New York Confidential

Plot synopsis:
Charlie Lupo is a gangster who runs the New York branch of a crime syndicate. He is a widower with a grown daughter, Kathy and a new lover, Iris.
Hit man Nick Magellan of the Chicago mob impresses Lupo, who hires Magellan to be his bodyguard. They form a friendship and Kathy is attracted to Nick, but he resists her advances.
When a political lobbyist interferes with the syndicate's plans and needs to be eliminated, Lupo arranges for three men to handle it. But they leave too many clues and need to be eliminated, a task Lupo turns over to Nick.
Nick quickly dispatches two of the targets, but a third flees and rats out Lupo to the cops. While hiding out, Lupo's unhappy daughter Kathy gets drunk and is killed in a car crash.
Lupo's heart is no longer in his work and he decides to cooperate with the authorities, so the syndicate orders Nick to get rid of his friend. Nick obeys orders, killing Lupo, but then is eliminated himself.

Tags: violence, cruelty, murder

Review:
Conte takes on Crawford in mid-50s look at mobsters as organization men.
In Russell Rouse's New York Confidential, Broderick Crawford plays a darker extension of his Harry Brock character in Born Yesterday.
But five years later, in the wake of the televised Kefauver hearings which brought the scope of organized crime to a rapt public, Crawford has become a cog in a vast `syndicate' or `cartel'  - an important cog in its Manhattan headquarters, yes, but only one piece of its unstoppable machinery.When one of his vassals stages an unauthorized hit, Crawford calls in some talent from Chicago (Richard Conte) to enforce discipline.
The widowed Crawford warms to Conte as the son he never had, though he does have a handful of a rebellious daughter (Ann Bancroft) as well as a high-maintenance mistress with a platinum chignon (Marilyn Maxwell).
Maxwell has eyes for Conte, but his eyes stay affixed on the unstable, hard-drinking Bancroft, who wants nothing to do with her father's business - or with any of his minions.The triangulated romance, however, takes second place to the mob's tangled business interests.
In the movie's best orchestrated sequence, torpedo Mike Mazurki accomplishes the hit but botches his escape from a hotel; wounded, he decides to flip and sing.With the big heat now on, the executive board decides Crawford must take the fall; he, however, decides to join Mazurki in singing a duet.
So the board contracts Conte to eliminate the now dangerous Crawford....The gangster movies of the early 'thirties endure as character studies of flamboyant but flawed figures played by the likes of Edward G.
From 711 Ocean Drive in 1950 to Phil Karlson's 1957 The Brothers Rico (also starring Conte), crime had become corporate, with formalized hierarchies, far-flung interests, and strict, if ruthless, rules for doing business.
That's the thread that runs through New York Confidential: that no there's no individual who's indispensable, that the survival of the organization remains paramount..
I can't understand why Turner Classic Movies hasn't shown it because it is definitely a classic film noir gem.
But it is more than film noir; it is a genuine motif of organized crime brought to the screen.
Broderick Crawford, Richard Conte, and Ann Bancroft just being in the cast should merit it being shown on TV once in awhile.
One of the central themes of achieving success and the American dream through crime and corruption is an old staple of Hollywood, but it is presented in such a way as to provide the viewer with a definite amount of empathy for the main characters in spite of the fact that they are mobsters.
Broderick Crawford borrows a great deal from his Academy Award winning Willie Stark from All The King's Men in playing underworld boss Frank Lupo in New York Confidential.
Crawford is a combination of Stark and Don Corleone and he doesn't get the best of it.Like Corleone and Stark, Lupo has trouble with his children, but unlike Stark, Lupo has a daughter played by Anne Bancroft.
Crawford though he opposes the idea gets the contract and from their the dominoes start to fall.One thing however when the fires threatens, organized crime knows how to start backfires to make sure the organization itself is not touched.
A whole lot of dead bodies start to pile up before the film ends.Also starring in the film is Richard Conte playing an out of town hit man who Crawford takes a shine to and has him stay in New York.
Conte was always great in noir films and he certainly is here.
New York Confidential touches upon a lot of the issues involving systemic corruption much the same way The Godfather films do.
