cult film freak: RICHARD CONTE WITH DIANNE FOSTER IN 'THE BROTHERS RICO'

Richard Conte & Dianne Foster in THE BROTHERS RICO Year: 1957 Rating: ***

Classic Film Noir director Phil Karlson's late-1950's Gangster Melodrama THE BROTHERS RICO feels like a deliberately slowed-down sequel... about a man who once worked as the Florida mob's primary accountant, and, now, owner of a laundry business, he's been out until... they drag him back in...

Which is where we awkwardly begin, after loads of exposition dialogue and very little action or suspense as eerily affable mob boss Larry Gates finally tells his former employee Richard Conte what's the buried plot-line: to find the youngest of his two younger BROTHERS RICO to get him out of the country...

Rudy Bond and Richard Conte in THE BROTHERS RICO

Conte is cool and effective as usual, but not the kind of narrowed and experienced tough guy he'd portray before and would become most famous for after in THE GODFATHER... even idealistic brother James Darren, married to bickering pregnant (and miscast simply for wasting her beauty) Kathryn Grant realizes he's not as smart as he should be...

Because it's beyond predictable that Gates wants to kill little brother, having already beaten middle brother Paul Picerni to a pulp... leaving Conte's most intense scenes with wispy yet energetic wife Dianne Foster in a decent enough crime-programmer, despite under-utilizing potentially lethal henchman Rudy Bond, Harry Bellaver and Richard Bakalyan — while leaving way too much backstory to the imagination.