Kansas City Confidential (1952)

Kansas City Confidential is a compact, gritty 1952 film noir directed by Phil Karlson and starring John Payne. Perennial movie bad guys Lee Van Cleef, Neville Brand and Jack Elam play the film's heavies. Four robbers hold up an armored truck getting away with over a million dollars in cash. Joe Rolfe (John Payne), a down-on-his-luck flower delivery truck driver is accused of being involved and is arrested and beaten up by the local police.

The criminals Peter Harris, Boyd Kane and Tony Romano are individually hired by a stranger that plots the robbery of an armored car after receiving the money from a bank in the next door of a flower shop. However, each one of them wears masks and does not know the identities of the others; therefore they can not recognize each other. They succeed in the heist of 1.2 million dollars and escape in a duplicate of the Western Florists van, and the mentor of the robbery gives tickets to them to travel abroad, promising to share the money later.

Meanwhile the decorated soldier and ex-con driver of the Western Florists van Joe Rolfe that is delivering flowers in the shop is framed. He is accused of participating of the heist, arrested and tortured by the police, loses his job, and when the police recognizes the mistake, he is released. Unemployed, he discovers that Peter Harris went to Tijuana, and he decides to chase the criminal and request one fifth of the amount. What he doesn’t know is that the heist also involves corrupt cops.

Payne actually doesn’t emerge as the film’s central character until after the initial heist sequence has taken place; from this point on, events unfold in a series of tense, often violent encounters, as both Payne and the criminals express bitter determination to secure their fair share of the loot.

Although the title would suggest that the story takes place in Kansas City, most of the film takes place in Mexico.

Directed by: Phil Karlson
Produced by: Edward Small
Starring: Coleen Gray, John Payne, Lee Van Cleef, Neville Brand, Preston Foster
Crew: George Diskant, Paul Sawtell
Copyright: Public Domain
Format: Black + White
Duration: 99 mins
Year: 1952
Tags: Armored Car, Armored Car Robbery, B Movie, Beautiful Woman, Blackmail, Caper, Craps, Crime, Crooked Cop, Dice Game, Drama, Ex Cop, Fall Guy, Film Noir, Film-noir, Frame Up, Fugitive, Gambling, Heist, Insurance, Investigator, Mistaken Identity, Mystery, Patsy, Playing Card, Poker, Police Brutality, Pool Game, Prostitute, Reward, Taxi Driver, Telegram, Third Degree

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