Pun Salad

Back to the 1950s for a sorta-film noir.

A mysterious criminal mastermind (Preston Foster) accumulates a gang to knock over a prosperous Kansas City bank. His gimmick: his identity is hidden behind a mask. And he demands that the three guys he recruits mask themselves during the caper. So only "Mr. Big" knows who the participants are, and the flunkies are kept totally in the dark.

The heist goes flawlessly, but an innocent ex-con driving a flower truck (John Payne) is roped in by the crack K. C. cops. He's almost immediately exonerated, but is irked enough to do some of his own detective work in hunting the true culprits. Pretty soon he and the gang are down in Mexico: they're planning on splitting the loot, and he plans to … well, you'll have to watch the movie.

A nice twisty plot, and Mr. Big's true plan isn't revealed until the end. There's a girl (Coleen Gray) who shows up to make sure the hero goes straight. You'll almost certainly recognize the bad guys: Lee Van Cleef, Neville Brand, and the great toad-faced Jack Elam.

Consumer note: For a movie titled Kansas City Confidential, surprisingly little of the movie is actually set in Kansas City.