New York confidentiel

Richard Rouse's New York Confidential is a fine movie. It feels realistic and genuine. It's portrayal of the mafia seems more sophisticated than the movies that came before it. It's a very good screenplay, easy to follow but plausible and with plenty of twists. It is a real pleasure watching the three stars at work. Broderick Crawford is great playing ... Broderick Crawford, showing power, bluster, urgency and frailty all at the same time. Richard Conte and Anne Bancroft are possibly even better, Conte exuding confidence, charm and self-control and Bancroft making us feel the desperation of being trapped inside a mafia clan. I applaud the producers and director for choosing to use only a few Italian American actors in a film about the mafia - only Conte, Bancroft and a few minor players - as it shifts the focus from the ethnic aspects to the business itself and the individual choices each of the criminals makes.

NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL is a perplexing film noir entry. Among its many merits is the astonishing cast: Broderick Crawford (who spits out his dialogue in Howard Hawks-rapidity as if he were on amphetamines), Anne Bancroft (astonishing) and the always reliable Richard Conte. But it never shakes the feeling of being two films in one, sitting uneasily side by side: a stern "semi-documentary" expose of the "syndicate" on one hand, and a bleak and brutal pre-Godfather mafia family saga on the other.

As such, it is wildly and tragically uneven. The leads all turn in brilliant performances, but the screenplay has all the earmarks of a committee job; fascinating ideas and characterizations butt up against terribly overwrought clichés. The main cast is on fire with weighty dialogue, but the supporting cast flounders about as if they were in the most pedestrian B-noir instead of a star-driven studio picture. For the most part, the design is static and lifeless, shot with little flair by Eddie Fitzgerald. Director and co-writer Russell Rouse's previous noir entry was the chancy THE THIEF, also an uneven experiment.

But the film has its scenes of incredible power, usually those revolving around Conte, as a cold and calculating hit-man for hire, and Bancroft, as the put-upon mobster's daughter who can't crawl out from behind dad's shadow; Conte dispatching with "hits", his gunshots creepily muffled by a silencer; Crawford's repeated near-meltdowns; murderous planning done completely straight in a corporate boardroom, just big business as usual.

A puzzler of a film, leaving the viewer to wonder what could have been, had it been shot by John Alton and penned by, say, Dalton Trumbo. Still, it's an extremely valuable entry in the film noir canon, strangely almost impossible to see.

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.

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.

New York Confidential is directed by Russell Rouse and collectively written by Rouse, Jack Lait , Lee Mortimer and Clarence Greene. It stars Broderick Crawford, Richard Conte, Anne Bancroft, Marilyn Maxwell, J. Carrol Naish, Onslow Stevens, Barry Kelley and Mike Mazurki. Music is by Joseph Mullendore and cinematography by Eddie Fitzgerald.

The Kefauver Committee was set up at the beginning of the 1950s and its role was to investigate into the growing threat of organised crime. From this very real moment in time came a wave of films that jumped onto the possibilities on offer for dramatic filmic purpose, New York Confidential is one such picture.

In short order the plot has Crawford as New York Syndicate boss Charles Lupo, who borrows hit-man Nick Maggelan (Conte) from the Chigao branch to enact a hit. The pair quickly strike up a terrific relationship, but as problems within the Lupo home begin to mount up - and the heat starts to close in on the organisation - cracks begin to turn into chasms.

It says a lot about the efforts of the cast that this turns out to be better than it had right to be. The interesting slant here is the impact of family life on the main man. Lupo is a widower who still lives with his mother and daughter, he dotes on his mother and smothers his daughter Katherine (Bancroft) in what he thinks is fatherly love. She hates his criminal workings and rebels against it, something which Lupo can't quite understand. Thrust into the mix is Magellan, suave and good looking, he has tremendous loyalty to Lupo, so when Katherine grabs his eye he has to fight his feelings for her and his commitment to Lupo. Add in Lupo's sultry girlfriend Iris (Maxwell), who has no loyalty and wants to bed Magellan, then emotional conflict and tests of character are boldly prominent.

Beginning with shots of New York City and a narration telling us about how great and prosperous the city is, it is however the core of Syndicated Crime. We switch to a drive by killing, one which claims an innocent bystander, and the scene is set for Lupo and Magellan to meet and the story spins on from there. The dialogue is well written in quick fire noir speak, the best of which comes from Magellan who is calmness personified and Katherine who is bitingly bitter. There's a disappointment that we are sadly denied effective chiaroscuro, for the story demands it, more so when things go belly up and the world closes in on Lupo and Magellan's surrogate father/son relationship.

Come the last quarter the pic really hits its flm noir straps, where joyously it doesn't let us down. We are not fed improbables or lightweight fare, we get pure blackheart noirville, something which elevates a decent film into being a very good one. Family strife and conflicted matters of the heart blend with corruption and organised crime, all crammed into an hour and half of film making. Lovely. 7.5/10