Crime does not pay (as well as it used to) #6

When I watched Virtue (1932) for Carole & Co.’s Carole-tennial(+3) blogathon last week, the movie was on a DVD-R that also had copies of Three Wise Girls (1932) and They Made Me a Criminal (1939), and it was at the end of Criminal that I discovered The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ (ka-ching!) had filled out its remaining two hour-slotted running time with one of the M-G-M Crime Does Not Pay shorts, the aptly titled A Criminal is Born (1938).  This title presents an interesting conundrum—is criminality nature or nurture?  Because I have to be honest, I’d be a little worried about being in a delivery room where something like this could happen:

NURSE: Push, Mrs. Garfield!  Push!!!

DOCTOR: I can see the head…a little more…Great Insurance Co-Pays!  The little !@#$ has a gun!

BABY: Wah! (Translation: “Hand over the wallet, Doc, and no one gets hurt…”)

Anyway, in looking back through previous posts I discovered that it’s been a long time since I did a “Crime Does Not Pay” piece (December 2010), so without further ado, here is the M-G-M Crime Reporter introducing Judge Charles Edwin Marshall (William Stack):

The criminal population in this country is now more than 4,300,000 persons…last year, thirteen percent of all murders…twenty-eight percent of the robberies…forty-one percent of the burglaries…and fifty-one percent of automobile thefts were committed by criminals under the age of 21 years…if you think these young criminals are the result of underprivilege and poverty, you are mistaken…an overwhelming majority of them came from homes exactly like yours.

Geez…it’s worse than I could have imagined.  A home exactly like mine?  (I hope Mom doesn’t make a mistake someday and drive home to the wrong house after getting groceries…that joint is full of criminals!)  Incidentally, I’m not sure where they got this guy playing the judge—most of the authoritative spokespeople in these shorts are played by recognizable B-movie thesps like Addison Richards and John Hamilton—but I found it a little difficult taking him seriously, particularly since he pronounces the first part of “robberies” as if he were saying “R-R-Ruffles have r-r-ridges.”  (He’s sort of like the high school biology teacher that everyone used to make fun of when his back was turned.)

But he’s going to tell us a tale of youth not only running wild but going bad…very, very bad.  The first of these “yutes” is Henry (George P. Breakston), who drifts into juvenile delinquency because his Mom is apparently too busy being the social gadabout to make sure he gets a square meal after a rough day at school:

HENRY’S MOM: Oh, Henry…I just haven’t had time to fix anything for you, darling…but you’ll find a can of corned beef, open that…and I think there’s some milk in the icebox… (To her husband) Come on, dear…we’ll be late…good night, darling…

HENRY’S DAD (whipped): Good night, Henry…

I liked how she says “but you’ll find a can of corned beef, open that”—she doesn’t specify whether or not it’s in the kitchen…but there must be a can somewhere.  Incidentally, some of you may recognize this young lad as the kid who played Andy Hardy’s pal “Beezy” in that M-G-M series.  I did, and I started giggling because I muttered to myself “Beezy’s gone wild!”  In fact, upon closer examination most of this short looks like it was shot on the same set and in the same houses as the mythical burg of Carvel, so it’s sort of like an It’s a Wonderful Life version of what happened had Andy Hardy never been born.  (This is not necessarily a bad thing, by the way.)

Our next troubled youngster is named Rodney (David Durand)—“Rod” to his friends, and I’d tell you why this is the case but this is a family blog. He enters through the back door of his modest home not to find a can of corned beef…but to discover that his parents are engaged in a particularly loud squabble.  “Aw, cut it out, can’t ya?  You’re always fightin’…” he beseeches his folks.

“Shut your mouth or I’ll shut it for ya,” snarls his dad (Eddy Chandler), who lunges for his son when challenged (“Oh yeah?”) until Rod beats a hasty retreat out the door in the nick of time.

And here’s Jimmy Wheeler (Warren McCollum), boy hooligan.  Jimmy breathlessly rushes into the living room to find his dry and dusty old father Frank (Joseph Crehan) reading a newspaper editorial out loud to his spouse, a/k/a Jimmy’s mother Martha (Dorothy Vaughn).  (Well, let’s just assume it’s his ma for the sake of argument.)  Jimmy has the effrontery to interrupt his padre to tell him he’s figured out how he can get “that fishing rod.” (Selling packets of seeds is my guess.)

