☆ ☆ ☆
The
Brothers Rico (1957) – P. Karlson
To me, Richard Conte seems the epitome of
the noir villain, probably due to his evil role as the crime boss in The Big
Combo (1955). So, when he shows up as a
mob accountant turned small business man named Eddie Rico, you aren’t quite
sure where he stands. As it turns out,
he’s on the straight-and-narrow – but his younger brothers are still involved
with the mob. And when a once-fatherly
mob kingpin asks Eddie to find his brothers (who have gone missing) so that
they can be “protected”, Eddie naively helps out (persuading his aging mum to
tell what she knows). Of course, mob kingpins
are never that generous and nefarious ulterior motives soon appear; Eddie’s
safe family life (he and his wife are about to adopt a child) is soon
jeopardised. Director Phil Karlson doesn’t
do anything fancy visually with the material (and Martin Scorsese notes this in
his introduction to the film, arguing that this makes it come across tougher);
but he’s an old hand at noir and it shows (previous films include Scandal
Sheet, 1952; Kansas City Confidential, 1952; 99 River Street, 1953; and The
Phenix City Story, 1955). This isn’t top
tier but it’s solid.
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