dougdoepke Two slick con-artists plan to cap their success with a really big score by impersonating a psychic.Actors Brooke and Conway together at last. In fact, shady sophistication doesn't come any better. Except here, Brooke's Mary is given a battered conscience, compromising her usual icy demeanor, while Conway's Kingsley manages his usual suave persona. The movie starts out really well with a couple of slick swindle operations by the two. Gypping the greedy pawnshop owner is both cleverly done and perversely satisfying. But then, when Mary goes into a stage act and private dick Kingsley hangs around the police station like a regular cop, the narrative becomes a real stretch. After all, that big swindle operation in the nightclub must involve fifty collaborators, any one of which could blow the whole fake mind-reading act. At the same time, would real cops let a shady PI go along with them on official business. Too bad, the con game springs a leak after such a clever start.Impresario Stone appears unsure about how much documentary approach to use. After all, this was a time when Dragnet's semi-documentary style was lighting up TV sets. Nonetheless, the movie's very well mounted, using abundant location shots and persuasive interiors. And I really like Stone's boldness in using a nearly obese Kruschen as a cop at a time when movie cops looked anything but. All in all, however, it's a movie that shows early promise before believability begins to scatter.

blanche-2 Hillary Brooke and Tom Conway star in "Confidence Girl" from 1952. Partly done in a semidocumentary style, it tells the story of Mary Webb (Brooke) in the title role. Like my mother used to say, if these crooks put their intelligence toward doing something decent, they could rule the world.Roger Kingsley (Conway) approaches an insurance company and tells them their department store is about to be ripped off by a confidence woman he's been trailing, one Mary Webb. He can catch her, but it will cost them $10,000; however, they'll get back their merchandise and get her off the streets. The insurance company agrees.At the department store, an elderly woman, a confederate, looks at coats. While the coats she's looked at hang on a rack in front of her and the saleswoman has left to get another, Mary goes to the rack, takes a $15,000 coat (this is 1952 money), puts it on and leaves. And that's all I'll say.There are a couple of more jobs, but there are plans for the big score -- Mary is to become a night club psychic so she can dazzle people and get private readings, during which she can encourage people to buy worthless stock that someone wants to unload.Really entertaining B movie with good performances by a very dissipated looking Tom Conway and a glamorous Hillary Brooke. Well worth a look if you get the opportunity. These black and white B movies are often a nice way to spend a rainy afternoon.

mgtbltp It starts off as a typical police procedural with a brief introductory spiel by a Los Angeles police official warning against the confidence game, then proceeds to tell the case of Mary Webb (Brooke) and her association with Roger Kingsley (Conway).This was one intricately plotted film that starts off with a nice twist following confidence girl Webb and her associates through various cons, culminating in an elaborate phony mentalist night club act. Hillary Brooke looks great and does a convincing turn as Webb, Tom Conway (George Sander's brother) is her equal, believable. I've been familiar with Brooke from when I was a kid she was a regular, the blond bombshell that all the guys in Patterson on the Abbott & Costello TV show, were crazy about. Didn't realize she was a home girl (Astoria, NY) until I saw her bio. She shines.Very similar to The Sting, but in my opinion even better for the 50s location sequences, check it out for yourselves. 8/10 Streaming on Netfix

secondtake Confidence Girl (1952)Oh boy, such a clever idea, something like "The Sting" in its elaborate conniving to con a bunch of people out of their dough. And such strained acting, too. I found it totally fun but only in that way you kick back and watch, say, "My Three Sons" and enjoy it even though you know there isn't much to it. "Confidence Girl" is actually better than most 1960s television, and it's fast paced enough to never let you go. And the photography is really good. But keep your expectations in check.The title comes from the idea that a woman builds up trust in some victims in a scam situation so that other conspirators can do their sting later. The classic one early on demonstrates how a woman persuades a pawnbroker that she has found a valuable violin in his shop and will pay $10,000 for it, but he has to get permission from the owner first. The pawnbroker thinks, oh boy, I'll buy it for a few hundred dollars and sell it to the woman for a huge profit. The owner, of course, is a collaborator who refuses to sell it until the price is close to $10,000. The pawnbroker is still thinking he'll make a quick couple thousand--and then the woman, who has left only her phone number and hotel room, backs out of the deal.Fun. It could have been better made in a million little ways, but it isn't half bad as is, a B-movie through and through, and brief, too. Some great scenes shot not in a studio but on location. Produced, directed, and written by one man, which is okay if you are Stanley Kubrick or Woody Allen, but not when you are Andrew Stone, it seems, because there are too many gaps and weak spots to really keep it convincing.