It seems that as part of the "not-so-sweet" side of tonight's theme of Sweet Home Chicago, TCM is showing two late noir movies overnight. At 2:15 AM ET on Wed., Dec. 19th, Chicago Confidential (1957), is scheduled. An early Brian Keith movie, Chicago Confidential is, according to its trailer, "the bullet-by-bullet truth about the rape of a city at the hands of a killer mob...ripped out of tomorrow's headlines."
Well, I could personally do without the purple prose, but any movie gets me to sit up and take notice with Keith, Beverly Garland, and, in an unlikely bit of casting, Dick Foran, the former crooner and "B" Western star, who appears here as a corrupt union leader. This kind of "stunt" casting might be interesting.
This flick is based on the lurid little scribblings of tabloid "journalists" Jack Lait and Lee Mortimer that were best-sellers published as a peek behind the curtain as Washington Confidential, New York Confidential and, you guessed it, Chicago, etc. in the '50s, when the Kefauver hearings and several graphically hard-boiled crime movies emerged. It looks like an interesting movie, to say the least. Me, I'll be watching it to keep that flame alive on my longtime crush on grumpy ol' Brian Keith, a good actor and a great curmudgeon.
This movie is followed immediately December 19th, 2007 at 3:45 AM ET by Chicago Syndicate (1955), starring that erstwhile "B" movie stalwart, Dennis O’Keefe as an accountant and gang infiltrator. Yes, you read that correctly: an accountant. Hey, that's how they put Capone away for good, right? No Capone here, but the always rumpled Mr. O'Keefe is out to get the goods on the inimitable Paul Stewart as a mob kingpin. Mr. Stewart, a veteran of the Mercury players, whose fine supporting work in such films as Citizen Kane, Champion and The Bad and the Beautiful won him deserved accolades, might prove to be an interesting opponent.
Throw in '50s honeys Abbe Lane and Allison Hayes as the decorative dames in this latter movie, and I think it might be a good, tawdry mix.
