Chicago Confidential

A cast of familiar faces appear in Chicago Confidential, a 1957 B movie. The stars are Brian Keith, Beverly Garland, Dick Foran, Elisha Cook Jr., John Hamilton, and Phyllis Coates. The latter two stars were in the TV "Superman" in case you don't recognize their names.

The story is told with a narration, semidocumentary style. This type of film was popular for a time, but to me, it's very dry and too "Dragnet."

A union accountant who has been keeping two sets of books calls DA Jim Fremont (Keith) and announces he is bringing in proof that the mob has infiltrated the union and is stealing from it. As could have been predicted as he starts walking to the DA's house in the dark, briefcase and folders in hand, he doesn't make it.

The bad guys set up one of the good union guys, Artie Blaine (Foran) to take the fall for the murder, and they do a decent job of it, using a drunk (Elisha Cook, Jr.) who finds the murder weapon as a witness to go to the DA once they clean him up. Then they discredit Blaine's fiancée (Garland) on the witness stand. The noose tightens.

Fairly formulaic, with a couple of interesting things - one is an impressionist, and the other is the use of a machine that recognizes speech patterns.

I interviewed Beverly Garland some years ago, so I always try to watch her films. She was a vibrant, funny, wonderful lady with a million stories. It makes me sad that she's no longer with us, but at least we can enjoy her film and TV work. For me she's a bright spot in "Chicago Confidential."

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 (1957)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Boring, low-budget crime drama about racketeers forcing their way into unions. In this case, a D.A. (Brian Keith) swears to bring them down by ends up locking away an innocent man (Dick Foran) and with the help of his girlfriend (Beverly Garland) they try to get the real killer. CHICAGO CONFIDENTIAL is trying hard to be dark, cool and serious but it pretty much fails on all three levels. To be honest though, this here really isn't any worse than the countless "B" crime pictures that were released around this time as they all feature the same limitations. Some of those are obviously the budget but I think a good director and cast can turn this into a benefit. That really doesn't happen here and what we're left with is just one clichéd scene after another and it all boils up to a climax that you'll see coming from a mile away. What made this film so hard to get through was the Dragnet-like voice overs that narrate the entire film. I always found this routine to be rather cheap and pathetic for a number of reasons but the biggest one is that it really tells the viewer that they're too stupid to understand what's going on. That's what happens the majority of the time but this film goes a step further by not even bothering to have the action in the film do anything and instead we're just told what should be happening with the narration. The plot of this film is so weak because it seems they didn't try to have anything happen in front of our eyes and instead we're told everything. Keith, Garland and Foran are fun to watch but even they can't save this film. Elisha Cook, Jr. plays a drunk who holds some key evidence.

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.

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.