New York Confidential
(Challenge Pictures, 1955)

Syndicate chief Charlie Lupo welcomes ace killer Nick Magellan to the firm. Number two man Ben Dagajanian cops a less-benign attitude.

Tagline 

The picture that throws away the silencer...and hits the story of big-time crime full blast!

Just the Facts

The criminal expose films of the 1950s were inspired in part by the televised hearings on organized crime spearheaded by Senator Estes Kefauver and held in 14 cities throughout the United States between 1950 and 1951. Millions of Americans watched spellbound as a huge cast of underworld characters (600 in all) underwent questioning about their Mob affiliations, including such high-ranking figures as Willie Moretti, Joe Adonis and Frank Costello. (J. Edgar Hoover’s TV must have been on the blink during those years, as the FBI didn’t formally acknowledge the existence of organized crime until 1957.)

Additional inspiration was derived from the notorious Confidential books, co-authored by Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer, that purported to expose vice and corruption in America’s major cities. New York Confidential was published in 1948, followed by Chicago Confidential (1950), Washington Confidential (1951) and U.S.A. Confidential (1952). How factual they were is open to question, but their lurid, racist and sensationalistic qualities ensured them access to the best-seller lists.

Hollywood wasted little time exploiting public fascination with the sordid revelations uncovered by Kefauver’s committee and the Lait-Mortimer books, and quickly began churning out films in this new subgenre, including such quick-off-the-mark examples as The Enforcer (1951) [released while the hearings were ongoing], The Mob (1951) and The Captive City (1952), plus late entries like The Miami Story (1954), The Phenix City Story (1955) and Chicago Confidential (1957).

New York Confidential (1955) is one of the more prescient, if overlooked, examples of the latter group. While it may have relied on the word “confidential” primarily for marketing purposes, it still provided a trenchant look at the corporate, hierarchical structure of the syndicate and its nationwide entrenchment. (The screenplay even references the Kefauver hearings.) Directed by Russell Rouse, who co-wrote the screenplay for D.O.A. (1950) and helmed the well-regarded noirs The Thief (1952) and House of Numbers (1957), the film explores the line between personal loyalty and fealty to the organization, and depicts in stark and unsparing terms what happens to those who step over that line.

The bland corporate facade of Lupo’s executive board belies the ruthless nature of its business.

The film features Broderick Crawford as Charlie Lupo, head of the New York branch of a nationwide crime cartel run strictly along business lines; major decisions affecting the syndicate’s well being are decided upon by majority vote of the executive board. Charlie’s reign has been long and profitable, but he’s about to undergo several reversals of fortune. First, one of his subordinates violates the underworld code by committing an unsanctioned murder, simultaneously filling a couple of innocent bystanders with lead and drawing the harsh glare of unwanted publicity. The timing couldn’t be worse, as Charlie is about to finalize an illegal oil deal financed with a government loan secured through corrupt politicians and lobbyists.

 The cartel’s national brain trust immediately order the transgressor’s execution, so Charlie follows standard protocol and imports hit man Nick Magellan from Chicago to carry out the sentence. Played by noir heavyweight Richard Conte, Nick is a cool, assertive professional who immediately alienates Charlie’s chief enforcer Arnie Wendler (Mike Mazurki) when the latter tries to tell Nick how the job should go down. “When I make a hit, I don’t like a lot of company….Just give me a driver. I’ll do the rest,” Nick retorts. Which he does—quickly, efficiently and discreetly.

However, all the gunplay has attracted the attention of the governor, who appoints reform-minded Judge Kincaid to a crime commission with a view towards putting Charlie out of business. Mob shyster Robert Frawley is promptly instructed to bribe the commission members as a delaying tactic. More bad news arrives in the form of a deportation order for Charlie’s best friend and right-hand man Ben Dagajanian. The syndicate can’t afford to fight the deportation for fear of further bad publicity, so Charlie is forced to play along. “Ben’s gonna have to go, that’s all there is to it,” he tells Nick. “The syndicate comes first.”

Lone wolf Nick Magellen doesn’t play well with his fellow hoods.

Besides the business aggravation, Charlie’s personal affairs are also beginning to splinter. Following a failed assassination attempt on his life, he promotes Nick to be his personal bodyguard, impressed by the younger man’s loyalty and intelligence. Nick provides the kind of unconditional support missing from Charlie’s relationships with the women in his life—rebellious, self-destructive daughter Kathy (Anne Bancroft), who despises everything her father stands for; posh mistress Iris (Marilyn Maxwell), a cocktail of combustible carnality who loves not Charlie but Charlie’s money and power; and reproachful Mama Lupo (Celia Lovsky), who brings Charlie up short whenever he becomes too overbearing. Iris and Kathy are both attracted to Nick (unbeknownst to Charlie) and make surreptitious plays for him at different times and for different reasons. The promiscuous Iris is easy to fend off, but Nick finds himself reciprocating the feelings that Kathy develops for him, although his loyalty to Charlie prevents him from acting on them.

