A Capital do Crime

Union corruption serves as the McGuffin for Chicago Confidential, but the movie's really a big-city cops-and-robbers story with some stalwarts and set-ups left over from the noir cycle that had just about run its course by 1957 (and it shows).

A union official about to sing winds up shot and sunk in Lake Michigan; the honest union president (Dick Foran) is framed for the murder, stands trial and is convicted. That's quite a feather in the cap of District Attorney Brian Keith, who has gubernatorial yearnings.

But Foran's girlfriend Beverly Garland, discredited on the witness stand by means of fabricated evidence and suborned perjury, wins over Keith through her persistent loyalty. But as Keith begins to unravel the skein of lies that helped him win his case, the union's ambitious and corrupt vice-president (Douglas Kennedy) grows more desperate, and the body count starts to look like the city's in the roaring ‘20s. Among the victims is a stumblebum called Candymouth (Elisha Cook), used as a cat's paw in incriminating Foran, but even Keith and Garland find themselves in jeopardy....

The plot involves a bigwig lawyer left over from the Capone organization, `B-girls,' an impressionist, and oscilloscopes. But it moves quickly enough that the loose ends don't matter much (Why wasn't the tape recording analyzed before the trial? Why are the B-girls being shipped to Manila?). Director Sidney Salkow gets some of locales right (a sleazy bar called Shanghai Low among them) but doesn't bring much of an eye or an ear to the enterprise. Still, he keeps the movie jumping from one thing to the next, and that's at least something.

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.

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 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.

"Chicago Confidential" is an excellent crime film and much of the reason is the taught script and the acting of Brian Keith, a man who was an excellent movie actor but who is known much more for his light television faire.

Organized crime is trying to take over the unions in Chicago. But instead of just muscling in, this group using some muscle...but brains as well. Instead of just killing the honest leaders of the union, they kill one and frame the other for his murder. It's evil...but also very clever...so clever that the honest District Attorney (Keith) falls into their trap and convicts an innocent man. Later, however, he learns that he might have been used by the mob and the DA springs into action to uncover the truth.

Keith is great and the script is very good. But there is one glaring logical problem...why would the DA put himself into such dangerous situations without a police escort?! Even when the DA is attacked and killed by these crooks, he STILL seems to be on a one-man crusade...which is not logical at all. But, despite this, the film is never dull and is well worth your time.