Kansas City Confidential

1952 "The Crime That Shocked The Nation!"
7.3| 1h40m| NR| en
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An ex-convict sets out to uncover who framed him for an armored car robbery.

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Reviews

Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!
Micransix Crappy film
TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.
Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
glennallentolbert A superb cast of characters. Interesting, suspenseful. Well filmed. One of the better films of the time.
egmjag-37366 Pretty good film noir. I wouldn't say it's one of the best but it's pretty good. I am always interested in a movie's film locations especially if it was filmed in L.A. But part of this film seems to have been filmed in some parts of Mexico like Tijuana. Yet, there's no mention of those international locations mentioned on this website about this movie. I noticed Borados was mentioned in the movie and even a sign shown as one of the primary locations where most of this movie was filmed. This is where most of the action occurs. I did a web search and noticed that there is a Los Borrados town in central Mexico in the state of Zacatecas. Perhaps this is the same town which was later renamed to Los Borrados. Was this movie actually filmed there?
messages-lc This initially started out as a great movie. A basic bank-robbery/frame-up plot is punctuated with a bit of intrigue, as the robbers are anonymous to each other due to some creepy masks.Our hero's sense of desperation is fairly- accurately relayed throughout his beatings at the hands of the cops, loss of employment, and search for justice in Tijuana. The death scenes are pulled off fairly well, despite the complete lack of blood. (I get it: WWII just ended and soldiers didn't want to see any more carnage. However, it isn't as difficult to change a camera angle as it is to completely suspend one's sense of disbelief.)The movie starts to unravel as soon as our protagonist's love interest comes into the picture. Her acting ability is sub-par, and her dialog does little to endear her to the viewer. In fact, the suspense the film has produced up to this point is completely destroyed... and all for a poorly-interwoven romantic sub-plot. The gritty atmosphere is abandoned for a mediocre romantic angle that goes nowhere - and our hero's belle is nowhere near likable enough to develop the sub-plot to any degree worthy of the digression.As such, whereas I would have given the movie 8/10, it is reduced to 5/10.
mark.waltz Everything's up to date in Kansas City, so a group of bank robbers in hooded masks get together to commit the biggest heist that the mid-west city (spread across two states) will ever see. Three of the robbers have no idea what the others look like, with only the mastermind aware of who is who, having basically blackmailed the others to get involved with promise of a large cut. They don't count on ex-con John Payne, a war hero and reformed felon, being arrested for an alleged involvement, only because he was near the scene of the crime in the same flower shop van that the others used as a get-away vehicle. After less than half an hour, the action switches to foreign locations where Payne begins his investigation as to how he got framed so he can clear this off of his record. After one of the men is killed, Payne assumes his identity, and tracks down the other men, including the mastermind (Preston Foster) and his beautiful daughter (Colleen Gray), where he is forced into the final showdown with investigators of the crime and a surprise is revealed that will alter the outcome of the original robbery.The performances of the four actual criminals are worth viewing for individual detailed characteristics, and Payne, a truly versatile actor, gives a nice dead-pan performance as he expresses an understandable world weariness, first from surviving a war, then from trying to turn his life around from crime. Gray plays more than just a walk-on love interest with no real purpose. Even if her screen time is limited, she brings a different dimension into the character of her father mastermind. Foster is outstanding, first in plotting the crime, then in bewilderment as he meets the intrusive Payne, and finally, as he faces his own conscience. Jack Elam, Neville Brand and Lee Van Cleef are worthy of note as the three men involved, while Don Orlando, in a brief role of a cab driver that Payne meets in Tijuana, is memorable as well. This well written film noir is another example of expressing the true meaning of "Crime Does Not Pay" and that in the end, the truth is always revealed.