Crime Does Not Pay #11: “Soak the Poor” (08/21/37)

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).

SCHULTZ: Say, Slim…

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!

Crime Does Not Pay #10: “It May Happen to You” (06/05/37)

This week’s Crime Does Not Pay outing has been discussed previously at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear…but since our Friday excursions into MGM’s popular series of shorts allow me to go into a bit more comprehensive detail I’ll apologize in advance for the rehash.  CDNP not only provided work for character veterans, it also served as a showcase for future stars like Robert Taylor (starring in Buried Loot), Barry Nelson, and Cameron Mitchell.  The big name in It May Happen to You (1937) straddles the cinematic worlds of stardom and smaller character actor fame—it’s “that celebrated actor,” J. Carrol Naish, a two-time Academy Award nominee for his supporting performances in Sahara (1943) and A Medal for Benny (1945).  I use the term “celebrated actor” in a tongue-in-cheek manner because that’s how announcer Bob Lemond always introduced him in his starring role on radio’s Life with Luigi (like how I reverently refer to Mister John Dehner in recognition of his billing on radio’s Have Gun – Will Travel).

Philip Trent—last seen as “the MGM Crime Reporter” in The Public Pays (1936)—is back for this entry, but he doesn’t do much outside of introducing this week’s faux law enforcement official, Captain John Mallory—“chief of the larceny squad of the Metropolitan Police Force.”  Mallory is portrayed by character veteran Guy Usher, who appeared in a couple of chapters of The Green Hornet (1940) as an odious criminal type named “Lynch” (nice to see Trent and Usher together in this short, by the way).  Usher’s credited work includes such films as Penguin Pool Murder (1932), This Day and Age (1933), It’s a Gift (1934), and The Spanish Cape Mystery (1935—an Ellery Queen film where he plays Inspector Queen).

MALLORY: Police and the city health department often have to work close together to smash the activities of vicious racketeers…human rats worse than the carriers of bubonic plague…

Hey…hey…there’s no need for name-calling here.

MALLORY: If you think that criminals live in another world that can’t affect you, consider this case…recently, the state highway patrol was fighting a wave of truck hijackings…

There’s a whip-pan to a truck tooling down the road, with “Lathrop Canning Co.” displayed on the back.  (“When…it…says…Lathrop’s, Lathrop’s, Lathrop’s/On the label, label, label/You will like it, like it, like it/On your table, table, table…”)  A car follows the truck, and inside the vehicle are a gang of no-goodniks comprised of Bunco (Emmett Vogan), Torpedo (Eddie Marr), Musclebound (Dick Rich) …and our “celebrated actor” as their fearless leader, J. Carrol Naish as “Moxie.”  (“Make Mine Moxie!”)  Moxie instructs Bunco (who’s at the wheel) to “kill the lights,” then to pull up beside the truck as Torpedo gets out on the running board, smashes the truck’s passenger window, and orders the driver to turn off onto a side road.  Fortunately for the Lathrop employee, a couple of uniformed motorcycle patrolmen are nearby to witness what will surely be some major criminal activity…and after coasting down to where Moxie and his stooges have positioned the truck, shine their headlights to scatter the mob like cockroaches reacting to turned-on lights in the kitchen.  There’s a bit of gunfire exchanged, and Bunco takes some shrapnel before the crooks beat a hasty retreat.

A scene shift, and Moxie is at a pay phone talking with this gent:

Yes, it’s character legend Clarence Hummel Wilson—the beloved hatchet-faced thespian who’s been in countless shorts and features…but around Rancho Yesteryear, we remember him for roles in several Hal Roach-produced comedies (Our Gang’s Shrimps for a Day [1933], Charley Chase’s Public Ghost #1 [1935], etc.).  This is Wilson’s last CDNP outing (he was previously seen in Alibi Racket), and while we are unquestionably saddened by this he gets a great showcase here as the “brains” of the operation, Van Buren “Pop” Sheafor.

MOXIE: Bad news, Sheafor…that job fell through tonight…

SHEAFOR: Fell through?  How come? (Pause) All right—meet me at the warehouse in one hour…

MOXIE: Right…

As he hangs up the phone and exits the phone booth, we see that Moxie phoned “Pop” from a gymnasium…and that his fellow goons are whiling away their copious crook time watching a pair of amateur pugilists have at it for a few rounds.  Torpedo tells his boss that Bunco’s “slug went through his hand—but he’ll be okay.”

