Un ancien détenu qui essaie de rester sur le droit chemin est accusé d'un vol de voiture blindée d'un million de dollars et doit se rendre au Mexique afin de démasquer les véritables coupabl... Tout lireUn ancien détenu qui essaie de rester sur le droit chemin est accusé d'un vol de voiture blindée d'un million de dollars et doit se rendre au Mexique afin de démasquer les véritables coupables.Un ancien détenu qui essaie de rester sur le droit chemin est accusé d'un vol de voiture blindée d'un million de dollars et doit se rendre au Mexique afin de démasquer les véritables coupables.
- Réalisation
- Scénario
- Casting principal
- Porter
- (non crédité)
- Prisoner
- (non crédité)
- Robbery Spectator
- (non crédité)
- Player
- (non crédité)
- Detective Barney
- (non crédité)
- Airline Clerk
- (non crédité)
Avis à la une
Foster's plan assembles a gang who wear masks during the plotting so they can't recognize one another, or him. Payne's just the innocent fall guy who's thrown to the cops. Those cops try to beat a confession out of him, but it won't stick. He nonetheless loses his job and ends up on the front pages as the prime suspect. So he goes on the earie and follows the robbers (Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef and Neville Brand) down to Mexico, where they're to meet with `Mr. Big' again and divvy up the take.
The spanner in the works proves to be Foster's daughter (Coleen Gray), striking sparks with Payne as he poses as one of the conspirators killed in Tijuana en route to the rendezvous. Gray's an aspiring lawyer in ignorance of daddy's scheme which is to turn over the robbers, thus rehabilitating himself with the force, and to collect the insurers' reward of $300-large.
Those south-of-the-border resort bungalows, during the noir cycle at any rate, were hotbeds of passion and gunplay. Karlson gives us a little of the former (not his long suit) but plenty of the latter. Over cardgames in the lobby and chance meetings amid the subtropical foliage at night, the unknown players try to sniff one another out and gain whatever edge they can. Their final gathering, aboard a boat called the Manana, shakes out as a crashing intersection of cross-purposes.
Like Dick Powell, Payne started off as a crooner and hoofer, a light leading man (his best remembered role is as Maureen O'Hara's fiancé in Miracle on 34th Street). But in three films under Phil Karlson's direction (plus Robert Florey's in The Crooked Way and Allan Dwan's in Slightly Scarlet), he ended up one of the most convincing ordinary-guy protagonists in the noir cycle. He's tough, all right, but still shows the flop-sweat of fear; and he's smart, too, but because he's forced to be what he's trying to hang onto is all he's got.
Off-screen, he was even smarter, seeing the potential revenue in color films (like Hell's Island and Slightly Scarlet) when selling to television was at most a pipe dream. But as an actor in the ambiguous world of film noir, he's seldom given the credit he deserves. He's every bit as good as Powell or Glenn Ford, if not quite so emblematic as Humphrey Bogart or Robert Mitchum or Burt Lancaster. Karlson's brutal, accomplished works late in the noir cycle gave Payne his place in the dark sun.
"Kansas City" is, I believe, the first and clearly the best of a number of "Confidential" films made during the mid-fifties. For example, note the unusually brutal cop interrogation of fall-guy Payne. Keep in mind, this was during a Cold War time when the TV mega-hit "Dragnet" was professionalizing law enforcement's image nation-wide. Here, however, we get quite a different picture that certainly goes beyond the norm of the day. In fact, director Karlson, like noir filmmaker Anthony Mann, built a reputation for emphasizing the raw nature of thuggish violence, at least as much as the censors would allow. And this is certainly one of the more graphically brutal films of the era.
All in all, it's a fine imaginative script, with a number of unconventional surprises. The robbery is cleverly plotted along with the get-away. I like the way the screenplay parcels out needed information instead of laying it all out at the beginning. That way, viewer interest is kept up since a new wrinkle might pop up at any moment. Even pretty girl Colleen Gray's part is nicely woven in at the end, after I thought she was just a romantic interest. I guess Dona Drake's role was a touch of local color or a favor to somebody since she adds nothing to the plot, but apparently her Mexican girl does sell more than just souvenirs.
There are echoes from this movie in such later caper films as The Killing, Plunder Road, and Mark Steven's underrated Timetable. Some might consider this a noir film since Payne is trapped by unseen forces through no fault of his own. Nonetheless, other traditional noir elements are noticeably absent, such as the angular shadows of expressionist lighting and the lack of a customary spider woman. But it doesn't really matter how the movie's categorized because it remains something of a sleeper with a number of genuine surprises.
Le saviez-vous
- AnecdotesJohn Payne broke some of Jack Elam's ribs in a fight scene.
- GaffesWhen approaching the bank for the heist, a mountain is clearly seen in the background. Kansas City is in the plains and has no mountains.
- Citations
Scott Andrews: [Speaking about Rolfe] ... left school to enlist with the engineers. Pretty good soldier too! Bronze Star, Purple Heart!
Joe Rolfe: Try and buy a cup of coffee with them!
- Crédits fousOpening credits prologue: "In the police annals of Kansas City are written lurid chapters concerning the exploits of criminals apprehended and brought to punishment."
"But it is the purpose of this picture to expose the amazing operations of a man who conceived and executed a 'perfect crime,' the true solution of which is NOT entered in ANY case history, and could well be entitled 'Kansas City Confidential.'"
- ConnexionsEdited into Tep No & KT Tunstall: Heartbeat Bangs (2021)
- Bandes originalesLa Cucaracha
(uncredited)
Spanish Traditional
Sung by Tomaso as he delivers the mail
Meilleurs choix
- How long is Kansas City Confidential?Alimenté par Alexa
Détails
- Date de sortie
- Pays d’origine
- Langues
- Aussi connu sous le nom de
- Kansas City Confidential
- Lieux de tournage
- Two Harbors, Santa Catalina Island, Channel Islands, Californie, États-Unis(scenes in "Borados")
- Sociétés de production
- Voir plus de crédits d'entreprise sur IMDbPro
- Durée1 heure 39 minutes
- Couleur
- Rapport de forme
- 1.37 : 1