Chicago Confidential (1957)

Regisseur:

Sidney Salkow

Drehbuchautoren (WGA):

Jack Lait (book) and
Lee Mortimer (book) ...

Premierendatum:

30. August 1957 (USA)

Genre:

Film-Noir | Krimi | Drama

Werbezeile:

EXCLUSIVE! It Rips Through "Chi" Like A Hurricane!

Plot:

An honest union official named Blane is framed for the murder of another union official. Thus off the hook...

Plot Keywords:

Corruption | Gangster | Labor Union | Murder | Based On Book

Nutzerkommentare:

Urban action movie rooted in union corruption moves swiftly but lacks nuance

Besetzung

Brian Keith	...	Dist. Atty. Jim Fremont
Beverly Garland	...	Laura Barton
Dick Foran	...	Arthur 'Artie' Blaine
Douglas Kennedy	...	Ken Harrison
Paul Langton	...	Capt. Jake Parker
Elisha Cook Jr.	...	Candymouth Duggan
Gavin Gordon	...	Alan Dixon
Beverly Tyler	...	Sylvia Clarkson
Buddy Lewis	...	Kerry Jordan
Anthony George	...	Duncan

Alternativ:

Chicago vertraulich (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) [de]
Chikago vertraulich (Österreich) [de]

Länge:

75 Min

Produktionsland:

USA

Sprache:

Englisch

Farbe:

Schwarzweiss

Seitenverhältnis:

1.37 : 1

Tonverfahren:

Mono

Altersfreigabe:

Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15

Drehorte:

Chicago, Illinois, USA

Firma:

Robert E. Kent Productions

Pannen:

Abfolgefehler: The last name of the union president framed for murder is given as "Blaine" on the door of his office in an early scene and "Blane" in the newspaper headlines about his trial later on.

Urban action movie rooted in union corruption moves swiftly but lacks nuance

Union corruption serves as the McGuffin for Chicago Confidential, but the movie's really a big-city cops-and-robbers story with some stalwarts and set-ups left over from the noir cycle that had just about run its course by 1957 (and it shows).

A union official about to sing winds up shot and sunk in Lake Michigan; the honest union president (Dick Foran) is framed for the murder, stands trial and is convicted. That's quite a feather in the cap of District Attorney Brian Keith, who has gubernatorial yearnings.

But Foran's girlfriend Beverly Garland, discredited on the witness stand by means of fabricated evidence and suborned perjury, wins over Keith through her persistent loyalty. But as Keith begins to unravel the skein of lies that helped him win his case, the union's ambitious and corrupt vice-president (Douglas Kennedy) grows more desperate, and the body count starts to look like the city's in the roaring ‘20s. Among the victims is a stumblebum called Candymouth (Elisha Cook), used as a cat's paw in incriminating Foran, but even Keith and Garland find themselves in jeopardy....

The plot involves a bigwig lawyer left over from the Capone organization, `B-girls,' an impressionist, and oscilloscopes. But it moves quickly enough that the loose ends don't matter much (Why wasn't the tape recording analyzed before the trial? Why are the B-girls being shipped to Manila?). Director Sidney Salkow gets some of locales right (a sleazy bar called Shanghai Low among them) but doesn't bring much of an eye or an ear to the enterprise. Still, he keeps the movie jumping from one thing to the next, and that's at least something.