Le quatrième homme

Driving a truckful of posies for a florist seems about as safe an occupation an ex-con could hope for. But for John Payne in Phil Karlson's Kansas City Confidential, it gets him framed for a million-two robbery. His trouble is that you can set a clock by his punctual rounds, and that one of his deliveries coincides with the arrival of the armored car at the bank next door. His comings and goings have been meticulously stop-watched by the mastermind of the heist (Preston Foster), a disgruntled policeman forced into retirement who seeks his weird sort of revenge.

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.

This is a suspenseful, atmospheric film noir that is well worth checking out. I'd only seen Payne in musicals, but here he has a real understated intensity as a World War II vet out to clear his name. (In looks and affect he bears a resemblance to Kevin Spacey.) Preston Foster and a young Lee Van Cleef fill out the nest-of-vipers cast nicely. The wordless opening sequence is especially well done.

This is an exceptional Film Noir movie that almost merits a score of 9--it's THAT good. Like good Noir, it features some of the ugliest and scariest actors and I applaud the producers for finding such a motley group! Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef and Neville Brand are definitely the ugliest and toughest looking heavies of the age and here they all work together on a heist. The movie also stars John Payne and Preston Foster. While these two guys weren't as hideous as the other three, they were both well past their handsome prime--hence they were great Noir characters! In addition, the film is bloody and violent--definite pluses for Noir. While this may sound like Noir films are super-violent, they were compared to the average picture of the day but pale in comparison to more recent films. I like them because they are so gritty and realistic in their blunt portrayal of crime. In this case, watching John Payne slap the snot out of Van Cleef is an amazing scene. As for the plot, it's amazingly complex and interesting. So good, in fact, that I don't want to talk about the heist--lest if ruin the suspense. Suffice to say, it's well worth seeing with great writing, acting and all the elements you are looking for in Noir. A must-see for lovers of the genre.

Kansas City Confidential (AKA: The Secret Four) is directed by Phil Karlson and written by George Bruce and Harry Essex. It stars John Payne, Preston Foster, Coleen Gray, Neville Brand, Jack Elam and Lee Van Cleef. Music is by Paul Sawtell and cinematography by George E. Diskant. Plot sees four robbers hold up an armoured truck and get away with over a million dollars. Sadly for everyday and ordinary Joe Rolfe (Payne), he's set up and accused of being involved in the robbery. But he wont go down without a fight, and promptly calls upon his dark half to seek out the actual culprits himself.

"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".

Produced by Edward Small, Kansas City Confidential is believed to be the only film released out of Small's own Associated Players and Producers studio. Still, if you are going to only have one film on your studio résumé, you have to be thankful that it's a little cracker. More "B" movie grit than film noir flecked nastiness, Karlson's movie is lean, mean and structured with knowing skill by the director. From the tremendous tension fuelled opening of the heist planning and execution, through to the deadly payoff at the finale, film is awash with knuckle slappings, shifting identities and the turning of the protagonist's psychological make up. Were it not for one of "those" endings, and the telegraphing of optimism slightly shunting the pessimistic atmosphere out of the headlights, this would undoubtedly be far more revered and better known in film noir/crime movie circles.

First thing to note of worth is the cast assembled for the picture. Payne was already leaving behind his formative acting years in family fare like Miracle On 34th Street and Footlight Serenade, reinventing himself as a dramatic actor in films such as The Crooked Way. He's a perfect fit for Joe Rolfe, an ex-con war veteran down on his luck, he has his every man qualities pummelled out of him by the police, so much so he has to turn bad to prove that he's good. The change is believable in Payne's hands, his face that of normality in the beginning, but latterly icy cold and untrustworthy. A trio of "B" movie stalwarts make up the thugs gallery, Jack Elam is sweaty and worm like, Lee Van Cleef is snake faced and pulsing bad attitude, while Neville Brand exudes borderline psychotic menace. Unfortunately Preston Foster as the "boss" man is not altogether convincing, but in a film where characters are not always what they seem, this doesn't hurt the film.

Coleen Gray shows a nice pair of legs for the boys, but with Karlson not bothered about fleshing out the romantic and flirting aspects of her relationship with Payne, she exists only as a secondary cog between Payne and Foster's characters. This is no femme fatale character, sadly, no sir. Music is standard fare and Diskant's photography only fleetingly shows some noir flourishes. However, with two fists full of grit from which to punch, and some boldness in the narrative involving police brutality, Kansas City Confidential comes out as one of the better "B" ranked crime movies of the 50's. 8/10

John Payne stars in "Kansas City Confidential," a 1952 noir also starring Preston Foster, Colleen Gray, Jack Elam, Neville Brand and Lee Van Cleef. Payne is Joe Rolfe, a WW II vet who delivers flowers for a living. He finds himself accused of a spectacular robbery of $1.2 million because the thieves used a truck like his as their escape vehicle. With the help of a buddy, he finds out that a criminal has split town suddenly for Mexico, and he goes there to locate the man and hopefully clear his own name. What he doesn't realize is that there were four thieves, and all of them wore masks to shield their identities from one another. When the man he's tracking is killed, Joe assumes his identity and goes to the place where the other thieves are supposed to await further instructions from their boss.

Phil Karlson directed this good noir, which has an excellent cast that includes a favorite actress of mine, the lovely Coleen Gray as an ex-cop's daughter. She shows up at the locale to surprise her dad (Preston Foster), who is actually the mastermind of the heist.

Like any actor who worked for 20th Century Fox, John Payne had to be versatile, and he was. Here he plays a rough-around-the-edges war hero who has to survive among thieves by being tougher than they are. The the man known as "The Singing Tyrone Power" at Fox pulls it off. A handsome leading man, here Payne steps into John Garfield territory with ease. Elam, van Cleef and Brand are as mean and low-down as you can get, and the film gets quite violent at times.

The print I saw was very grainy; this wasn't a studio B movie but one made on the cheap, though the film was distributed by UA. However, it stands up very well next to other noirs of that era.