The Brothers Rico

Plot synopsis:
Eddie Rico (Richard Conte) is the owner of a prosperous laundry company in Bayshore, Florida who was the former accountant for a major crime syndicate years ago. He has given up his ties to the syndicate, and hopes to adopt a child with his wife, Alice. When Eddie receives a call asking to give a job to Wesson (William Phipps), a junior mobster, and Alice becomes worried that the syndicate will attempt to bring Eddie back into a life of crime. Eddie calms her down, but then he receives a letter from his mother saying that his two brothers, Johnny (James Darren) and Gino (Paul Picerni), have disappeared. On the way to work, Gino finds Eddie and asks for his help in leaving the country: Gino admits to being the gunman for a gang killing and Johnny was the driver. Gino now believes the syndicate is after him, and he was ordered to St. Louis later that day. Eddie, who does not believe that the syndicate is after them, tells Gino to go to St. Louis and gives him some money. When Eddie returns to work, he finds out that the syndicate boss, "Uncle" Sid Kubik (Larry Gates), has ordered him to Miami. Eddie leaves despite his wife's objections that he will miss an adoption interview.
Eddie meets Kubik in Miami, where Kubik apologizes for orders to hire Wesson and congratulates Eddie on his impending adoption. Kubik says the syndicate does not know where Johnny is, but they are concerned that because Johnny's new wife's brother is suspected of being a prosecution witness, Johnny will be persuaded to turn on the syndicate and testify against them in return for clemency. After insisting that he does not believe Johnny has not turned on them, Kubik tells Eddie to find Johnny and make him leave the country in order to protect his life. As Eddie leaves, Kubik goes into a different room where Gino is being beaten.
Eddie arrives in New York City and finds Johnny's brother-in-law, Peter Malaks (Lamont Johnson). When Eddie says that Johnny may be in a lot of trouble, Malaks tells Eddie he would rather have Johnny dead and does not approve of his sister getting involved with Johnny. Eddie then visits his mother (Argentina Brunetti) to ask where Johnny is, but she proclaims that even though she once took a bullet to protect Kubik's life, she no longer trusts Kubik. When Eddie tells her that Johnny's life is in danger, she prays in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary and tells Eddie that Johnny last wrote from El Camino, California.
In California, Eddie finds Johnny and his pregnant wife, Norah (Kathryn Crosby) hiding out on a farm. Johnny says he left the syndicate because he wants his son to grow up to be clean and not know a life of crime. Norah becomes excited at the prospect of Johnny being dragged back into the syndicate, and needs a doctor. Eddie is asked to leave, and returns to his hotel room where Mike Lamotta (Harry Bellaver), a local crime boss, is waiting for him. There, Eddie realizes that Kubik used him to locate Johnny, and intended for Johnny to be killed the whole time. Lamotta instructs Eddie to tell Johnny to meet mobsters waiting outside his home, but Eddie tells Johnny to go to the cops instead, and is knocked out by Lamotta's assistant, Gonzales (Rudy Bond). To save his wife and newborn son, Johnny goes to the mobsters and is killed.
As Eddie and Gonzales fly back to Florida, Eddie learns that Gino attempted to flee the country against orders and was killed. Eddie knocks out Gonzales while on a stopover in Phoenix, and returns to Florida to give Alice money. He goes to Malaks and offers to testify against the syndicate. When Eddie goes to say goodbye to his mother, Kubik is there and holds him at gunpoint. Eddie pulls out his own gun and kills both Kubik and his accomplice, but is wounded himself. Eddie eventually testifies against the syndicate and it is broken up, while he and Alice go to an orphanage hoping to adopt a child.

Tags: revenge, murder

Review:
Richard Conte stars in "The Brothers Rico," a 1957 noir with James Darren, Larry Gates, Kathryn Grant, and Dianne Foster.Conte is Eddie Rico, a former mob accountant, now in the laundry business in Florida and quite successful.
Then Eddie gets a call from his old boss, Kubik (Gates) who wants to see him on an urgent matter.
Considering his boss as "Uncle Sid," he goes to New York against his wife's (Foster) wishes.Eddie is approached by his brother Gino - he claims the mob wants him to go to St. Louis, and he's sure they plan to rub him out as he was part of a hit and the others who were involved are dead.
Kubik is grateful to their mother (Argentina Brunetti) who once stopped a bullet meant for him, so Eddie knows he will protect his brothers.When Eddie meets with Kubik, he learns that his brother Johnny is married and no one has heard from him.
However, his wife's (Grant) brother has been talking to the DA about a mob witness.
