Planning and executing the perfect crime is a wonderful movie trope. All the planning, scheming, and preparation so often go out the window when one person goes off script or some small thing happens that wasn’t planned for. That can make for a great movie, but it hardly seems to be reality. Truth is, the perfect crime happens all the time. Not because some genius plotted something perfect or brilliant criminals pulled it off, but because people are stupid and police are ineffective. Getting away with a crime makes it perfect. Ridiculously dumb people rob convenience stores on a whim and never get caught. Every city has unsolved murders perpetrated not by criminal masterminds, but by some dummy who got mad at someone else and walked away, accidentally leaving behind no evidence. And let’s not get into how the rich get away with everything.
Buy Kansas City Confidential Blu-rayBut trying to pull off the perfect crime in movies sure is a lot of fun. Tim Foster (Preston Foster) thinks he’s figured out the perfect heist. He’s spent weeks plotting it – watching the comings and goings of a bank. He times when the armored truck pulls up, how long it takes the men to go inside the bank and come back with sacks full of cash, and exactly when it rolls away. He also times when a flower delivery truck comes. Its driver will be his patsy.
He’ll need three men to pull the job off successfully, and he chooses three men he thinks he can control: Peter Harris (Jack Elam), Boyd Kane (Neville Brand), and Tony Romano (Lee Van Cleef). He calls them up individually and has them, one by one, meet him at an apartment. When they arrive, he’s wearing a mask. He gives them each a mask and tells them to wear it both when they meet again and when they perform the heist. This way no one person can identify the other.
The heist goes off without a hitch. The men use a truck that looks exactly like the flower truck. The cops then pull over the real delivery truck driver, Joe Rolfe (John Payne), and give him the third degree. He’s an ex-con who’s been trying to make good. He has a valid alibi, but that doesn’t mean the cops don’t want to beat a confession out of him anyway. But Rolfe is tough, and he’s been here before. Eventually, the cops have to let him go.
Tim Foster (who gives himself the nickname “Mr. Big” amongst his gang of thieves, though inexplicably never thinks to give the other guys fake names) gives each man half of a playing card and a little dough. He tells them he’ll be in contact with them once the heat dies down. All they have to do is present their half of the card, and he’ll give them their cut of the money when the time comes.
Rolfe tracks down Pete Harris in Mexico and slaps him silly to get the details of the crime out of him. Pete Harris is a guy who gets slapped silly on the regular. He’ll take a few more beatings before the film is over. It is enough to make you wonder if Tim Foster didn’t choose him for his ability to take a beating. Maybe he chose everyone because he figures they can take what’s coming to them. And what’s coming to them might not be what you think.
Rolfe steals Pete’s identity and heads to the rendezvous point in Borados. He pretty quickly sniffs the other guys out (all except for Tim), for these guys are city punks, not accustomed to taking it easy amongst the sand and the surf. They sniff him out too, which leads to some pretty gnarly fight scenes. Boy, do I love watching a young Lee Van Cleef snarl and fight.
The film has fun playing around with identity. Rolfe pretends to be Harris. Tim pretends to be an easygoing fisherman in Barbados. They spend a couple of days there on the beach, playing cards and drinking. We’ll learn Tim has some interesting ideas on his mind, and maybe a few tricks up his sleeve.
There are a few other tricks up the movie’s sleeve as well. Tim’s daughter Helen shows up on the beach and quickly gets a hankering for Joe. She knows he’s in trouble, and despite her father’s vague warnings against falling in love with him, she still wants to help. This will add all kinds of complications into the mix.
Kansas City Confidential is a terrifically fun little noir. The concept of a Mr. Big bringing in a bunch of guys who don’t know each other for a heist clearly had an influence on Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, and you can see why. That’s a cool idea for a crime caper. Director Phil Carlson keeps things moving at a steady pace (mostly; things do slow down a bit in the middle once they get to Borados). The acting is good across the board, and there are enough twists and turns to keep things interesting from start to finish. I could do without the romance stuff, and the ending is surprisingly upbeat, but everything else is just about perfect.
Film Masters presents Kansas City Confidential in a newly remastered 1080p print. It looks terrific.
Extras include:
- Audio commentary by critic Jason A. Ney
- Liner notes by critic Don Stradley
- Region Free
