New York Confidential

Another of the movies that I had somewhat surprisingly never heard of before I noticed that it was available on Tubi was the 1950s crime film New York Confidential. Since it sounded interesting and had a pretty good cast, I decided I'd watch it to be able to do a review on it here.

The movie starts off with a narration (Marvin Miller is the narrator) about a killing that was dirty enough that it was going to point to the New York syndicate, which is the head for the syndicate in the country as a whole. That's not a good thing, and the syndicate is going to have to do something to make certain it doesn't happen again. Charlie Lupo (Broderick Crawford) is the head of the syndicate, and to deal with his problems, he and the rest of the syndicate brings in hired hitman Nick Magellan (Richard Conte) from Chicago.

Charlie knew Nick's father, and wants Nick to work for him, not so much for the syndicate in general. Nick has to this point been working for a subhead of the syndicate, Achilles (Onslow Stevens). Nick doesn't want to switch allegiances, at least not until being told that Achilles is actually OK with it. Nick becomes Lupo's bodyguard, ultimately living for a time in the Lupo house.

Lupo has a devoted mother, as well as a college-aged daughter Kathy (Anne Bancroft). Kathy knows what her father does, and doesn't like it, largely because everybody else knows too, and Kathy wants to be seen as decent and respectable. She's at the point where she's willing to try to run away, even though Charlie would go to the ends of the earth to bring her back. Kathy also starts falling for Nick, apparently not getting that he's a hitman.

Further complicating matters is that we've got another of those "good government" types who wants to go after the syndicate. For the most part, the authorities keep being able to get the small-time folks, while the heads go off unscathed. But this group of crusaders apparently has some witnesses in higher places, and that's going to require the syndicate to do something about it. The bad news for them is that the hitmen -- not Nick -- that they hire to do it botch the job such that they're obviously going to be noticed. It's up to Nick to deal with that. As the violence spirals out of control, it threatens to engulf everybody....

New York Confidential isn't a bad little movie, at least not by the standards of non-prestige movies of the 1950s. Broderick Crawford has the sort of role he could play in his sleep, but he does it well. Ditto Richard Conte. Anne Bancroft is on her way up, but does an OK job. Bigger and better things were to come for her. The ending is a surprising one in a way, in that it somewhat satisfies the Production Code, but in other ways you'd think the Code Office would have had issues with it.

New York Confidential isn't the greatest movie, either, but it's one that's definitely worth a watch for anybody who likes movies of that era.