“Your father is reading, Jimmy,” scolds Jimmy’s mom…and believe you me, I know how Jimmy feels—of course, in my house it’s more like “Your father is watching Las Vegas Jailhouse, Ivan…”

Finally, we meet the fourth member of our little juvenile delinquent quartet, Tom (Norman Phillips, Jr.).  Tom has what was known in the neighborhood of my hometown as “the dorky parents,” because they insist on sharing all of his teenage activities while being completely oblivious to the fact that normal teenagers do not want a lifestyle like Kitten, Bud or Princess…they want to be moody and sullen and fill journals with bad poetry.  Tom’s dad even suggests “a walk around the block…keep us in trim”—as if his son had a prizefight later on in the week:

TOM: Sorry, Skipper…I got a date…

TOM’S DAD: Is that so?  Is she pretty?

TOM: No…I’ve got a date with the gang…so long, Skipper…I’ll see you later… (Calling into the next room) So long, Mother!

TOM’S DAD (sadly, as Tom departs): So long, Tom…

And the cat’s in the cradle and the silver spoon

Little Boy Blue and the Man in the Moon

When you comin’ home, son

I don’t know when

But we’ll get together then, Dad

You know we’ll have a good time then

Poor Dad.  If only he had insisted that Tom take a lap or two around the neighborhood…because in the next scene, the four boys are kicking back with a few ice cream sodas at Pop Tate’s, giving each other surreptitious looks.  Pop (Harry C. Bradley) asks them if they want anything else, and responding in the negative, they wait until the old duffer goes into the back room before the four of them start looting the place…

Rod drops some of the swag he’s stealing, which attracts Pop’s attention in the back…so the four of them start to haul ass out of the store when he yells at them “Get out of there!”  Pop grabs Rod but the kid manages to shake him off, and as he’s racing out of the drugstore he knocks over a magazine display, which the stuntman substituting for “Pop” trips over and lands face first on the sidewalk.  (I had to run it back and forth a few times, and you can’t convince me that that guy didn’t have a goose egg on his head the size of a goose egg as a result of that tumble.)  The little ruffians successfully make it to their getaway jalopy and speed off into the night.

The next morning at breakfast, Tom’s ma is reading the newspaper account of the store fracas out loud and glancing over at his all-too-guilty-looking son (I toyed with the idea of putting little “guilt” words over his face but decided that might be pushing it) Tom’s pa realizes he has to work fast to detour his progeny back onto the straight-and-narrow:

TOM’S DAD: Tom, I see where the fish are biting up at Buckeye Lake…what do you say we go up there Sunday?

TOM: Why…that’d be swell…

TOM’S DAD: All right…but we’d be pretty busy between now and then getting ready…

What are they planning to do, build the boat?

TOM’S DAD: …you won’t be able to see much of your gang…

TOM: Well…I don’t care…

TOM’S DAD: I’m glad you don’t, Tom…you know, those fellows are liable to get you into trouble…

TOM: Yeah…maybe you’re right…

This touching family scene—where Tom and his dad instantly bond over their love of spending an indeterminable amount of their free time trapped in a fishing boat—is contrasted with the situation at the Wheeler house, where Pa Wheeler is ranting about all the hooliganism going on in town (he’s referring to that drugstore heist).  As Jimmy gets up from the table, a candy bar drops out of his pocket and onto the floor.  (Cue the sad trombone!) Unmindful of the fact that his son is one of the “roughnecks” he’s railing about, Mr. Wheeler tells his flesh-and-blood “You dropped something” and Jimmy sheepishly picks it up and heads off to school.

Well, it looks as if Jimmy has been sidetracked in an impromptu meeting of his “posse,” who are hanging out in their jalopy at Rod’s.  “Say, Rod,” admonishes Jimmy, “you shouldn’t have thrown that thing in front of him—you busted his arm.”

“What’s the matter, you nuts?” responds an unrepentant Rod.  “He nearly had me.”  Young Rodney then suggests that the four of them find even more mischief to get into rather than attend classes, but Tom will hear none of this.  “Not me, the Skipper’s gonna take me fishing Sunday, and…well, I don’t…” His voice trails off, and I started at this point to realize that he calls his Dad “Skipper” because of the fishing trips (I just hope Dad doesn’t take him on a three-hour tour).  So Tom heads off in search of knowledge, and his friends wistfully try to hide their jealousy, particularly Henry—who’d like nothing more than some fried catfish, cole slaw and hush puppies on occasion instead of his wretched corned beef hash diet.

HENRY: Your dad ever take you fishing?

