This week’s entry in our
Crime
Does Not Pay series features two actors in the opening credits that would
go on to bigger and better things in the motion picture bidness. The first is Leslie Fenton, a British-born
thespian who made an impression in silent pictures (
Lazybones,
The Road to Glory)
before smoothly transitioning to the talkies and appearing in such features as
The Public
Enemy (1931),
The
Guilty Generation (1931), and
Boys
Town (1938). Fenton later walked
around to the other side of the camera and became a director, starting out with
shorts (he even helmed a pair in the
CDNP
franchise) before graduating to feature flicks, notably
Tomorrow,
the World! (1944) and
Pardon My
Past (1945). (If it happens to swing
by The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ sometime in future, I highly
recommend
Tell No Tales [1939]—a
great little B curio starring Melvyn Douglas…believe me, I am not a fan of
Douglas in his “leading man” days but he’s positively first-rate in this one.)
The other familiar personage who gets a nod in the opening
credits is Leon Ames, a hardy character actor whose was billed as Leon Waycoff
early in his picture career (
Murders in
the Rue Morgue,
The Famous Ferguson Case) before he changed it to the
more familiar handle and cemented his cinematic immortality with memorable
turns in
Meet Me in St. Louis
(1944),
The
Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), and
Peyton Place (1957). Ames
would later channel William Powell in a boob tube version of
Life
with Father (1953-55) and Spencer Tracy in
Father of the Bride (1961-62)
before landing the role he was
born
to play: Wilbur Post’s (Alan Young) next-door neighbor (and former commanding
officer) Gordon Kirkwood in
Mister Ed (he replaced Larry
Keating’s character when Keating died in 1963).
Ames continued to work even into the 1980s; he’s got a nice bit in
Peggy Sue Got Married (1986), his
cinematic swan song.
“But, Ian,” I hear you saying. “What of our old friend, the MGM Crime
Reporter?” Well, Philip Trent must have
called in sick that day because the Crime Reporter is played by an unidentified
actor…who looks like he might also have a sideline in the funeral parlor
game. He introduces Leon Ames as “Mr.
Stanton” (no first name), a “special investigator of the Crime Prevention
Bureau.” (Don’t tell me they didn’t make
that up.)
STANTON: The federal government
in our several states met the challenge of unemployment and hunger during the
Depression years by creating the Home Relief Bureau…hundreds of millions were
distributed during the first few months of direct home relief…
Hundreds of millions of what? This sounds like that government cheese
thing. I also like how Stanton refers to
“the Depression years”—according to my father, they lasted until 1962 (the year
he got married).
STANTON: …twice a month, each
needy family received a relief ticket…exchangeable at authorized neighborhood
grocery stores for food…
A precursor to food stamps, in other words.
STANTON: Then without warning,
something went wrong…
I’m guessing Blue Dog Democrats got elected to Congress?
STANTON: …relief became a
national nightmare…
Nailed it! Okay, I’m
just jinkin’ ya. Stanton is going to
illustrate an unsettling example of how the road to hell is paved with good
intentions, as we are whisked away to a humble grocery store (not the one owned
by Herbert T. Gillis, sadly enough) to find its proprietor humming a happy
tune. Without warning, a pair of rough
customers enter the store and send the grocer to the floor of his establishment
courtesy of a sock in the jaw.
FIRST HOOD: This is the last
time we’re gonna tell ya to get into line…
SECOND HOOD: You know what
happened to Belvin…
FIRST HOOD: He didn’t want to do
business with us either…
Well, when you go around punching people in the jaw it’s
bound to effect customer relations, Mr. Henchman. I’d try the soft sell approach. The second goon in this little morality play
goes by “Mac” (I wish it could have been something more colorful, like “Monty
the Gonif”) …but we recognize him as Ben Welden, a character great who played
more hoodlums than you’ve had hot dinners.
(I think that scar across his left eye is a nice touch):
The scene shifts to yet another grocer getting a
shakedown…and it’s none other than character veteran Byron Foulger! My very good friend Cliff “Sugarball” Weimer,
who carefully measures out the fountain soda machine syrup with utmost
precision
In the Balcony, once joked that he
had probably seen more movies featuring Byron than Foulger’s immediate family…so
I (un)officially made Mr. Foulger the mascot of
ITB’s Facebook page. An
unidentified hood puts the squeeze on Grocer Foulger:
THIRD HOOD (counting pieces of
paper): Sixty-four dollars’ worth of relief tickets…
GROCER FOULGER: You’re grabbing forty cents out of every dollar…how do
you expect me to keep goin’?
THIRD HOOD: Quit beefin’…you’d
have to wait sixty days down at
relief headquarters for your dough…we give you cash on the line…
So, what seems at first glance like unsavory criminal
activity is just a concerted effort to cut through bureaucratic red tape.
