Kansas City Confidential (1952)

Phil Karlson's low budget, B-grade film noir, opens on a Kansas City armored-car robbery perpetrated by cynical, corrupt ex-policeman Timothy Foster. He devises an outrageous scheme: he will recruit three of the most vicious and unrelenting criminals he can find to undertake a robbery, blackmailing them into the heist with incriminating evidence from other "jobs." As an eccentric and clever conceit, Foster forces each of the perpetrators to wear masks, thus concealing their identities from one another and preventing the old pitfall of the men squealing and backstabbing. Complication arises when the ignorant cops pick up an unrelated fellow, Joe Rolfe for his ownership of a van similar to the one used in the heist. Rolfe grows irate over the accusations and sets off to find Foster and company. Though produced under the Hays Code censorship regulations, Kansas City Confidential constituted one of the most brutal and violent crime pictures made up through that time; as such, it retains historical significance. It also claims a strong cult following.