch above the average gangster flick, and the mechanisms used by the syndicate are cold-blooded and efficient. A really good hood movie.

Russell Rouse is well versed in this sort of material, his most notable writing credit being the excellent 'D.0.A'. His collaboration with producer/writer Clarence Greene has again turned up trumps in what to this viewer at any rate is a surprisingly effective piece. Rouse doesn't hang about here. His direction is taut, the dialogue snappy and Grant Whytock's editing is crisp. There are some truly marvellous types on display notably Richard Conte as a well-tailored and well-mannered assassin who has what his boss refers to as 'real class' which seems to be the ultimate accolade in the world of the Hoodlum. Lupo, his syndicate boss who believes that everyone has a price and if they don't, bump them off, is played by Broderick Crawford. What on earth can one say about this actor? A larger than life character whose meatiest roles, with the exception of the conman in Fellini's 'Il Bidone', were behind him but who never ceased to be great value, drunk or sober! He is gifted the best line here when exclaiming: "what a bunch of lousy crooks!" Definitely an instance of the pot calling the kettle black. Good support from Mike Mazurki and inveterate scene-stealer J. Carroll Naish. THE performance to take out of this is that of the wondrous Anne Bancroft who has by far the most interesting role as Lupo's daughter. This superlative actress suffered at the time from being typecast and her film career was going nowhere. Luckily for her and for us it was playwright William Gibson and director Arthur Penn who came to her rescue when she was given the chance to reprise on film her Tony award-winning performance in 'The Miracle Worker', for which she received a much deserved Oscar. As for the subject matter we have been here before with assorted low-lifes, shady lawyers, politicians on the take, dames who know which side their bread is buttered and the dubious, morally ambiguous code of honour which demands that one lives and dies 'by the rules'. Not to mention the sweet old Italian mamma who laments: "All dis a shooting and a hiding. Justa like de old days." This is all contained however within a well-paced, well-acted film which grips from first to last.

Broderick Crawford borrows a great deal from his Academy Award winning Willie Stark from All The King's Men in playing underworld boss Frank Lupo in New York Confidential. Crawford is a combination of Stark and Don Corleone and he doesn't get the best of it.

Like Corleone and Stark, Lupo has trouble with his children, but unlike Stark, Lupo has a daughter played by Anne Bancroft. Now if Bancroft was content to be Connie Corleone she could have any number of willing suitors who are in the family business working for dad. She aspires to more and her father's reputation kills off any chance she can marry respectably.

Not that respectability guarantees honesty. When old line money WASP William Forrest pulls the rug out from under a multi-million dollar deal the Syndicate is bankrolling they decide to take care of him in the true Syndicate manner. Crawford though he opposes the idea gets the contract and from their the dominoes start to fall.

One thing however when the fires threatens, organized crime knows how to start backfires to make sure the organization itself is not touched. A whole lot of dead bodies start to pile up before the film ends.

Also starring in the film is Richard Conte playing an out of town hit man who Crawford takes a shine to and has him stay in New York. Conte was always great in noir films and he certainly is here.

New York Confidential touches upon a lot of the issues involving systemic corruption much the same way The Godfather films do. Of course it does not have the budget those blockbusters had nor an unforgettable music score, still New York Confidential makes it point. It's still a valid film for today's audience.