Chicago Confidential (1957) + The
Gun Runners (1958/MGM Limited Edition Collection DVDs) + New York Confidential (1955/VCI DVD)
Picture:
C/C+/C+ Sound: C+/C+/C Extras: D/C-/B- Films: B-
PLEASE NOTE: Chicago Confidential and Gun Runners are on-line only exclusives from MGM and can be
purchased from Amazon.com, which you can reach through the sidebar of this
side.
Now for a
look at three late crime films that all qualify as Film Noir and arrived at the
end of its classical era (1958 was the last year), now all out on DVD…
Sidney
Salkow’s Chicago Confidential (1957)
has Brian Keith trying to weed out corruption in the unions of The Windy City
as an attorney of the state that the local gambling syndicate tries to frame
the union leader (Dick Foran) for a murder he definitely did not commit and
they did. Beverly Garland also stars in
this very solid, surprisingly rich Film Noir that has been out of circulation
for too long.
Don
Siegel’s The Gun Runners (1958) starts
out a little slower than expected, but kicks in as Audie Murphy plays a boatman
hired to take some men “somewhere” and it turns out to be a killer gun merchant
(Eddie Albert of Green Acres & Switch!) ready to sell to Cuban
Revolutionaries for a quick, big buck no matter the circumstances. Of course, the actual revolution was going on
and nobody making the film knew what was about to happen in real life. Patricia Owens, Everett Sloane and Gita Hall
also star in this interesting actioner definitely worth revisiting.
Russell
Rouse’s New York Confidential (1955)
is the most Noirish of all as Big Apple mob boss Broderick Crawford gets to
have the services of ace Chicago hitman Richard Conte to help him hold power in
the big city, but there is trouble at home where he lives with his daughter (an
amazing early performance by Anne Bancroft) who is getting sick of his life,
criminal ways and lifestyle. J. Carroll
Naish and Marilyn Maxwell are among the fine supporting cast in this
hard-hitting crime drama that has been lost for a long time and was finally
found and fixed up here.
The anamorphically
enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on the Confidential
releases differ a bit with Chicago a little weak more often than I would have
liked, though the print is not bad, you can see the same look here that Salkow
later brought to Last Man On Earth
and influenced Romero’s 1968 Night Of
The Living Dead. VCI did a better
job on cleaning up New York than
you might expect, especially when you see the print they had to work with in
the supplement. The 1.33 X 1 on Gun is also better than expected for
its age and that it does not have the benefits of anamorphic enhancement. All do a good job representing black and
white film of the time, even considering the MGM discs are DVD-Rs and VCI had
its restoration work cut out for them. The
Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on all three films show their age, but the MGM films are
in better sonic shape, with New York
a little rougher, compressed and restricted than expected.
Extras are
absent on Confidential, including
only an original theatrical trailer on the remaining films and New York adds the restoration
comparison clip, Advertising Gallery and feature length audio commentary by
film historian/author Allan K. Rode and film writer Kim Morgan.
I liked
all three films very much and they show how great Noir and Crime films of the
time can be. Yes, there are some
unintentionally funny moments, but the big surprise is how well these three
actually hold up. Catch them all!
- Nicholas Sheffo