Kubik wants Eddie to find his brother and talk to him.
It was on Empire's list of 500 greatest movies, so I wanted to check it out.Richard Conte does a great job as Eddie, who trusts the wrong people.
This was his kind of role, playing the tough son of an immigrant, mixed up with the wrong people, but with a good heart.
Someone mentioned that the casting was ridiculous because there was a 26-year difference between Conte and Darren.
That was not unusual.Everyone is very good in this film, and as a point of interest, the woman playing Argentina Brunetti's mother was, in fact, her real-life mother.
Towards the end of the noir cycle director Phil Karlsen came up with a really good crime drama about three brothers all involved to a greater and lesser degree with organized crime.
The oldest, Richard Conte, was at one time the syndicate accountant.
His biggest problem now is that he and wife Dianne Foster are trying to adopt a child.But brothers Paul Picerni and James Darren are still very much involved and at the dirty end of it.
His brother-in-law Lamont Johnson's already been to the District Attorney.Conte has faith and trusts in the big boss Larry Gates who's been close to the whole family Rico, including their mother Argentina Brunetti who took a bullet meant for Gates way back when.
So when Gates tells him to find Darren, Conte takes it on face value.
The syndicate seems to be really well organized, from Little Italy in New York, to Phoenix Arizona, to Miami, Florida, they've got Conte's movements all tracked.
Karlson really builds the tension up as Conte seems to keep running into old acquaintances, but just keeps going on trust.Larry Gates who usually plays upright moral types on screen has that persona work for him as the syndicate boss who's just pulling the strings from coast to coast.
His is the best performance in the film, followed closely by Harry Bellaver an amiable underboss in Phoenix who's just following orders.Kathryn Grant is in this film as Darren's bride.
This year that The Brothers Rico came out, she became Mrs. Bing Crosby.
She registers well in her role as a pregnant bride in love.The Brothers Rico is a gripping noir film, not one for the paranoid minded among us..
The Brothers Rico is directed by Phil Karlson and adapted to screenplay by Lewis Meltzer, Ben Perry and Dalton Trumbo from a story written by Georges Simenon.
It stars Richard Conte, Dianne Foster, Kathryn Crosby, Larry Gates and James Darren.
Music is scored by George Duning and cinematography by Burnett Guffey.Retired from the mob and happy in his new found family life, Eddie Rico (Conte) is pulled back into the underworld when word comes that his two brothers, who are still working for the syndicate, are wanted men.Coming at the end of the film noir cycle, The Brothers Rico sits somewhere in between noir and pure crime drama.
Conte's character is a classic noir protagonist, a man who is unable to shake of his past and gets drawn into the dark underworld by family ties.
There's much talking and very little action for most of the running time, but the dialogue is strong, always imbuing the narrative with a sense of menace, background characters are always a threat and violence implied looms over proceedings.However, in spite of it being well written and acted with great skill by Conte, Gates and the support cast, it's a dull visual experience and crowned off by a ridiculous "aint life grand epilogue".
Conte's character provides the ticket to the noir universe, but ultimately this represents the changing of the guard, a winding down of true film noir.
From a viewpoint of the film being a crime drama that provides an observation of a crime syndicate as a real presence, Karlson's movie scores a more than safe 7/10.
The Brothers Rico (1957)With Richard Conte's role of a lifetime, and a harrowing mobster scene that presages the Godfather in its casual viciousness, this is one heck of a movie.
It sometimes lacks good old fashioned drama with the lighting and the camera-work, and some people might find Conte a bit reserved for the leading man under the gun, but the writing is really solid, the story well constructed, and the movie as a whole feels believable and tragic.At the core is a situation is Conte as Eddie Rico, formerly an accountant in a ruthless mob, now running a legit business in Florida and about to adopt a kid with his charming and playful wife.
But right in scene one he gets a call from an old mob crony.
Eddie's two brothers are still in the mob, and have been part of a hit, and there is an investigation closing in on them all unless Eddie can help get his brothers out of harms way.
He takes this to mean out of the country, but it becomes clear to everyone else, and eventually to Eddie, that they mean to kill at least one of the two brothers.So with the clock ticking over an adoption ready that very day, and with Conte flying all over the country in a desperate bid to sort this out, we see a growing menace in thug after thug, place after place, from Florida to New York, where Mama and grandmother live, to a ranch in Southern California where one brother is hiding with his pregnant wife.
What makes it hold to together especially is how sympathetic the brothers are as characters, and how evil the main mob man is even though he insists he loves the Ricos, and loves their mother like his own mother, and he wants only the best.In fact, the one long speech from this thug, played by Lamont Johnson, is a precursor to Brando's role in "The Godfather," with a chilling mixture of honorable love and threatening obligation and accountability.
