If you examine any major film or novel or play defects pop up. If the work is worth watching or reading you won't mind them - and if you are considering directing or producing a version of the written work you will find a way to overcome the defect. Most film noir plots do have defects in them. Given how he has romanced his late partner's wife, and how he knows that some of the police (like Barton MacLaine) would like to ruin him, in real life Humphrey Bogart's Sam Spade would fully cooperate with the San Francisco police regarding Jerome Cowan's murder in THE MALTESE FALCON. Given the homicidal nature of Lawrence Tierney in BORN TO KILL, Walter Slezak would probably not try to blackmail him and Claire Trevor. In fact, he might find an excuse to drop Esther Howard as a client.<br /><br />KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL is a taught and exciting film noir at the tail end of the period when such films were being made. Preston Foster is the former head of detectives for the Kansas City Police, who was forced to leave his post because of a change in city political structures that he did not prepare for. He is bitter about this forced retirement, and so he creates a scheme to commit a major armed robbery of a bank, using three low-lifes (Jack Elam, Lee Van Cleef, and Nevil Brand) as his bandits. But he arranges for them to wear masks when they all meet (he is wearing one too) so that none of them know each other or him. They are given half a playing card as a key of mutual recognition when they are to reunite for the splitting of the money (some six months after the robbery, in a resort in Mexico).<br /><br />Now, in real life the three convicts would (of course) be dying to know who their partners and boss were. I can't believe they would not make some effort to find out (compare this to Humphrey Bogart's clever way of tracing down Edward G. Robinson's phone number in THE AMAZING DR. CLITTERHOUSE, to see what is more likely to occur). But as this film is going in a different direction, I am willing to suspend my disbelief and just accept that Elam, Van Cleef, and Brand - despite all being thoroughly dangerous and nasty customers - are willing to go along with this witless demand by Foster.<br /><br />There have been comments made here (understandably) that Foster's attitude to John Payne, accidentally framed by the scheme as being the thief, are not consistent. Actually they are. Foster never intended for the three goons he used to split the money and get away with their shares. He was planning to spring a trap on them - as though he had solved the robbery himself - and so reclaim his job with the Kansas City police. Precisely how he would do this we never learn (presumably he would have somehow killed them before they could identify him by his voice). But his plot miscarries when he gets involved with Payne, seeking to clear himself. Suddenly, watching Payne's involvement (and realizing that Payne has been romancing his daughter (Colleen Gray) he is conscience-stricken. You see, framing Payne was never part of the scheme.<br /><br />The scenes with Payne are among the best acting that performer ever made. John Payne, in the 1930s and 1940s, was mostly in comedies or in supporting parts, and in many musicals for 20th Century Fox. It was only in the aftermath of his best recalled role (the attorney for Edmund Gwenn in MIRACLE ON 34TH STREET) that he began appearing in off-beat noir regular films or noir westerns. It turned out he was a fully capable performer in negative (or quasi-negative) roles. Here he has the misfortune to be fingered by his ex-convict past, and his chance appearance as the driver of a similar florist van to the one used in the robbery. He gets the third degree from the police, before they find out his alibi is checking out. But the newspapers have plastered his face and history all over the place, so he loses his job and can't get another. He is only able to hang on and locate his first clue with an assist from an old friend who understands what he is going through.<br /><br />The performance of Foster is good given the odd situation he faces of having set up a scheme to go from a to b to c to d, and finding it is thrown off kilter by something he never intended. I like the performances of Jack Elam, who has a serious drug problem (in the days that drug addiction was rarely discussed in movies - but notice how many "cigarettes" he's smoking, and how he is shaking), and of Lee Van Cleef, as a totally amoral criminal. Elam's death scene (he is unarmed, but by force of habit lunges for a gun that Payne has on his own person, and is shot by the police) is surprisingly sympathetic as he is crying and laughing as he dies. Van Cleef, smart enough to figure out that Payne is not who says he is, is as ready to kill Payne as he might be ready to kill his temporary ally Nevil Brand. Actually, Brand's performance (compared to the others) is not developed. Maybe part was cut. Colleen Gray is wonderfully controlled and sexy as Foster's daughter and Payne's love interest.<br /><br />For a "B" feature, it gets remarkable strength - comparable to the original THE NARROW MARGIN. I give it a "9" out of a possible "10".