There's a basic prerequisite to my labelling a film as film noir or not, and it sort of comes down to this: I do it if there is not a more dominant genre assignment that presents itself.
For this reason, Kansas City Confidential -- much as it read to me as an obvious noir before I sat down to watch it -- presents some problems for me.
First and foremost, I would argue that Kansas City Confidential is a bank heist film, and since that's its own genre, or prominent subgenre, it takes some of the shine off the movie as a straight-up noir.
Now, the heist itself takes place in the first ten minutes, and the rest of the movie is all fallout from it. Of course, that basic apportioning of time also describes most other movies that feature a bank heist, as they tend to involve both the leadup to, and consequences of, the heist. (And some movies that feature bank heists are not bank heist movies at all. As Exhibit A, I give you The Dark Knight, whose more dominant genre assignment is, of course, romantic comedy.)
Whether Kansas City Confidential is a true noir or not, it was one of the better films I've seen in this series -- a series where the least typical noirs have tended to speak to me the most. Also, it seems to be a real progenitor of films like Reservoir Dogs, and I think you'll see why in a moment.
The basic setup is that there's a mystery organizer, called Mr. Big, who is gathering together two-bit hoods to pull off "the perfect bank job." He wears a mask to shroud himself in mystery, and they all must wear masks as well so as not to be able to inform on each other if they get caught. If this all doesn't sound like Reservoir Dogs, well how about the fact that Mr. Big actually looks a bit like Lawrence Tierney?
(I guess this observation is not unique to me. I see the internet has plenty of material on how Kansas City Confidential may have inspired Quentin Tarantino. And given how much scholarship there is on Tarantino I should not be surprised.)
(Interesting side note: In examining Tierney's credits, I wondered if he himself might have actually been in Kansas City Confidential. He isn't, but he was working in 1952 when the film was released, and in fact appeared in The Greatest Show on Earth, which won best picture that year. I find this sort of funny because Greatest Show had been one of only three films released in 1952 I had seen prior to this. I've seen plenty of films in the surrounding years, but 1952 just represents this random blind spot in my personal filmography.)
One thing that surprised me about the structure of the film is that the main character becomes the truck driver they frame by escaping from the bank in a duplicate of his flower truck. When the police arrest this guy and interrogate him, I expected him to be just the small role of a patsy, disappearing from the narrative immediately afterward. Instead, once he is cleared, he becomes this determined vengeance seeker, trying to track down the bank robbers to see who it is who tried to frame him. That's Joe Rolfe, played by John Payne.
I don't need to continue along to give you a full plot synopsis, but let's just say that Rolfe follows the trail of these guys before it goes cold, as they are expected to meet up again in Mexico to get their share of the loot.
If I'm looking for clear noir elements, I can tell you that this film has its share of men wearing fedoras. I can find the noir elements on a superficial level, to be sure. The plot also has serpentine noir elements involving double crosses, though it was refreshing to have the plot be easy to follow, unlike some noir films I've seen.
But some of the more prominent tropes of the genre are a little harder to find, like a femme fatale. A couple female characters do get introduced to the narrative when the action shifts to Mexico, but to call either of them a femme fatale would be a massive stretch. One is a Mexican woman (Dona Drake) trying to sell trinkets to tourists -- she has more screen time than that description suggests -- and the other is the daughter of the character who turns out to be Mr. Big, which I will avoid spoiling here even though the movie is nearly 70 years old. (By the time you meet her you've also met Mr. Big.) This character is played by Coleen Gray, and she's super sunny in her disposition, preventing any confusion with a typical femme fatale. (She's also the film's weak spot in terms of acting, and to make matters worse she's also saddled with some of its worst dialogue.)
Mr. Big's daughter aside, the film is really strong overall, and I found the main character's journey and where the story goes both to be very clever.
I guess I might have to stop worrying about what is and isn't noir as this series concludes over its second half. I've got that list I created at the start of the year that I'm working from, that I have been adding to as I've been going, even though I haven't needed any more options. So I'll probably just dive into a movie like Out of the Past, which I've been wanting to see for a long time, without worrying about how many fedoras, venetian blinds, private dicks and femme fatales it may have. In fact, I expect this to be my August movie, assuming I can find it. (And taking a quick look at it on Wikipedia, it actually looks more like typical noir anyway.)
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