Indeed with the documentary element and Crawford's wayward antics on the one side and the coolness of Richard Conte and his relations with the ladies on the other, this could be considered a bit of a mess.
That it is not is due in the main to the tremendous performances of Conte, Bancroft and to a lesser extent, Marilyn Maxwell as Iris, Crawford's mistress.
For me Crawford is over the top as the macho boss man and simply unable to deal with the more sensitive scenes, but he is overshadowed by Conte and we are soon persuaded to view the events through his steely eyes.
A few location shots that really only go to show up the shoddiness of the studio ones but there is a great ending and as I say enough along the way to make this almost unseen film well worth a watch..
a bristling Richard Conte performance, a peculiar film.
NEW YORK CONFIDENTIAL is a perplexing film noir entry.
Among its many merits is the astonishing cast: Broderick Crawford (who spits out his dialogue in Howard Hawks-rapidity as if he were on amphetamines), Anne Bancroft (astonishing) and the always reliable Richard Conte.
But it never shakes the feeling of being two films in one, sitting uneasily side by side: a stern "semi-documentary" expose of the "syndicate" on one hand, and a bleak and brutal pre-Godfather mafia family saga on the other.As such, it is wildly and tragically uneven.
Director and co-writer Russell Rouse's previous noir entry was the chancy THE THIEF, also an uneven experiment.But the film has its scenes of incredible power, usually those revolving around Conte, as a cold and calculating hit-man for hire, and Bancroft, as the put-upon mobster's daughter who can't crawl out from behind dad's shadow; Conte dispatching with "hits", his gunshots creepily muffled by a silencer; Crawford's repeated near-meltdowns; murderous planning done completely straight in a corporate boardroom, just big business as usual.A puzzler of a film, leaving the viewer to wonder what could have been, had it been shot by John Alton and penned by, say, Dalton Trumbo.
Richard Conte is superb as a polite but cold-blooded hit-man turned consigliere, and there are also memorable performances from Anne Bancroft and the reliable heavy Mike Mazurki.
Unfortunately, the film suffers from utterly bland cinematography, and we spend so much time in well-lit rooms that it often feels like a stage production.
Broderick Crawford, Richard Conte, Anne Bancroft, Onslow Stevens, Marilyn Maxwell, J.
Carroll Naish, Barry Kelley, Tom Powers, Mike Mazurki, Celia Lovsky...The film starts with location footage and the stentorian tones of a narrator so you figure you're going to get one of those De Rochemont docudramas or at least a cheapie along the lines of Conte's The Sleeping City which was shot on location here in NYC.No, soon we're on the Goldwyn lot which wouldn't be bad if there were some creative angles or lighting.
Also, there are no dissolves, all scenes end with a fade to black and you half expect to see a commercial.The story structure is no better - two major characters are just written out with no drama to punctuate the exits.
The story in itself is promising enough, with hit man Conte imported from Chicago and recruited to remain with Crawford's mob after he neatly disposes of some upstart who causes headlines which "the syndicate" would prefer to avoid.Crawford's daughter Bancroft seems to be falling for Conte, but that goes nowhere.
Crawford's girl Marilyn Maxwell is definitely falling for Conte, but that goes nowhere, but hey, at least now the subtext folks have something to read into it.
A true fierce, brutal, and so realistic tale of gangsters where the mob is presented as a big company and their members normal family men, such as Broderick - machine gun talking - Crawford, who is here at his best.
I confound this movie with Ken Hughes's JOE MACBETH, made at the same period, and starring Paul Douglas who, a long time ago, I confounded with Broderick Crawford.
This another film noir was also a gangster family tragedy.
It stars Broderick Crawford, Richard Conte, Anne Bancroft, Marilyn Maxwell, J.
From this very real moment in time came a wave of films that jumped onto the possibilities on offer for dramatic filmic purpose, New York Confidential is one such picture.In short order the plot has Crawford as New York Syndicate boss Charles Lupo, who borrows hit-man Nick Maggelan (Conte) from the Chigao branch to enact a hit.
