New York Confidential

“Get me a salami on rye!” Broderick Crawford is a supreme talent, maybe the best of all time in portraying crude, imperious, snarling bosses who call their enemies “pigs” and “slobs.” In Russell Rouse’s New York Confidential, he plays Charlie Lupo, head of a New York crime syndicate, whose daughter Kathy (Anne Bancroft) is ashamed of his work, believing it’s made her a social pariah (“You’re still a hoodlum; you’ll never be anything else!”)  When Lupo encounters Nick Magellan (Richard Conte), the son of an old friend who now works as a hit man for a competing syndicate, he hires him by offering higher compensation. When one of Nick’s targets manages to escape and rat out the whole gang, Lupo goes into hiding and is forced to face his own demons in increasingly tragic ways. Conte, as always, plays Magellan with tremendous skill, adopting a persona that’s neat, clean, and respectful, despite the fact that, because of him, almost nobody makes it to the end of the film alive.