JIMMY: No, he’s too busy…he’s on a lot of committees…

ROD: My old man took me on a picnic once…

“…and left me at the park…heck of a walk back.”  You might think I’m joking about this, but you’ll remember that Rod was the kid whom his father was going to introduce to the back of his hand, and to give you an idea of what this kid’s home life is like, there’s a quick shot of his mother:

“H-A…double R-I…D-A-N spells harridan…” Rodney tells his mother to dry up, and then directs his compadres to “the North Side,” where they’re going to have a little fun.  “I don’t know what we’re going to use for money,” complains Henry, since the haul from last night consisted mostly of candy bars and other representatives of the junk food group.

The three of them find sources of income in stealing money left in milk bottles (for the milkman) and swiping produce from comical foreign fruit vendors like the young scalawags they are.  A close call involving a potential traffic accident with another driver (Emerson Treacy) leads the boys to strip the guy’s car, selling his spare tires and keeping his elaborate horn as a souvenir.  Rod tells his crew that they’ll drive around later tonight in search of a meeting to pry loose more automotive parts from parked cars because the auto junkyard guy they sold the tires to “will buy anything.”  They locate such a meeting, and as coinky-dink would have it, Jimmy’s dad is there lecturing on “Good Neighbor Week,” droning on and on to a group of individuals who are wishing they had stayed home to listen to Amos ‘n’ Andy.  The next morning:

FRANK: A gang of thieves went through every car there, just as systematically as you please… took everything they found loose…

MARTHA: But where were the police?

FRANK: Oh, they’re never around when anything happens…we have the dumbest police force of any city in the country…

Jimmy tries to stifle a smirk at this last remark, and bidding his mom a fare-thee-well races off to join his delinquent pals in the next scene, where he, Henry and Rod learn that all the stolen swag they collected from the Good Neighbor folks in attendance is going to net them a grand total of two bucks.  The junk man agrees to pay them three after Rod protests, and Rod thanks him for his generosity by calling him a “chiseler.”  (Though that could be the guy’s actual name—as in “Chiseler’s Junkyard.”)  But the handwriting is on the wall for our young thugs—they’re going to have to step up to the plate and start swiping bigger things…and fortunately, Rod knows a place “where we can really get some dough.”

And it’s not a bakery.  Our trio of lawbreakers arrives at a warehouse in the evening hours, and when Henry is worried about the cops Jimmy assures him “The cops are never around when anything happens.”  (We will soon see that Jimmy’s attitudes toward law enforcement are dictated by his inattentive father.)  Not wanting to be left out of this conversation, Rod adds: “Yeah, my old man says there’s only one thing dumber than a cop and that’s another cop.”  (I’ll bet dollars to donuts he’ll be at the mercy of several dumb cops the next time they come out to answer a neighbor’s complaint about his pa and ma duking it out again…if what my father watches on TV is any indication.)

In the warehouse, the boys start grabbing cartons of cigarettes, chump change and other contraband…but Jimmy has his eye on this little bauble:

JIMMY (pointing the gun at his friends): Stick ‘em up, mugs!

ROD: Where’d you get that?

JIMMY (nodding his head at a drawer): In here…

ROD: Boy…let me have it!

JIMMY: Nothin’ doin’!  I found it!

ROD: I’ll keep us covered on the getaway!

JIMMY: I’ll keep us covered…

HENRY: Shh!  Quiet!

A man (Ben Taggart) with apparently nothing better to do than duck down dark alleys late at night ambles into view just in time to see that something is amiss (“Hey—what’s going on in there?!!”).  The little punks make a break for their roadster, and when Jimmy momentarily trips over his own feet he fires the pistola at the guy, then gets into the jalopy and the kids drive off.  I don’t want to say anything before the facts are in…but I believe Jimmy and his pals are seriously boned.

As a rite of passage into major criminaldom, the three of them pull out some smokes and take a trip to flavor country…

ROD: Why’d you have to plug him?

JIMMY: Well, what else could I do?  Besides, I…didn’t mean to…I…I just…

HENRY: Think you killed him?

JIMMY: I don’t know…I didn’t want to hurt the guy… (Reaching in his pocket for his roscoe) Oh, I’ve got to get rid of this…

ROD (stopping him short): Oh, not around here…if you bumped him off, they’re not gonna hang it on me!

JIMMY: Shut up, will ya!  You’re in this as much as I am!

HENRY: Jim…maybe you missed him…

“Let’s face it, dude…you’re a piss-poor marksman…”

JIMMY: Listen…Hank…we were all over at your place—that’s our alibi…we were all there and we never left…

HENRY: Sure!  Sure!  My folks will never know the difference…they’re never home anyway…

“A shooting, Officer Judy?  We don’t know anything about it—we were all at Hank’s eating corned beef!”  Well, fortunately for Jimmy the Assassin, the guy he fired the gun at is okay…it’s just a flesh wound, and he dutifully answers the cops’ questions while he’s being attended to by a medical professional who goes uncredited.  There is then a dissolve to these same gendarmes questioning the night watchman (also uncredited), who reports that the adolescent burglars didn’t get away with much of a haul…but he does remember the gun that was stashed in the drawer that is now the personal property of Jimmy Wheeler, Boy Hooligan, and one of the cops (Harry Strang) stresses the need to find the weapon “before someone really gets hurt.”