GROCER FOULGER (after counting):
Hey—this is thirty dollars’ short…even
the way you figure…
THIRD HOOD: Last week you
sneaked over to the relief office yourself with a flock of tickets…we’re taking
our cut just the same…don’t try that
again…
I retract my earlier statement. With all this lawlessness rampant in the
welfare system, eventually there are going to be courageous men who say,
“Enough is enough” …and they just decide to opt out of the program. Such a man is played by Harry Hayden, and
this time the (always reliable) IMDb gets the identification right.
GROCER HARRY: I’m all
through—I’m washed up with this relief business…
FOURTH HOOD (grabbing the sign):
Yeah? This ain’t your business you’re throwin’ out…it’s ours…you know, accidents happen to guys who put up signs…well, come on, come on…let’s have what you
got…
If the henchman that shakes down Harry the Grocer looks
familiar…it’s because it’s an incredibly thin Horace McMahon, the character
actor who later appeared on the right side of the law as “Lt. Mike Parker” on
the
TDOY television fave
Naked
City. McMahon’s thug returns to
Hoodlum Central, where he tells the second-in-command of the operation
(identified as “Slim”) that Grocer Harry was all set to back out of the Relief
deal until he was told it would be a shame if someone were to set fire to his
store.
FIFTH HOOD: Nobody wants to
handle tickets anymore!
FOURTH HOOD: We’re takin’ all
the gravy!
DARLA HOOD: A lot of grocers are
gonna fold up on you, Slim…
SLIM: You guys gettin’ soft?
Just get me the tickets, that’s all…
Slim takes up the tickets collected by his hard-working “staff”
and takes them to the headquarters of the operation’s Big Boss, a charming snake
named Nick Garvey (Fenton)—we’ll meet him in a second. First order of business: Slim hands out
stacks of tickets to a quartet of grocers who will, in turn, cash them in at
the Relief Bureau for sweet, sweet moolah.
One of the merchants, a human-weasel hybrid named Schultz, is portrayed
by a character stalwart named John Butler—who will appear in later entries in
the Crime Does Not Pay series but I
always remember him from appearances in several Robert Benchley shorts (How to Watch Football, Opening Day).
SLIM: Yeah?
SCHULTZ: I haven’t got much of a
store…they’re gonna wonder at relief
headquarters, turnin’ in this many…
SLIM: Why. Schultz—you’re the
first guy I ever saw who didn’t like big
dough…
Suddenly, a terrible smell permeates the office…which can
only mean Nick Garvey has entered.
GARVEY: You haven’t had any
trouble up to now, have ya?
SCHULTZ: No, I haven’t, Nick…but
I…
GARVEY: Then forget it…your job is to take those
tickets over to the relief office and bring back the dough…let me do the worrying—I’ll take care of
you…
This is what is known in the two-reeler business as
“foreshadowing.” Meanwhile, Nick wants
to see Slim in his personal office.
GARVEY: I understand you’re
having trouble with some of your grocers…we gotta keep them from going out of
business…
SLIM: Let ‘em try it…I’ll shake their ears off…
GARVEY: Now no rough stuff,
Slim…we gotta give ‘em back their
profits…
Um…I’m pretty sure this isn’t the way capitalism is supposed
to work…
SLIM: Whaaaat?
GARVEY: Tell every grocer in
town to raise his prices forty percent…
(Wiping brow) Whew!
You had me worried for a sec…that’s
how capitalism is supposed to work.
GARVEY: The people on relief are
getting something for nothing…let
them pay…
Nick Garvey, noted Republican economist, seems to have
forgotten that everyone pays in this
system.
I guess we should have expected those headlines. What follows is a montage of grocers jacking
up their prices to satisfy the parasites running this racket. Ten pounds of potatoes: formerly 25 cents…now
35 cents. Bread rises (no pun intended)
from ten cents to twelve cents a loaf.
And milk—
children’s
milk, Mandrake!—sees a two-cent increase from eleven to thirteen
cents! Madness! Superimposed over these rising prices are
angry crowds of men, women, and chillun…who are all too aware that getting by
on what they normally get on relief is a tragic set of circumstances at best.
As a small mob of relief holders loudly protest the rising
costs of groceries, Hastings, a representative from the Home Relief Bureau
attempts to address the situation:
HASTINGS: Please…please…we must have order here or we can’t do anything…remember…we’re here to help you…all of you… (Crowd mutters in
anger) We’ve stretched our present budget to the limit…but we hope for
increased appropriations any day…
FIRST MAN: Well, that’s what you
said yesterday!
“Well, yesterday I was convinced Congress would do something…apparently I suffered some
sort of head injury…”
SECOND MAN: If we had jobs, we
wouldn’t be here!