Personal and professional matters come to a head—and intersect with lethal impact—when Paul Williamson, the lobbyist who engineered the crooked oil deal, gets cold feet and tips the major oil companies to the syndicate's budding infiltration of their industry. The oil execs immediately inform the feds, and before you can say “dirty double-crosser,” the Mob’s billion dollar deal is circling the drain. Needless to day, Williamson's treachery finds no favor amongst the underworld overlords, and his liquidation order lands swiftly in Charlie’s lap. Charlie has misgivings about the hit and argues the need to let things cool down, only to be summarily overruled.

Wendler and two henchmen are ordered to ice Williamson, but killing a cop during their bungled getaway creates further problems and publicity, and Charlie’s grip on his organization starts to weaken. More internecine killings ensue, a treacherous subordinate sings to the law to save his skin, Kincaid’s investigation gains added momentum and Charlie himself falls prey to the syndicate’s suspicions and self-preservation instincts. Despite their bond, he and Nick must now contend with circumstances beyond their control that place them at odds in ways that don’t bode well for either of them. Having learned that his fellow bosses expect him to surrender to the police, Charlie vents his bitterness to Nick. “The lousy ingrates. After all I’ve done for the organization. I am the organization, Nick!” Nick can only reply: “You made the rules, Charlie. They expect you to live by them. We all have to live by them.”

A not-so-paternal Lupo doles out parental “discipline” to his wayward daughter.

Summary Judgment

New York Confidential wasn't the first film to equate the workings of a nationwide crime syndicate with those of legitimate business corporations, but it did so with a seldom-matched level of insight and thoroughness. The screenplay by director Rouse and producer Clarence Greene emphasizes the strict rules that syndicate members must abide by regardless of rank or privilege. While the organization can accommodate manifestations of personal loyalty—as when Charlie makes Nick his bodyguard and, following Dagajanian’s deportation, his right-hand man—no individual is bigger than the organization. Charlie is fated to learn this when he ignores the fact that he’s just another cog in the syndicate machinery, and that all cogs can be replaced when necessary. The Mob is run on specific and ingrained rules of conduct, and any deviation from the norm is treated in a manner commensurate with the nature of the offense.

The syndicate’s corporate nature is also stressed by the repeated board meetings of the regional Mob chiefs, as they formally convene to make policy decisions (i.e., not contesting Dagajanian’s deportation) or collectively mandate the removal of business impediments (i.e., terminate troublemakers). It’s also one of the few 1950s films to foreground the syndicate’s influence and power over politicians at the highest levels of government—and depict what can happen to even highly placed figures who dare to cross the Mob. The sense of a pervasive, minatory entity affecting all levels of society is strongly evoked.

Rouse packs a lot of dialog and a lot of action into the film’s 87-minute running time. Fortunately, the dialog is smart, tough and memorable. Here’s Nick sharing his worldview with an unreceptive Kathy: “Take a look around you. See that busboy over there? He steals from the waiter. The waiter steals from the owner. And the owner gyps the government.” “You really believe that about people?” Kathy asks. “Everybody’s out for what he can get?” Nick: “Nobody’s handing out any free lunches in this world, Kathy.”

Such exchanges are delivered with style and conviction by the top-notch cast. As Charlie Lupo, Crawford lives up to his screen persona of blustery panache. He’s full of fast talk and intimidation and having things his own way. His overbearing nature, however, masks a surprising vulnerability, evident in his growing estrangement from Kathy and his pained incomprehension at her resentment of what he stands for. Charlie is also emotionally dependent upon his mother; in fact, there’s a suggestion that he’s something of a mama’s boy, yet he’s ruthless enough when the occasion demands it.

Lupo casts a wary, possessive eye on faithless mistress Iris Palmer.

Crawford’s character powers the narrative, but Conte’s character anchors it. The Italian-American actor enlivened many a crime/noir film throughout a distinguished, if criminally underrated career. His cool charisma and dangerous aura lent his performances a distinct modernist edge. He was badass before the word was coined, badass like Sean Connery in the first two Bond films. Conte’s Nick Magellan is a sinister, implacable presence, a hit man with a sardonic sense of humor. When Nick is sent to eliminate Gino, a syndicate turncoat on the lam, the unsuspecting hood tells him, “I hope I’m going to Cleveland. I know a lot of boys out there.” Nick replies, “You’re going a little farther than that, Gino,” just before he pulls the trigger. Relaxed, confident and just a little bit arrogant, it’s no wonder he’s catnip to the likes of Iris and Kathy. The latter sums him up deftly: “Like a cobra. Always relaxed, yet always ready to strike.” 

