Chicago Syndicate

source: Chicago Syndicate

Accountant and war hero Dennis O'Keefe is contacted by the authorities and offered a big chunk of cash to infiltrate mobster Paul Stewart's operation. Stewart's former accountant had come forward claiming to have evidence that would convict him, but he was murdered before he could turn it over. They want O'Keefe to find out what he knew. This plan apparently does not include any way of introducing O'Keefe to Stewart, so he strolls into Stewart's nightclub claiming he witnessed the murder. Luckily Stewart hires him instead of killing him. With the help of Allison Hayes (the 50 foot woman herself), who turns out to be the daughter of the murdered man, and Stewart's nightclub singer girlfriend Abbe Lane (wife of Xavier Cugat, who also has a prominent role) he gets the evidence. This film sets itself up as a realistic, shot-on-locations crime flick, but other than a lot of great street shots of Chicago, it's more of a cheap, tawdry B noir (and I mean that as a complement). It's a really rough and tumble flick with some pretty surprisingly grim scenes for the 50's, including Stewart's thugs delivering a pretty intense beating to Lane. It's an enjoyable if pretty slight outing. Xavier Cugat plays a few songs with Lane singing and that is superb.

Broadcast TV Movie channel shows 2 film noir movies Thursday and Sunday night Thought I had seen them all. Solid characters keep your attention. As do the eye candy hot 50's bullit bra broads, MCM sets, Cool Chicago background and awesome 50's sedans Love the News Reel crime drama narration

Straight forward good cops and robbers movie typical of the late 40s-50s. Surprising good performance by Abbe Lane, and Paul Stewart is always good.

It takes a lot of patience to get past all the explanatory details at the beginning of this film that gets Dennis O'Keefe to successfully infiltrate the Chicago mob on assignment for the FBI. He begins to work closely with mob head Paul Stewart and becomes involved with two very different women involved somehow within organized crime: sensuous singer Abbe Lane and the vengeful Allison Hayes whose father was murdered at Stewart's orders. for much of the film, The two women believe that O'Keefe is Stewart's right-hand man, and he doesn't want to prove them wrong. But, it isn't before long that all of the cats are let out of the bag and betrayal takes control with O'Keefe working vigilantly to bring all of the corruption down. Not so much a good film as a riveting one once you get past knowing the details, this does have some interesting characterizations and chilling moments where it appears that O'Keefe's identity will be exposed. Stewart and Hayes give the best performances, highlighted by vintage location photography and some thrilling chase sequences, particularly at the end. It's a rare chance to see Spanish bandleader Xavier Cugat in a role other than himself, but he really isn't given anything of consequence to do. A typically overdramatic noir narration is the predictable structure but fortunately, the dialog isn't as silly.

Has anyone else noticed that Charles Lane appears with his back to the camera in the scene where Paul Stewart warns his syndicate partners about not cheating him? The voice also seems to be his. He doesn't show up anywhere else in the film. I have not been able to find him associated with it on any credit listings, including the abbreviated IMDb cast list. I thought this was a pretty good genre film. It's always nice to see Paul Stewart in a bigger role. Don't recall ever seeing Abbe Lane in a film before. I really thought she was better than the other female lead, despite having less to do. Although her acting ability cannot really be assessed from this single role, I am surprised she did not have a lengthier career.

I saw the show on Turner Classic Movies. The plot was entertaining. It kicks off with a murder of a mob accountant who gave inside info to a newspaper man (the "Syndicate" didn't like that.) The newsman then gets some leading Chicago people plus lawmen together to try to "break the Syndicate wide open." They persuade Barry Amsterdam (Dennis O'Keefe), an aspiring accountant dreaming of starting his own business, to infiltrate the mob and get the lowdown on the crooks. He ends up doing an amazing job, for an accountant! But the use of real street scenes is what made this a very interesting movie for a Chicago history buff like me. You can see many downtown locations (theaters, buildings, bridges, rivers, street signs), era shots (men in hats, big cars, 50s trains & buses) and dialog about real places (Halsted, Ohio, The Palmer House, Maxwell Street). Lot's of fun!