FIRST WOMAN: Why don’t you go
after the grocers!
SECOND WOMAN: I just can’t keep
my family on four dollars a week…I can’t do it, I tell you…
HASTINGS: We’re doing everything
that we can to get prices back to normal…
FIRST MAN: Well, when?
SECOND MAN: That’s what I
say…when?
THIRD WOMAN: You’ve got to do
something now!
“We plan to convene a committee this afternoon to address
the matter…and a report with their findings should be out sometime in
1939…” Helpless as only a government
bureaucrat can be, Hastings has called in Our Man Stanton to examine the
situation.
HASTINGS: It’s the same thing
every day, Stanton…
STANTON: That’s one of the
reasons I’m here…
HASTINGS: Oh…is that so?
“Well, that and to justify the taxpayers ponying up for my
obscene salary…” The state muckety-mucks
have asked Stansy to consider why there are only four grocers getting
compensation from all the relief tickets.
Hastings is convinced everything is on the up-and-up, but he asks
Stanton if he wants to look at the cashier records. As the two men head inside another office,
Stanton stops…because he recognizes Schultz, who’s collecting his ill-gotten
welfare gains.
STANTON: Is that one of the four
grocers?
“No—I believe that’s one of the Four Freshmen
.” Schultz asks the clerk if any checks came
through, and when he’s told “no” tells the man he’ll see him tomorrow. Hastings assures Stanton that Schultz is one
of the “four grocers” and the two of them walk over to the clerk’s area so
Stanton can get a gander at the tickets Schultz turned in. Stanton finds it peculiar that many of the
tickets are from addresses that are not normally in the vicinity of the store,
and his observations are heard by this nosy parker:
Stanton tells Hastings that he’s going to look into the
peculiarity of people shopping from as far as ten miles away, and he signs a
receipt for some of the tickets he’ll use in his investigation. Nosy Parker offers to file the receipt…but
what he’s really planning to do is phone Nick Garvey to let him know some
flatfoot is sniffing around his operation.
He gives Nick the names of the relief customers, and in turn Nick issues
orders for Slim to send his confederates out for damage control. One of the people on the list goes by
“Briggs,” and he’s played by another familiar face…
…it’s George Chandler, whom has a movie and TV resume as
long as your arm—he’s “Chester” in the classic W.C. Fields comedy
The Fatal Glass of Beer (1933), and on
television he played “Uncle Petrie” on
Lassie (and “Ichabod” on the sitcom
Ichabod
and Me). Briggs is a bit of a
nervous Nellie when Stanton comes a-callin’…but that’s easily explained…
…some of the Garvey mob (shame on you, Ben!) are hovering
over Briggs’ family ready to work over La Familia. Another individual who’s reluctant to talk is
Mrs. Clark, who tells Stansy that even though she and her husband “do without”
it’s not enough to keep her sick daughter healthy—the child’s not getting
enough to eat. When Stanton asks about
Schultz, Mrs. Clark becomes upset: “You’re the third man who’s been here
today…Schultz…Schultz…
Schultz! That’s all I hear! I’m sick of it! I can’t stand anymore of it! Get out!
Get out!”
STANTON (on the telephone): Why,
these people are scared stiff,
Hastings…somebody’s been ahead of me browbeating them…there must be a leak in
your office…
HASTINGS: What? Anything I can do?
STANTON: No, I just wanted to
warn you—hereafter, we’ll meet in Captain Burke’s office…we’ll get together
after I’ve looked Schultz over…
“And in the meantime, I can put that new guy—Scaramucci—in
charge of plugging the leaks.” There’s a
scene shift to Schultz’s grocery, where a clerk informs a “Mrs. Flynn” that
she’s just twenty-eight cents over.
MRS. FLYNN: Oh, well…uh…couldn’t
you take it out of our next week’s
ticket? It’s only three days off…
SCHULTZ (interjecting icily): We don’t give credit on relief tickets…
MRS. FLYNN: All right…take out
the sugar… (The clerk starts removing items from the sack) And the butter…
“The milk…eggs…bread…vegetables…” Schultz, spotting Stanton in the store, asks
what he can do for him.
STANTON: I’m from relief
headquarters…I’d like to see your tickets…
SCHULTZ: Oh—what for?
STANTON: We’re checking up on
some families who are getting luxuries instead of necessities…
“You know, sugar…butter…milk…eggs…bread…vegetables…” Stanton
looks over the tickets from the customers he visited, and everything appears to
be in order—he bids the smug Schultz adieu, while Slim emerges from a nearby
corner. Schultz starts to file the
tickets away but is stopped by Slim: “Hey, just a minute—those go back where
they came from…” The old-substitute-relief-ticket
ploy (thanks, Nosy!) …and Stanton fell for it.