Jimmy’s anonymous criminal exploits once again make the front page of the local newspaper, and without realizing it Pa Wheeler bestows high praise on his son:

FRANK (reading): “Following emergency treatment at the hospital, the victim was sent home…both the victim and the police were convinced that the burglars were of high school age…” (Throwing newspaper on table) He’s lucky he wasn’t carried home…

MARTHA: That’s dreadful…that man might have been killed…

FRANK: He should have minded his own business…these young gangsters will shoot at the drop of a hat…and till things are run differently around this town, they’re going to get away with it…these kids are smart…they’ll make the cops look like a bunch of ninnies…

Oh, wipe that smug off your face, James Wheeler.  I’ve seen the ending to this short.  You are cruisin’ for a bruisin’, young man.  But Jimmy is too full of his own press to pay any heed to my warning—in fact, he joins his partners in crime at Rod’s, where the three of them risk serious arm strain patting each other on the back after once again making the front page:

JIMMY: The guy’s okay…

ROD: Yeah, but they can still send us up for assault with a deadly weapon…you ditch that gun?

JIMMY: Sure!  You think I’m a sap?

Secret ballots, people…write your answers on the slips of paper provided and hand them in at the end of the post.

HENRY: Hey…if they get the bullet out of that guy maybe they can trace us with it…

JIMMY: Not unless they find the gun, stupid…

ROD: Boy, you sure let him have it…

JIMMY: Serves him right!  He should have minded his own business… (After an awkward pause) What’s the matter…you guys scared?

HENRY: No…uh…look…I think we better lay low for a while…

JIMMY: What for?  We got away okay up til’ now, haven’t we? 

ROD: Sure…

JIMMY: Say…we’ll make the cops look like a bunch of ninnies…

ROD: Ninnies…

(The three boys laugh among themselves)

Crime…is a gateway drug.  Oh, it starts with little things like refusing to keep off the grass and crossing against the light, and pretty soon you find yourself brazenly swiping swag off of trucks in broad daylight…

…swiping swag off of trains in the dead of night…

…and swiping swag from the changing room of the Carvel Debutante Cotillion...

You think to yourself, “I can quit this rampage any time I want to…” but you won’t want to.  (Wow…I sounded just like Jack Webb there.)  Anyway, the boys are spending their ill-gotten gains in this dive…

…and you can tell it’s a dive because of the slot machines—no self-respecting boys’ club would have those.  Joe (Eddy Waller), the owner of the café, tells our young scalawags he’s closing up and orders them to settle up their bill.  At the register, Jimmy and Company look down to see that Joe is making so much money he can’t keep it in the register; it’s spilled out all over the counter…

…a customer comes in for cigarettes, and Jimmy whispers to his buddies “Tomorrow night” while taking notice of the time.  This will be the biggest haul yet…why, with hot dogs selling for a dime there must be at least fifteen dollars in that register’s take!

The plans for the heist hit a slight snag when Jimmy’s mother forbids him to go out for the evening—she senses that something is wrong, and wants Jimmy to sit down for a chinwag with his father on what’s troubling him.  “I’m doing all right…I don’t want any help from or anyone else!”  And in open defiance of his mother’s wishes, he storms out of the kitchen through the back door!

Ma Wheeler then walks into the parlor where Mr. Wheeler is poring over some ledgers, and she informs him of Jimmy’s behavior:

MARTHA: You’ve got to do something with him…he’s becoming a serious problem…

FRANK: Now, Martha—I have problems of my own…trying to have my business run as usual with all this added committee work isn’t easy…

MARTHA: Then I’d give up some of the committee work, Frank…Jimmy’s reached an age where he needs your help…

FRANK: Martha, you take the boy too seriously…after all, he has everything he wants…

And then some, thanks to his ill-gotten gains.  We now take you to another section of Carvel, where Jimmy, Rod and Henry are planning the big café robbery:

JIMMY (to Rod): Now when I stick ‘em up, you grab the dough, see? (To Henry) You stand in the door and give us a whistle if anyone comes along…

ROD: We ought to have another guy…

JIMMY: What for?

ROD: To sit in the car and keep the motor running for a faster getaway… (Sudden burst of inspiration) Let’s get Tom!

