Kansas City Confidential (1952)

Posted by Lemmy Caution

Directed by Phil Karlson

(Synopsis with spoilers)

From a hotel room window a man observes the delivery of millions of dollars in cash to a bank across the street. Through several days the man observes and times the routine of the armored truck crew, noticing how a panel truck always arrives to deliver flowers to the shop located next door to the bank just before the armored car arrives. The unnamed man (Preston Foster) recruits three criminals to help him rob the armored truck- Pete Harris (Jack Elam), Boyd Kane (Neville Brand), and Tony Romano (Lee Van Cleef). The master mind keeps himself masked in these encounters and explains to all the thieves they will remain masked throughout the heist to avoid identification. During the robbery they use a delivery truck identical to the florist truck. The police chase and arrest the driver of the delivery truck, Joe Rolfe (John Payne), an ex-convict. As they escape the master mind tells the thieves they will be contacted later to collect their share of the money, as a countermark each of the thieves is given half of a playing card, the mastermind keeping the other half.

The police sadistically beat up Rolfe trying to get him to confess to the heist. An insurance agent promises him twenty percent of the money if he helps in recovering the missing money -two million dollars. The police let Rolfe go when the duplicate delivery truck is found. Rolfe decides to go after the thieves to get even for being framed and to get the reward money.

Following a tip from a local underworld figure Rolfe follows Harris to Tijuana, once there he strong arm Harris into letting him join in the money split meeting that is to take place in a Mexican resort town.

As they arrive at the airport a chance encounter with the police leaves Harris dead, leaving Rolfe free to take his identity. Rolfe arrives at the resort and meets Helen Foster (Coleen Gray) the daughter of the master thief himself. We learn that he is Tim Foster, a retired police Kansas City officer bitter about his meager pension who planned the heist to get the reward money and to shame the Kansas City police department. Foster arranges an ambush to get the thieves killed and keep the money. Kane and Romano figure that Rolfe has replaced Harris and try to get rid of him but he turns the tables on them. At the meeting the Foster and the two thieves get killed, leaving Rolfe free to join Helen Foster.


Kansas City Confidential is one of the essential heist films, elements of it have reappeared in countless movies since like The Thomas Crown Affair and The Usual Suspects. It was directed by Phil Karlson at his peak just after Scandal Sheet and right before 99 River Street. (Amazing that he also did Walking Tall! Oh well...).

Karlson achieves a very paranoid atmosphere throughout the film, the scenes in which a masked Foster recruits the thieves is very surrealistic, it looks like something out of Bunuel. The police interrogation sequence is very hard boiled, the KC police department comes out in a very bad light, very authoritarian and cynical even by film noir standards. Maybe Karlson was thinking of The Phenix City Story already.

It is one of favorite movies, I first saw it one day after school in 5th grade (1971!) and it made quite an impression, made me wonder why all those cop shows that were on the air at that time didn’t pack as much of a punch as this “old” movie. Watching it recently it made me think about the nature of Noir, The fact that Foster is not masked during the opening sequence gives away his identity to us but not to the other characters, if it were a standard mystery maybe Foster would have stayed obscured.

Kansas City Confidential seems to be a public domain title, there are various versions of it on DVD, all of varying "quality". I hope it is restored someday like The Big Combo, it really deserves a decent release. (editor's note: it's out now on a fantastic looking DVD. Click on the image above)