The pair quickly strike up a terrific relationship, but as problems within the Lupo home begin to mount up - and the heat starts to close in on the organisation - cracks begin to turn into chasms.It says a lot about the efforts of the cast that this turns out to be better than it had right to be.
Add in Lupo's sultry girlfriend Iris (Maxwell), who has no loyalty and wants to bed Magellan, then emotional conflict and tests of character are boldly prominent.Beginning with shots of New York City and a narration telling us about how great and prosperous the city is, it is however the core of Syndicated Crime.
There's a disappointment that we are sadly denied effective chiaroscuro, for the story demands it, more so when things go belly up and the world closes in on Lupo and Magellan's surrogate father/son relationship.Come the last quarter the pic really hits its flm noir straps, where joyously it doesn't let us down.
Family strife and conflicted matters of the heart blend with corruption and organised crime, all crammed into an hour and half of film making.
New York Confidential – 1955Broderick Crawford, Richard Conte, Anne Bancroft, Onslow Stevens, J.Carrol Naish headline this violent film noir from 1955.Crawford is a New York mob bigwig who has moved the syndicate into being more like a business.
Crawford though, has no problem putting out contracts on people who step out of line.There has been a mob killing done without an OK from the top.
Crawford calls up his boy in charge of hits, Mike Mazurki.
Richard Conte is the up and comer brought in to take care of business.Conte does the job, neat and clean, which impresses Crawford, who takes him in to his mob.
Crawford had been a friend of Conte's father in the old days.
Conte quickly moves up the ladder and into Crawford's inner circle.Besides business, complicating Crawford's life is his daughter, Anne Bancroft.
She also hates how people treat her once they discover who her father is.Conte becomes Crawford's fixer of problems because he is so smooth and efficient at his job.
Conte is pleased with the life, flash cars, 200 dollar suits and plenty of night life.Of course things go bad when a Federal Government type on the take, William Forest, screws up a multi-million dollar deal for the mob.
Crawford sends Conte to clean up the mess by eliminating the three hitters.
The Government uses this to go after Crawford, who then goes into hiding.The Mob bosses have another vote and decide that Crawford has to go in order to take the Police pressure off.
They have sent a man to eliminate Conte after Crawford is dealt with by Conte.The first 35 minutes is real cracker-jack noir.
A shocking mid-town assassination results in two innocent bystanders being killed and what follows threatens to blow the lid off the ruthless big business of the organized crime world that reaches into the pockets of Washington D.C. politicians.
The plot surrounds the head of one of the syndicate (Broderick Crawford) and his family life which includes his trampy mistress Marilyn Maxwell, aging mother Celia Lovsky and troubled daughter Anne Bancroft.
Hit-man Richard Conte is assigned to find her, tame her and bring her home, but this likable killer, sympathetic to her plight, must betray boss Crawford in order to do it, choosing to romance her in hiding.As the violence of the underworld increases, so does the threat of the downfall to this Corleone like dynasty.
As Conte explains to Bancroft, "the waiter rips off the boss just as fast as the boss rips off the government", so the end justifies the means and all in a day's work.
(He forgets to include, "Just don't get caught.") Yet, not every killer or crook is all black or white, so the fact that these characters have two sides to them is supposed to make them o.k.It's hard to dislike a family man like Crawford (very loyal to his worried mama), but you just know that the downfall he faces will involve traitorous activity.
Detectives are nearing the hotel and the expression on the killers' faces just gets more and more nervous.Bancroft explodes in a scene with Conte after her identity has been discovered which most of her previous films lacked.
The narration by Ralph Clanton is typical of "Naked City" stories and by 1955, a film noir cliché of its own.
In the early 1950s, television coverage of the Senate Committee hearings on organised crime (chaired by Estes Kefauver) generated a huge amount of public interest and movies such as "The Enforcer" (1951) and "New York Confidential" (1955) capitalised on this brilliantly.
The latter movie is essentially a low-budget, semi-documentary expose of the culture of a nationwide organisation that makes its money from murder, vice and corruption but is also in the process of blurring the lines between itself and legitimate business.