Anne Bancroft did solid work in a handful of fifties noirs before working miracles and seducing graduates in her sixties films. She imbues what could have been a trite part with credibility and an intriguing degree of ambiguity. Kathy’s bitterness against her father is keenly felt: “Decent people don’t want me around—it’s as though I had a disease. I’m a freak because I’m Lupo’s daughter. I’m ashamed of the name of Lupo and I’m ashamed of you.” Yet she’s not too ashamed to live in his opulent house, enjoy the fruits of a European education and wear expensive clothes, all paid for with syndicate money. Bancroft’s nuanced performance is a reminder that most people are a mixture of emotional and intellectual contradictions.

The violent words the characters direct at one another are matched by their numerous acts of physical violence. The film boasts an impressively high body count: an even dozen murders and a couple of visceral beatings, not to mention the odd slap in the face. Yet there is nothing gratuitous in the mayhem; every death and set-to has narrative significance. And Rouse never lingers over the grievous bodily harm. It always manifests suddenly, delivers its impact and is over just as quickly. The coarse-grained killings are imaged in cinematographer Eddie Fitzgerald’s flat, grey visuals, a far cry from noir chiaroscuro, but which effectively evoke the murky emotional terrain the characters navigate.

The underworld verities—rapacity, callousness, promiscuity—are clearly stamped on the faces of Lupo’s social circle.

Rouse’s directorial style is, for the most part, restrained, yet he allows himself periodic flourishes. He generates considerable tension after Charlie’s men have dispatched Williamson and must descend by elevator from the top floor of a high-rise building. As the car stops at every floor to take on additional passengers, decreasing the chances of a clean getaway, close-ups on the killers’ faces register their growing anxiety and desperation. There are also two terrifically staged fight scenes—one in which Nick is worked over by several goons, another in which he returns the favor—both daringly filmed in near-darkness for enhanced dramatic effect.

But the film’s most striking effect (also its subtlest) is the brief pause Nick takes before sending each of his victims to the next world. At these moments his eyes seem to film over, and his mouth curls into a sardonic smile, as if he’s enjoying some private cosmic joke he alone is privy to. Only when Nick is facing Charlie with a gun in his hand near the film’s conclusion does his expression change from bemused condescension to something like compassion and, possibly, regret.

Whatever moral scruples Nick may possess are certainly not shared by the syndicate big shots, who show no compunction about sacrificing any organization member, no matter how loyal, who’s deemed a potential threat. This vision of a criminal organization turning in upon itself, like sharks eating each other, anticipates the unconstrained nihilism of next-decade crime films like Underworld U.S.A. (1960), Johnny Cool (1963) and Point Blank (1967). It’s yet another dark thematic layer that vaults New York Confidential to the top tier of fifties crime films.

Stung by Nick’s brushoff, Lupo’s daughter Kathy gives him a taste of what he could be enjoying.

Fingering the Fifties

• Neanderthal male attitudes regarding physical and emotional abuse of women.

• Dagajanian’s expulsion order from the U.S. evokes the real-life deportation of mobster Joe Adonis in 1953.

• Underworld vassals with names like Johnny Achilles.

• The pejorative use of the word “mink” to describe a woman of dubious morals.

• Pencil mustaches and bullet bras.

Quotable

IRIS PALMER: “Why do always act so cold with me?”

NICK MAGELLAN: “Do I? I hadn’t noticed.”

IRIS PALMER: “Yes, you do. Why don’t you let yourself go, Nick?”

NICK MAGELLAN: “You’re way off base, Iris.”

IRIS PALMER: “No, don’t go, Nick. Don’t go.”

NICK MAGELLAN: “You’re a beautiful dame, Iris. One of the best I’ve seen. And you treat me like it was Christmas Eve. But, no thanks. I see you through you like those silk dresses you wear. You figure Charlie’s on the skids and it’s safe to play. I told you before and I’ll tell you again. I’m not interested.”

CHARLIE LUPO: “The meeting’s open for discussion.”

JOHNNY ACHILLES: “I see no reason for any discussion. This rat double-crossed us, cost us a fortune. The only thing to do is hit him in the head.”

JOHNNY ACHILLES [ordering Nick to kill Charlie]: “Look, Nick. Don’t you think I understand how you feel? I love the guy. You think I like to order his brains blown out?”

Moment of reckoning.

Credits

Director: Russell Rouse; writers: Clarence Greene, Russell Rouse; producers: Clarence Greene, Edward Small; cinematography: Eddie Fitzgerald; editor: Grant Whytock; music: Joseph Mullendore

Cast

Broderick Crawford (Charlie Lupo); Richard Conte (Nick Magellan); Marilyn Maxwell (Iris Palmer); Anne Bancroft (Kathy Lupo); J. Carrol Naish (Ben Dagajanian); Onslow Stevens (Johnny Achilles); Barry Kelley (Robert Frawley); Mike Mazurki (Arnie Wendler); Celia Lovsky (Mama Lupo); Herbert Hayes (James Marshall); Steven Geray (Morris Franklin); William Phillips (Whitey); Henry Kukly (Gino); Nestor Paiva (Martinelli); Joseph Vitale (Batista)