MOXIE: From now on we lay off the highways—those state cops are gettin’ too smart…we gotta figure out a new way to work…

TORPEDO: Gettin’ so a man can’t earn his livin’ no more…

Nice little laugh line from Marr—who had a most prolific acting career on radio (The Lux Radio Theatre, Suspense) in addition to motion pictures.  Moxie’s gang takes delight at watching an amateur (Arthur Rankin) display his unique boxing style, which consists of him hitting the other fighter’s glove repeatedly with his face, then falling to the mat.  Musclebound jokingly refers to him as “Horizontal Eddie.”

MOXIE: Why…that guy don’t look like a fighter…

MUSCLEBOUND: He ain’t!  He works for a livin’…checks out trucks at the Cassidy Meat Packin’ Company…

MOXIE: Meat packin’ company?

MUSCLEBOUND: Yeah…

You can almost see the wheels a-turnin’ inside Moxie’s cranium as he begins to devise an eevillll scheme…he then visits young Edward in one of the locker rooms at the gym…

MOXIE: That’s a wicked left you got, kid…

EDDIE: Thanks…

MOXIE: I’m Moxie…

EDDIE: Yeah—I heard about you…

“Don’t get any ideas about my sister, though—she’s off-limits!”

MOXIE: Whaddya trainin’ for?

EDDIE: Oh…I just need to make a little extra money…

MOXIE: Well, you sure picked yourself a tough way to get ten bucks…

Moxie knows all about Eddie’s job at the meat packing company, of course—but he’s coy about it until Eddie brings it up.  The racketeer then goes to work on his mark’s financial insecurity: “Those joints never pay anything—even when you work up to somethin’.”  He’s got a little proposition for the money-minded young lad, and while there’s a fade-out as Moxie goes into the details, we get the gist of what he discussed with Edward in a conversation with “Pop” Sheafor.

MOXIE: …every morning he helps load those big refrigerator trucks and sees that they’re locked before they leave the plant…kid’s workin’ for peanuts—crazy about dough…it’s the perfect setup…

SHEAFOR: Hijack meat?

MOXIE: Why not?  Hah!  There’s big dough in fresh registered beef…

SHEAFOR: How are you gonna work it?

MOXIE: Never mind about that…if I get the stuff…can you sell it?

SHEAFOR: Sure!  I got several sellers on the east side who’d be glad to get some cheap…

Moxie asks Sheafor if he wants it brought to his hideout, and “Pop” is adamant about scotching that scheme.  “The health department inspectors are always nosing around the warehouse,” he explains.  Not a problem—Moxie will just need to take it to “the old garage” and “pile it up—throw some ice on it.”  I suppose I don’t need to tell those of you who don’t have extensive experience in food storage why this is not going to end well (there’s a reason why sides of beef are always stored in freezers, kids).  But I’m getting ahead of the short.

The next morning, Moxie is waiting for Eddie as the enterprising young soul leaves his modest apartment on his way to an early shift at the plant.  Eddie has given Moxie’s proposal a lot of thought, and he’s in—all he’ll need to do is slip Moxie the key to the lock on the truck headed for the nearby burg of Gardenia, and provide the proper info on what route that truck will be taking.  Eddie does have some misgivings, though:

EDDIE: Suppose they miss the key at the plant?

MOXIE: Well, they won’t for ten minutes…and that’s all I’ll need it for—I’ll get copies made by a guy I can trust… (Eddie hesitates) Now—what’s the matter?  You said you were interested in easy dough…

EDDIE: Well, I don’t know…I…

MOXIE: All right…forget about it…you’re the kind of a sucker who likes to work for a livin’…

Don’t you just hate those guys?  Moxie starts to walk off…but Eddie asks him to wait a minute, then gives him a big grin.  Looks like Eddie’s going to be kicking in on the tolls dotting the road to perdition.

The Great Beef Robbery goes according to plan.  As the driver (Jack Pennick) complies with a stop sign, Musclebound emerges from some bushes to puncture two of the truck’s tires, leaving the driver flat.  (I make leetle joke.)  Bunco then pulls up in a sedan, and when Driver explains the situation to him he offers to give him a lift to a phone so he can contact a tow truck.  As Bunco’s car drives off, Moxie, Torpedo, and Musclebound pull up in a truck of their own and help themselves to that sweet, sweet Cassidy beef once Musclebound unlocks the refrigerated section with that duplicate key.  There is then a scene shift to the plant, where the driver is being questioned by Cap’n Mallory as to the details of the theft.

