The Squeeze / Kansas City Confidential
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Features
• Color
• DVD-Video
• NTSC
In Theaters : 1978
DVD Release : 25 October, 2005 |
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The Squeeze / Kansas City Confidential Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
one of lee van cleef's earliest and best films and one of his worst
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| The Squeeze is so laughably bad that its worth seeing just for a chuckle. Lee stars as a retired safecracker who is lured out of retirement by the son of one of his old assosciates. The son is in bad with some Germans who threaten to kill him unless Lee can open a safe and get the diamonds housed inside. Lee is reluctant to return to his old life of crime but decides that the kid is okay. Lee was living on a ranch when the kid tracked him down so that is pretty much his style sense. He comes to New York wearing a cowboy hat and a nice long duster type coat. Unfortunately rather than recall his stylish western outfits the duster type coat is actually a mink white coat that coupled with an earring and the cowboy hat make Lee look like a pimp. He pulls off the robbery but the Germans have a double cross in mind and start shooting. Lee escapes but not unharmed he got hit in the leg. This leads to a comical chase between Lee and an old cop in which both men are limping. Lee makes it to safety in his rented apartment which happens to be next door to Karen Black. I am a fan of Black but her performance here is so annoying and loud. She could be playing Fran Drescher in terms of her shrill voice and over the top Jewish mannerisms. She tends to Lee's wounds and wants to help him recover. Inconceivably she falls in love with him and is hurt when he does not show affection. The majority of the film is Lee resting up in this room and getting better, not getting revenge on the men who set him up. There is no need for that anyway since the gay jeweller who was robbed dispatches his henchmen to kill the guilty party. The film is pretty bad but laughably bad and fans of Van Cleef might find it kind of enjoyable once but not to be watched again. The second film however is very good. It is one of Lee's earliest and its quite fun to see him with a full head of hair and see his tough guy persona that early on in his career. Kansas City Confidential is a very good film noir concerning a bank robbery. It is about an ex cop who was let go from the police department. He is very bitter over this and plans to organize a robbery of the local bank he has been scoping out. He assembles a team of robbers who are played by Jack Elam, Neville Brand, and Van Cleef. While he interviews each of them separately he wears a mask so the robbers don't know what he looks like. Naturally when they do the job they all wear masks so the robbers don't know what each other looks like. The only one who knows all the players is the ex captain. He plans on using this information to turn in the robbers after the crime is commited to collect the reward and also get his job back. The robbery goes off but not without a hitch. A flower delivery man makes a delivery in his flower truck and then leaves moments before the robbery. After he has left a flower delivery truck, driven by the robbers pulls up. A woman in the crowd tells police that the innocent flower delivery man was responsible. The cops track him down, imprison him and beat him. It turns out he has a record so they figure they have their guy. They soon find the truck used in the robbery and let him go, but the damage is done. The man is unemployable and has no options so he decides to hunt down the real robbers and get the money they stole. He tracks one of them down and before he kills him learns of the plan to meet up in Mexico and divvy up the loot. He assumes the dead man's identity and heads to Mexico where he meets the other two robbers. So now all the robbers are in Mexico unaware of the identity of the others and then the ex cop shows up. He comes across this impostor and wonders what he did with the other guy and more importantly how he's going to get rid of him. Lots of beatings ensue between the suspicious robbers and double crosses between the ex cop and the crooks he set up. Very entertaining stuff. Kansas City Confidential was just released as part of MGM'S Film Noir series. The picture quality would be an improvement over this edition, which isn't terrible, but the MGM version is barebones and much more than this one. Check out the cheap one first and see if you want to upgrade to the MGM, either way you will like discovering a gritty film noir and one of Lee's youngest and meanest film roles. |
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The Squeeze / Kansas City Confidential dvd movie.