I say not quite noir only in the sense that his films lack the over-the-top dialog and punchy lines of classic noir, and the filming is not as theatrical with angles, shadows, and dark night scenes.
Some of Karlson's films are, in fact, film noirs at the core, but late noirs, no longer dealing with the loner finding his footing in an alien America, but still with a man against the world, as Eddie Rico is here.
Mob going corporate is subject of crime flick from Karlson, Conte.
Richard Conte runs a commercial laundry and, with his new wife, is trying to adopt a child; after a tarnished youth, he's gone straight.
The younger males in his family, it so happens, have not, and a syndicate kingpin sends Conte off to smoke out his youngest brother, in hiding, supposedly to save his life; the young squirt is played by 50s recording heart-throb Bobby Darrin.
The Brothers Rico introduces us to an all-American, corporate, impersonal view of organized crime, ranging from New York's Mulberry Street to palm-fanned Florida to the mobbed-up sunbelt of Phoenix -- and to a world where the terms "family" has lost all of its many meanings.
Former gangland auditor is persuaded to locate missing brother before mob is compelled to kill him.For a crime drama, that lengthy opening scene is a surprise.
It's marital bliss all the way as Eddie (Conte) and wife Alice (Foster) cuddle up, providing a ton of promotional material for the censored 1950's.
But more importantly, all the lovey-dovey defines Eddie's truly reformed character, plus Alice as a wife you'd want to come back to.For a Karlson crime drama, however, the violence is oddly played down by a director who knew how to make the audience shudder.
Instead, paranoia mounts as Eddie sees suspicious characters wherever he goes in search of brother Johnny (Darren).
When Johnny is finally confronted by the mob, Karlson oddly passes over the potential of a centerpiece violent scene.
Also, note how abruptly the final shootout is handled, as if they're suddenly running out of film.That early scene between Eddie and Kubik (Gates) is a minor masterpiece of treachery that carries through the rest of the film.
Excellent too is Harry Bellaver's smooth-talking local chieftain, who keeps appealing to Eddie's sense of survival.As a whole, however, the movie is more a collection of good scenes rather than overall impact.
It's also being released to DVD as part of a film noir collection due out in November.
Being a big fan of James Darren, he was the biggest reason for my interest in this film but it's also a pretty good film.
Richard Conte is a good lead with Dianne Foster as his worried wife.
Kathryn Grant and James Darren would play a couple a year later in Gunman's Walk also directed by Karlson.
James Darren's two scenes as the youngest brother make you wish they had continued casting him in these types of roles, although I like the first two Gidget movies.
This is an absorbing drama that takes a bleak, realistic look at mob life.
Conte and Foster are fabulous as a married couple trying to distance themselves from his past as an accountant for the syndicate.
Conte appeared in a number of mob films, including "The Godfather." Curiously, Grant (who married Bing Crosby following this film) has a small role but is given equal billing with Conte and Foster..
An entertaining film noir as the genre was nearing its end.
Richard Conte plays Eddie Rico who worked for his uncle Kubik.
The film begins with an ominous phone call as Eddie is told he needs to take in a mob member who is hiding from the justice.
He is currently trying to adopt a child with his wife.Eddie is called out by Kubik to find their missing brother Johnny.
When Eddie runs into his brothers Gino and Johnny, he tells them to trust the mob and follow their instructions.
Eddie believes that fidelity is still a virtue among the mob bosses.
As a noir, it moves from Florida to New York to Phoenix and California, becoming one of the few national noirs (there is none I can think of right now).The film is shot in a minimalist fashion.
Richard Conte and his wife are very playful in the early scenes and risqué for the period as they engage playfully in the bathroom.
As a mob movie with an Italian background, it continues the early gangster movies but takes the angle of the people down the line who are at the mercy of those at the top.The Brothers Rico is worthwhile as an entertaining movie if you enjoy film-noir and tracing the developments of gangster films..
The synopsis mentions that the James Darren role was played by Bobby Darin.
But when you read a credit mistake like this of an actor in a pretty important role in a film and it goes uncorrected, then misinformation may be dispensed which may in turn distort the record.
Pretty good crime drama...with a weak/unbelievable/predictable ending.
Lo and behold, he finally gets a role that's a little different from his usual bad guy/scumbag roles.Eddie Rico runs and owns a laundry service in Florida and does really well for himself.
He and his wife can't have kids so they decide to adopt but something in the way of and old acquaintance needs a favor derails his plans.