Stanton, Hastings, and other assorted underlings are having
a meeting in Captain Burke’s (Davison Clark) office:
STANTON: Schultz was all
primed…we’re dealing with fast workers, and they’re ruthless…
I wonder where Ruth is? (Love the Firesign Theatre.)
STANTON: …to break this case by
ordinary methods, it might take three
months…but we haven’t got time—people are starving…
You’ve also only five minutes left in this thing. Stanton decides to go for broke: he hands out
court orders to his deputies to serve on the four grocers—a little surprise
audit! “Bring me back a telephone
number…a scrap of paper…or a name…anything! Something that will give me a clue as to who’s
behind this thing…”
Schultz is saying good night to his employees when one of
Stanton’s men enters with the court order, asking to look at his books. Schultz tells him “Help yourself,” but when
he heads toward his safe to close the doors he’s told to leave everything
open. And then this happens:
DEPUTY: Just a minute—you can’t do that!
SCHULTZ: You’ve no authority to
go through my private papers! That’s my
own personal box…I’ll be right back…
“I…forgot to program the DVR for that Michael Phelps/Shark
thing.” The deputy waits for a few
moments, but Schultz does not return. (Because
he’s all ass and elbows, headed for the state line—that’s my guess.) He phones Stanton at Burke’s office and gives
him the lowdown about Schultz locking the box—“I’ll jimmy it if you say so.” Stanton, in a rare display of adhering to the
Fourth Amendment, tells his man he’ll need a witness…so he’s on his way.
At Nick’s headquarters, Garvey is reading Nosy Parker (his
real name is “Joe,” for the curious) the riot act for not tipping them off about
the court orders…and Parker emphatically tells his boss they didn’t come from
the relief office. Schultz bursts in,
sweating in a way that would make Edmond O’Brien jealous:
SCHULTZ: They jumped my books—you gotta get me out of
it!
SLIM: Well, keep your shirt on…
SCHULTZ: But you don’t understand—he’s
got a court order! He’ll go through everything!
GARVEY: Whaddya mean, everything?!!
SCHULTZ: He’ll go through my
safe…
GARVEY: What’s the matter with
your safe?!!
SCHULTZ: Well, I…that is…
GARVEY (grabbing him by the
lapels): Come on! Spill it! What’s
in that safe?!!
Schultz lets it be known that there’s a little book inside
that safe…one that he kept the relief records in. I know what you’re thinking right now—“That
seems kind of stupid.” (Not nearly as
stupid as writing “The Real Relief Records” on the cover of the book, of course—he’s
not a complete idiot.) Schultz assures his “friends” that he’s
locked it up and though Nick is telling him to make like a tree and get out of
there, Slim beseeches his boss: “He’ll squawk!”
As Schultz backs up toward the evidence he plaintively
screeches “You said you’d take care of
me! That’s what you said! You’d take
care of me!”
“We’ll take care of you,” declares Garvey. Say what you want about Nick and his
associates—but they make good on their word.
As Schultz is ducking down alleys like someone trapped in a noir
nightmare, he’s gunned down by the Garvey mob…though not before the studio gets
in a plug for their current release of The
Good Earth (1937) starring Paul Muni and Luise Rainer—based on the novel by
fellow Mountaineer Pearl S. Buck!
 |
| On the poster behind him. |
By this time, Stanton and his man have opened Schultz’s
private box (well, in all fairness—it’s not like he’ll be needing it anytime
soon) and have found the grocer’s book with the incriminating evidence (he even
took the time to write Garvey’s name in it!).
As Stanton gets on the horn to contact Captain Burke and have him raid
Nick’s headquarters, several members of the Garvey mob pull up outside the
store and relieve the deputy of some ledgers and papers he’s carrying out. What follows is a scene in which Stanton
conceals the incriminating book inside a desk drawer as the hoods tear apart
the store looking for it. It’s pretty
much all over but the shouting…but I did get a hearty chuckle at this blatant
bit of product placement:
 |
| I'd like to buy the world a Coke... |
 |
| ...and use it as a deadly weapon! |
Garvey grabs The Pause That Refreshes, breaks it across a
store display and starts toward Stanton with it. Stanton tells him the book is in the cash
register to stall for time, but by that time the jernt is swarming with cops
ready to escort Nick and his chums to The Grey Bar Hotel.
STANTON: Nick Garvey and his killers
went to the electric chair…the
grocers who hid their greed behind respectable storefronts received no mercy…and were sentenced to jail for
terms long enough to realize that crime
does not pay…
Oh, puh-leeze. They’re
white collar criminals—I’m guessing they pleaded to a lesser charge and fines
were involved. Next time on the blog:
Crime Does Not Pay rips the lid off
phony charity rackets with
Give Till It
Hurts (1937)! G’bye now!