There's little in the late noir Chicago Syndicate that hadn't already been done, and more memorably, in the cycle, but, given the limitations of its director and cast, it does its job. When a renegade syndicate bookkeeper is gunned down on a crowded street in broad daylight (incidentally triggering his wife's suicide), federal agents enlist Dennis O'Keefe, a forensic accountant working for the police, to infiltrate the underworld. In no time he's won the trust of boss Paul Stewart (whose start in movies was in Citizen Kane, as Raymond the sinister butler). Stewart idolizes his mother, who refuses to budge from his tough old neighborhood. But apparently she's the exception that tests his misogynistic rule (`Everything gets better with age, except women,' he observes). He's right to be wary, because women hold the tools to destroy him. His current trophy (Abbe Lane), who sings with bandleader Xavier Cugat in mob night spots, drinks too much and endures humiliation and beatings at his hands. But even an attempt to `scare the girdle off her' fails, as she holds incriminating microfilm, stashed away as her insurance policy. Her rival for his attentions (Allison Hayes) has a secret agenda: she's the orphaned daughter of the slain bookkeeper, nursing a vendetta. When she thinks O'Keefe can grease her way to the top, she throws herself at him (`Now you're romancing me like I was Liberace,' he puzzlingly tells her.) She becomes his helpmate – and decoy. In the style of the syndicate movies of the 1950s, in the wake of the Kefauver hearings on organized crime, there's an emphasis on the complex corporate structure of Stewart's illegal business operations. Too much exposition, however, is left to voice-over narration. And while the movie doesn't shy away from ugly incident, it's quite devoid of the atmospheric dread that distinguished, for instance, Fritz Lang's The Big Heat. O'Keefe, too, seems to have aged more than the eight years separating this movie from his similar role in Anthony Mann's T-Men, making it less of a surprise that his first movie role was in 1930. Chicago Syndicate holds interest less for its own sake than as evidence of how the noir cycle was running down, if not quite out; the same year offered Joseph H. Lewis' brilliant take on much the same territory, The Big Combo.

One of your other reviewers called it a droll boring little movie. While I wouldn't go that far, i think it fails to reach its potential. It starts with some exciting street scenes full of excitement in Chicago and then quickly sinks into an average lowkey narrative with Dennis O'Keefe walking through every scene pretty much as... well, Dennis O'Keefe! More dramatic characterisation is called for. And less boardroom chat and more streetscene spats!

(Some Spoilers) With an iron clad grip on the "Windy City" the criminal organization known as "The Syndicate" run by Arnie Valent seemed untouchable until one of it's accountants Nelson Kern got a bit religious and went to the local newspaper the Chicago Telegraph to expose it's criminal operations. Getting the editor of the newspaper David Healey to agree to publish his story, under an assumed name, Kerns is shot on the street as soon as he leaves the building. With the police as well as the editors of all the city's newspapers agreeing that "The Syndicate" is to be put out of business before it becomes any more entrenched that it already is it's agreed to get Internal Revenue auditor, and WWII combat hero, Barry Amsterdam to do the job for them. Barry at first is anything but interested in taking on "The Snydicate" but when he's offered $60,000.00, by the city fathers, he's more then willing to stick his neck out. With that $60,000.00 Barry can open up his own accountant agency something he's been dreaming about since he got out of the service. With the knowledge, that he got from the Chicago PD, of who it was that gunned down Kern, a hit-man named Burke, Barry get's in touch with Valent in an attempt to blackmail him in the fact that Berke works for him. Barry putting on an act that he's disenchanted with his job as an IRS auditor instead ends up getting the very job that the late Nelson Kern had looking after and accounting for all of Valent's, and his syndicate's, holdings and transactions. The movie moves at a snails pace with Barry Amsterdam trying to get the goods on Valent and his criminal activities but the old timer, the last of Chicago's Al Capone Gang, is just too slick and slippery to get nailed in a Federal tax evasion, like his former boss "Big Al" Capone, rap. Just at one point when Barry thought he had Valent caught red handed at his mothers tenement apartment with the goods, his secret ledgers, Valent burned them moments before the cops, tipped off by Barry, came crashing into the place. Barry uses the two women in the cast singer Connie Peters and the late Nlson Kern's daughter Joyce to uncover what Kerns had on Valent's by a number of secret rolls of microfilm, containing the contents of the destroyed ledgers, that Kern had made just before he was gunned down. When Valent realizes that his moll Connie had the microfilm hidden as a life insurance policy for herself instead of destroying them like he told her he completely loses it. Having his henchmen work Connie over to find out where the microfilm is it's Connie's friend, as well as lover, band leader Benny Chico who tells Valent where the rolls of film is; Hidden in a violin case that's being held for him, for safe keeping, at a local pawn shop. Benny had no idea what was in the case until he found out that Connie, who gave it to him, had made as well as kept the very incriminating, for Valent and his syndicate, microfilm. Despite being both cool calm as well as collective all throughout the movie Arnie Valent loses himself when he realizes that for once he's about to be busted, with none of his flunkies taking the rap for him! Valent overreacts when Barry, who was at the pawn shop with him and his hoods, pulled the rolls of film right out of his hands before, like he did with the ledgers earlier, he could burn them. Instead of letting his hood chase down Barry and both murder him and get the film back Valent decides to do the job himself. This leaves him open to being both arrested by the police, who were tailing Barry, or ending up getting shot and killed by them. Barry badly wounded, from being shot in the leg by Valent, ends up making it to the Chicago slums where Valent's mother resides and it's there, outside his mom's tenement, that Valent life of crime, as well as "The Syndicate", came to a sudden and violent end.