In order to achieve an appearance of respectability, however, the organisation has to operate by strict rules and ensure that, as far as possible, it doesn't attract any adverse publicity.New York City crime boss Charlie Lupo (Broderick Crawford) has to take action when a mobster in his territory kills another hoodlum purely for personal reasons and so hit-man Nick Magellan (Richard Conte) is imported from Chicago.
So after Nick kills the rule-breaking mobster, Charlie keeps him on as his bodyguard and steadily promotes him to a top position in his organisation.
His mother, who's very demanding and warns him of trouble ahead, his spoilt daughter Kathy (Anne Bancroft) who despises his line of work because it impacts badly on her ability to move in society circles and Iris (Marilyn Maxwell) who's his mistress.
A board meeting of the crime bosses from all of the cities where the syndicate is active follows and it's unanimously decided that the lobbyist should be eliminated for his betrayal and that Charlie should take responsibility for ensuring that the hit is carried out.Charlie appoints three of his men to assassinate the lobbyist and although they achieve their goal, they also leave clues behind and kill a cop in the process.
In order to cover his tracks, Charlie assigns Nick to kill the three men.
Nick succeeds in eliminating two of them but a third eludes him long enough to turn state's evidence and in so doing, threatens to expose Charlie's involvement and by extension, that of the nationwide syndicate.
Predictably, the consequences of this are enormous.Richard Conte is astonishingly good as Nick in a performance that outshines everyone else in the movie and Anne Bancroft is extremely intense, feisty and contemptuous as she portrays her character's feelings about what her father does to make a living.
Fast-talking Broderick Crawford successfully exudes all the toughness and power that one would expect of a crime boss of Lupo's stature but also displays the vulnerability that his character feels because of his health issues and the degree to which he's hurt by his daughter's angry condemnation of him."New York Confidential" is hard-hitting, rich in realism and provides a fascinating insight into the world of organised crime at a time when its involvement in business, politics and everyday life was extensive.
In this movie, Nick's character provides the clearest illustration of someone who conforms to the rules as he's unerringly loyal to the organisation, carries out all the orders given to him (regardless of his own feelings) and resists the attentions of both Kathy and Iris because of his respect for Charlie.
Having been brought up as the son of a gangster, he knows better than anyone that the interests of the organisation always come first..
It's all about "New York" but we only see a minute or two of the city in some stock shots under the credits.
Speaking of painting, a gang of rival hoods takes a pot shot at the Syndicate Big Wig, Charlie Lupo (Crawford), and just wing him, though the bullet goes through a painting he "paid thirty grand for." I hope it was the one with the two Degas ballerinas because I've checked Degas' ballerinas up close and his pastels are far better than mine ever were, the swine.This was also the period in which J.
So there is no Mafia here, only "the organization" or "the syndicate." And, Crawford aside, nobody has an Italian name.
They have names like Nick Magellan and Johnny Achilles and Whitey.Richard Conte is Nick Magellan and with the revelation of his character the movie picks up pace.
He's brought in from Chicago, pulls off a professional hit, and soon works his way up to a position as Crawford's trusted deputy.
Crawford made up the rules and suffers for it, as does Conte.There isn't room to spell out the entirety of the plot.
It's a crime thriller that puts Crawford, Conte, and Crawford's daughter (Bancroft) through the wringer.
(He was much better elsewhere, as in "All The King's Men.") Conte's character is an honorable man and he plays it with restraint.Poor Anne Bancroft as the put-upon daughter is resentful and alcoholic and is burdened with some of the worst lines.
Man, how she would love to have Conte stay for that nightcap.
Maxwell is a hardened whore, yet when Crawford finds his daughter has been killed, she is there to comfort Crawford and share his grief.It's not a "film noir," a term that seems to have lost almost all meaning.
(The scene is lifted from 1947's "Kiss of Death".) And there's another scene in which Conte brings off a hit and we see the victim slowly twist and fall, but only his shadow.In many ways the story isn't THAT different from "The Godfather".
"New York Confidential" has the family values, the code of honor, the equivalent of the Five Families, the Italian connection, the need to kill one or two of their own, and even a consigliere.