DRIVER: …and when I got to Gardenia and opened the truck—it was empty…

MALLORY: Were the doors locked when you got there?

DRIVER: Yes, sir…

MALLORY (to the plant manager): You sure that truck didn’t go out empty?

MANAGER: These men loaded it…

He leads Mallory over to where a couple of plant employees are standing—Eddie is in the vicinity as well, seated at a desk.

MALLORY (to Eddie): What’s your job?

EDDIE: I check the load…and see that the doors are locked…and that the driver gets the invoice…

MALLORY: Were the doors locked?

EDDIE: Yes, sir…

Well, he was honest—he just left out the part about “…and then I gave the key to some greaseball hood who made himself a copy.”  Mallory is baffled by this case.  All the men at the plant have good records.  There are no discernible fingerprints on the truck (what prints do exist are all smeared) and “no jimmie marks on the locking devices.”  “Most hijacking is done at gunpoint or by violence,” muses Mallory.  He surmises that it must be an inside job, and he tells his man Reed (William Royle) to pore through the employees’ records with a fine-tooth comb.  A “Dr. Rexford” (Frank Dae) at the Health Department should also be contacted.

As the scene changes, a grocer (Rollo Lloyd) who answers to “Joe Mollock” is on the horn with Sheafor—salivating at the prospect of buying some cheap beef:

MOLLOCK: Three cents better than market?

SHEAFOR: Cash deal…and quick dough for both of us…

MOLLOCK: Quick dough, huh?  Okay—send me fifteen sides!

Getting off the phone with Mollock, Sheafor is one happy black marketer—crowing “Oh, what a racket!” and making me choke on my beverage.

MOXIE: It’s a pipe, isn’t it?

SHEAFOR: And easy to sell!  I’ve got orders for half that load already!

MOXIE: Where’d ya peddle it?

SHEAFOR: Outside of Joe Mollock, I’ve got three jobbers on the east

side I can trust—Ward, Wesley, and Britton…only they don’t want delivery before Thursday…so we’ll have to hold it for them before then…hope that stuff keeps in the garage for a couple of days…

“Torpedo!  Head out to the 7-11 for another bag of ice!”  Sheafor tells Moxie that he could use another load next week, and he asks his chief henchie if he can trust Eddie.  “I don’t trust him…I just keep an eye on him—he’ll do what I say” is his reply.  Sheafor suggests that Eddie pilfer some invoices from the Cassidy company—that way they can give them out to the “jobbers” and everything will be legit.

A scene dissolve, and Moxie and Torpedo are paying Eddie off at the gym…where Moxie asks the young criminal-in-training to score some “billheads.”

MOXIE (handing him $100): Bet that’s the easiest century that ever came your way, huh?

EDDIE: You said it!  It’s going right down on a yellow sport roadster…

You’re not even in the crime business a day, Eddie…and you’ve forgotten about sending some money home to your poor, gray-haired old mother.  Bad Eddie.  No hotrod.

MOXIE: Take it easy, kid—you don’t wanna start lookin’ too flush…we’re pullin’ another haul next week…

EDDIE: Sure…anytime… (He laughs) Simple…the cops don’t know where to start…

Rut roh, Raggy.  You see, Edward neglected to tell his hoodlum friends that the gendarmes paid the Cassidy people a visit after the meat robbery and started asking a lot of questions…this does not sit well with Moxie, though it’s Torpedo who grabs the little mook by the lapels, slamming him up against the lockers.

MOXIE: What did they say to you, Eddie…?

EDDIE: Oh, they just asked me a couple of routine questions…was the truck locked when it left?  I told them yes…and they asked me what I did…they questioned several other guys at the plant, too…don’t worry about it!

