A Capital do Crime

The "Confidential" part was meant to piggy-back on the popular appeal of the lurid magazine of the same name, while the labor racketeering theme tied in with headline Congressional investigations of the day. However, despite the A-grade B-movie cast and some good script ideas, the movie plods along for some 73 minutes. It's a cheap-jack production all the way. What's needed to off-set the poor production values is some imagination, especially from uninspired director Sidney Salkow. A few daylight location shots, for example, would have helped relieve the succession of dreary studio sets. A stylish helmsman like Anthony Mann might have done something with the thick-ear material, but Salkow treats it as just another pay-day exercise. Too bad that Brian Keith's typical low-key style doesn't work here, coming across as merely wooden and lethargic. At the same time, cult figure Elisha Cook Jr. goes over the top as a wild-eyed drunk. Clearly, Salkow is no actor's director. But, you've got to hand it to that saucy little number Beverly Garland who treats her role with characteristic verve and dedication. Too bad, she wasn't in charge. My advice-- skip it, unless you're into ridiculous bar-girls who do nothing else but knock back whiskeys in typical strait-jacketed 50's fashion.

Unlike with the City that Never Sleeps, I didn't recognize a single Chicago location, unless you count still photographs. I think this was made in LA, and I'm bummed because I watched it to see old footage of my city.

It's well acted, and well structured, but the story hinges on a plot point, and some pseudoscience, that are so loopy they would be camp, if it were not for how straight everyone plays it, like a police procedural. If you get a kick of how old science plays out in old movies, or dated, or incredibly fictional science, that might be fun for you.

Plus, the State's Attorney re-examines something on the flimsiest possible basis. We're all used to that, every time someone says they have a hunch in movies, sure. But this is more like "someone who is biased yelled at me," and "leave no stone unturned to the point of being ridiculous."

So, this is a well acted, well structured movie that hinges on a couple of incredibly goofy plot points.

However, it's a blast to see Jack Lambert in this. I always think of him as the Lee Marvin who never made it big. He's similarly born to play toughs.

The mob has infiltrated a union and are about to be ratted out to the state's attorney. They rub out the songbird and make a patsy out of the union's leader. Things look bad for the condemned man, but his girlfriend never gives up trying to exonerate him. Good film with lots of old familiar faces.

The film shows the evils of unions, but it's no "On the Waterfront". It's more like a TV movie, probably because the film's director, Sydney Salkow, was busy making TV crime and western films at the time.

Dick Foran (the singing cowboy from the 30s) plays an honest Union President, and sexy Beverly Garland plays his girlfriend. Brian Keith gets top billing as an ambitious DA (this is his first starring role in a film) and there are plenty of competent character actors including Elisha Cook Jr. (the "gunsill" from Maltese Falcon), John Hamilton (Perry White from TV's Superman) and big Douglas Kennedy ("Steve Donovan, Western Marshall").

This isn't a terrible film, but when you think about what else came out in 1957 - "Bridge on the River Kwai", "Sayonara", "Three Faces of Eve", "Pal Joey", "Funny Face", "Witness for the Prosecution" - it's clearly weak.

One of several late-noirs about Union corruption, for a basic seventy-five-minute programmer, CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL has just about everything, from murderous thugs to their sophisticated bosses to courtroom drama involving a wrong man to all heavies eventually being hunted down, Brian Keith stars as a lawyer fighting to get wrongly-accused union boss Dick Foran off the hook from an ON THE WATERFRONT style rudimentary stool-pigeon murder (care-of usual Noir torpedo Jack Lambert) that happens right off the bat...

Giving CONFIDENTIAL a tight, edgy and at the same time breezily entertaining pulse where the best sequences take place beyond expository offices and into the shadowy streets or else inside a smoky nightclub that harbors sultry and experienced b-girls led by an equally vulnerable Beverly Tyler (along with alcoholic Linda Brent), stealing scenes not only from Keith's picture-pretty housewife and lead ingenue (Foran's secretary) Beverly Garland, but the men as well.