JIMMY: Oh, he wouldn’t come…besides, we’d take a chance telling him…

ROD: Oh, sure he’ll come…he was one of the gang when we first started, wasn’t he?  He wants dough just as much as we do…come on…

Well, that may have been the case in the past…but Tom’s a solo artist now.  So when the guys approach him about getting the band back together, Tom is naturally hesitant:

JIMMY (to Tom): We’re not trying to slip you anything…look, Tom—you want to make some easy dough, don’t you?

TOM: Well, sure!

JIMMY: Okay, then—we’ll cut you in…there’s nothing to it…

HENRY: Nah, it’s a cinch…

TOM: Well, what do I have to do?

JIMMY: Nothing!  Just sit in the car, that’s all…we’ve got it all figured out…there’s a little eatin’ joint up on High Street…Rod and I go in and stick the guy up…

TOM: What???

JIMMY (showing Tom a gun hidden under his shirt): Sure!

TOM: Nothin’ doin’…not for me!!!

“Skip’s takin’ me to fish for walleyes and crappies this Sunday…I could get in trouble!” 

Tom is accused by his former friends of “turnin’ yellow” but this attempt to goad Tom into a life of crime is pointless—he’ll have nothing to do with these rough fellows and their dangerous hi-jinks.  “Okay,” says Jimmy, “but you better forget we talked to you, see?”  There are a few harsh words exchanged between Rod and Tom, who ends up on his ass after Rod punches him…and Jimmy points that piece (that I thought he had ditched) in his direction:

JIMMY: See this?  We don’t monkey with squealers, see?  One peep out of you and I’ll let you have it, see?  One peep!

The gang ride off in their roadster, and as Tom gets to his feet, his father arrives on the scene, wanting to know what the problem is.  Tom waves him off, but after a dissolve we find Tom’s dad on the phone with Mr. Wheeler:

TOM’S DAD: Tom didn’t make it up, Mr. Wheeler…I had to drag it out of him…

“Ruined a perfectly good truncheon, too…”

TOM’S DAD: They’re somewhere up on High Street and Jimmy has a gun…

HENRY: Why, that’s impossible!  I can’t believe it!

TOM’S DAD: If you hurry, you may be able to stop them…call the police and tell them where they are…

Yeah, that would be the dumb police, Mr. W.  A call goes out to a couple of patrolmen, who head off in the direction of the eatery…but it’s too little, too late.  While Jimmy holds Joe the Café Guy at gunpoint, Rod starts cleaning out his day’s receipts…and when Jimmy momentarily takes his eyes off his prisoner, Joe lunges for the gun and gets a bullet for his trouble.  It wasn’t supposed to go down this way, of course, but that’s a moot point—Jimmy drops the gun as the three kids sprint toward their jalopy…and with his final breath Joe manages to pick up Jimmy’s gun and bust a cap in poor Henry’s ass.  Sirens can be heard wailing in the distance, and the police block Jimmy and Rod’s attempt to escape.

Well, this can’t be good…I really felt sorry for Henry’s doormat of a father, who has to be the one to identify his son’s body because Henry’s ma is probably out meeting a social obligation or something.  And this brings us back full circle to the man who started to tell us this tale of juvenile delinquency woe, Judge Charles Edwin Marshall, who regretfully has to sentence these two idiots to the state reformatory for burglary and murder until they are twenty-one…and then they’re going to do an additional stretch in The Big House for twenty-five years.  No senior prom for you fellas!

I like the ambiguous look Tom gives his father here…I can’t decide whether it’s a “Gee, Skipper…I’m glad I have a dad like you who kept my nose clean and out of trouble” or “I’m a dead man…I squealed on those two guys and they’ll catch up with me even if they are behind prison walls.”  (I just hope this doesn’t put a damper on any future fishing trips.)

Jimmy’s mother cries out to him…but he doesn’t get the opportunity to say goodbye.  (Hey, those strip searches don’t conduct themselves, you know…)

Of course, this somber scenario wouldn’t be complete without a Judge Hardy-like lecture from “Hangin’” Judge Marshall, who must impart upon Jimmy and Rod’s folks that they are, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty sh*tty parents:

MARSHALL: The real tragedy of this case is that none of this need ever to have happened…these boys would not be here today if you as parents had not failed in your responsibilities…a growing boy needs more than food and shelter…he needs your interest and guidance…and above all, your understanding… (Turning to face the camera) It is you, and not the law who must shape the character of your children…the best cure for all crime is prevention—not punishment…you as parents must prevent crime where crime begins…in your own home…

Bad parents!  Baaaaaad parents!  G’bye now!