His wife demands he doesn't do what they want but he has no choice...he's a former account for the mob.
His old friend from years back wouldn't steer him wrong.
Turns out his brothers were involved in a killing and their bosses think one of them is going to squeal so they disappear.
Eddie doesn't realize he's being used to find his brothers so his old connections can kill his brothers.I will say that right up until the end this is a pretty good little film.
The tension and watching Conte play this clueless ex mob guy railroad his brothers to their death is sad.
He's naive in this regard.Richard Conte has always played the scumbag roles but this one is a tad different.
He's an old mob accountant who really has no violent or bad guy tendencies.
The real down point of this film is the end.
Throughout you realize that this guy is not gonna get revenge through violence for them killing his brothers and he would turns states evidence instead.
It's a pretty transparent conclusion throughout but the real "yeah right" in this is turning states evidence and his life in the end resumes to normal.
This is part of the fantastic series put out by Columbia Pictures of "Film Noir Classics"- '50s B-movies from the studio's vault.
Like Nightfall, another film unearthed from Columbia's vaults, Brothers Rico has, for its time, startlingly visceral depictions of sadism and cruelty.
(The only thing akin in Hollywood A-films of the era would be those directed by Anthony Mann, but Mann's work offered depictions of the suffering of the violated, not so much of the perpetuation of suffering.) Both Brothers Rico and Nightfall offer as a condolence to the audience tacked on, artificial and utterly tone-deaf happy endings.
Despite odd casting, it's a very good noir movie..
Richard Conte plays an ex-gangster who's gone straight many years before the film begins.
Unfortunately, it turns out that the mob is looking for his brothers--and although they claim to want to get them out of the country for their own good, it sure looks as if they are just using him as bait.The casting of this film left a lot to be desired.
There was a 26 year difference in ages of Conte and Darren and they are supposed to be brothers!
For lovers of film noir, you won't be disappointed--though the movie is more cerebral and less violent than most examples in the genre.
***SPOILER ALERT*** Being the local Miami Mob's top book-keeper for some twenty years Eddie Rico, Richard Conte, decided to go legit and open up a laundry business in Bay Shore Florida.It's when things were going great for Eddie and his wife Alice, Dianne Foster, that a call came in from Miami to the Rico house from an old friend Miami Mafia under-boss Sid Kubic, Larry Gates.
Kubik having his stooge Phil,Paul Dubov, do the talking for him whats Eddie to finds his kid brother Johnny, James Darren, so he can have a heart-to-heart talk with him.
Kubik the big hearted and understanding guy that he is now want's Eddie to track his little brother down and get johnny to leave the country before his fellow mobsters have him iced!The word has been going around in mob circles, in both Miami and New York, that Johnny facing indictment for murder is ready to turn states evidence against his boss Kubik for a lighter sentence!
The reason that Kubik isn't at all interested in Eddie's other brother Gino is that, unknown to Eddie, he's already got him and is about to have his brains blown out!
Eddie who should have known better then to trust Kubik goes along with his plan to find and then get Johnny who's now married, with his wife Norah (Kathryn Grant) expecting any moment, out of the country only to lead Kubik, or his hit-men, straight to him!***SPOILER***A tale of brotherly love gone astray with Eddie Rico in an effort to save his brothers in fact ends up having them murdered with him being unknowingly used, by Kubik, to track them down by their killers!
Very effective confrontation between Moma Rico and Kubik at the end of the movie.
Eddie finally seeing the light in him having set his brothers up was on his way to the D.A's office to spill the beans, with his inside knowledge of Kubik's organization, on Kubik.
It's then that Kubik and his hoods showed up at Moma Rico's apartment to do a job,or hit,on Eddie.
As things turned out it was Moma, who once save Kubik's life by taking a bullet meant for him, not Eddie who was the one who put Kubik's life of crime and murder to a sudden and surprising end!.
94 minutes.SYNOPSIS: An ex-mobster turned successful businessman, Eddie Rico, is contacted by the syndicate to locate his younger brothers who have apparently double-crossed their gangland associates.
He feels obliged to search for his brothers, not only to protect their lives but of his family as well.
After this elaborate build-up, the climax is disappointingly weak and tame and Larry Gates - his is the one outstanding portrayal in this film, you can actually sense the evil behind his gloved voice - seems to have a much smaller role than he does in the shortened version.Extensive locations lensing is an asset, although Karlson does not make all that much out of them.
The interior sets are not impressive and other production credits are merely capable.Conte's age is showing and one is not surprised to learn that this film virtually marked the end of his screen career.