MOXIE: We’re not worried about it, kid…only watch your step…go on, beat it…

Well, we’re at the halfway point here and as you can tell by the newspaper headline—a couple of bags of ice is insufficient to keep meat from going bad.  Dr. Rexford informs Cap’n Mallory in one of the hospital wards that there’s been close to 200 cases of ptomaine—with four deaths—from “bad beef.”  “Forty-seven butcher shops and seven restaurants…had some of that spoiled beef,” he intones, adding that that’s why he’s called Mallory in on the case.  The three “jobbers” that handle Cassidy beef—Ward, Wesley, and Britton—have been vouched for (ha!) by Cassidy, and the plant has received a clean bill of health after being thoroughly inspected.

A distraught woman bursts out in tears as she is led out of the ward by an intern—sounds like she received some bad news.  “We’ve got to find the rest of that poisoned beef before it gets to any more people,” declares Rexford firmly.  “There’s no time to lose.”  What started out as a simple case of hijacking has turned into “a death threat.”  Mallory is still convinced that it’s an inside job…but since he’s had no luck with the leads, he turns to the Fourth Estate to flush the miscreants out.  Meanwhile—back at the hideout:

BUNCO: It’s no use…I can’t get rid of any more of that beef…the Health Department’s got the jobbers buffaloed…

MOXIE: How can the beef be bad—we got ice on it, haven’t we?

“Damn it, Jim—I’m a hoodlum, not a nutritionist!”

MUSCLEBOUND: Yeah…them headlines is just a copper’s gag…

BUNCO: We better drop it…maybe it is spoiled…

MOXIE: Now, listen—we got dough tied up in this!  Plenty!

SHEAFOR: That’s right…and we’re gonna sell it!  (To Moxie) We’ll make that beef look fresh with some chemicals…then we’ll re-stamp it with the Maxim Company stamp!

BUNCO (sarcastic): Oh—will that make it good?

MOXIE: Well, what’s the difference…as long as we get our dough!

Strategy session in a major corporation or powwow amongst the criminal element?  You make the call!  Moxie orders Musclebound to get his ass over to the garage and start preparing the beef… but he’s interrupted by the arrival of Torpedo, who produces this cherce headline:

“When that kid sees how bad it is…he’s gonna spill all over what he knows all over headquarters!” wails Sheafor.  “That’s what I’m thinkin’,” confirms Moxie.  Besides, Eddie has violated the “code” by buying that car after explicitly being told not to.  Ordinarily, an infraction like this would result in loss of supper and detention in one’s room the rest of the evening.  But the Moxie Gang plays for bigger marbles, and Moxie orders Bunco to grab a taxi and collect Eddie, who’s due off from work in twenty minutes.  “Tell ‘em we’re gonna let him in on a big job,” Moxie explains…then he adds “The heat’s on.”

Because Cap’n Mallory has also learned that Eddie’s become quite the plunger of late, he’s had the kid shadowed by Reed—he’s on the job observing that Bunco is waiting for Eddie in Eddie’s car when the whistle blows.

BUNCO: Moxie wants to see you…

EDDIE: Hey—what for?

BUNCO: He wants you to meet the Big Boss…they’re gonna bring you in on a real job…

“Gloriosky!  That sounds neat-o keen!”  Bunco has Eddie drive to Sheafor’s, where the kid can hardly contain his excitement that his friends will be taking him for a ride.  Moxie holds back to tell Bunco: “Take the kid’s car to the Dutchman…get what you can for it, and tell him to break it up…today.”  Reed can’t help but notice that Bunco drives off in Eddie’s car and so he follows the henchman…sadly, in taking his eye off Eddie he can do nothing when Torpedo later sends the kid to The Happy Hunting Ground while the hoods drive along a country road.

Eddie did not die in vain.  (It was more like in B.F.E.)  Since Reed told Mallory about the kid and Bunco arriving at Sheafor’s, it’s given the police a vital lead in that they leap into action to question those individuals who do business with “Pop” …and that leads them to the weaselly Joe Mollock, who “handled fifteen more sides of beef than his refrigeration allowed last week.”

REXFORD: You handled more meat than your refrigerators can take care of…

MOLLOCK: All right…I’ll pay the fine…

MALLORY (enraged): Say—you can’t settle this with a fine…

“Who do you think you are—Goldman-Sachs?”

MALLORY: …two hundred people have been sick, four have died, and one was murdered because of the hijacking of some poisoned beef—and you handled fifteen sides of Cassidy’s beef that you can’t account for!

MOLLOCK: None of my meat poisoned anybody!  I never got a kickback!

MALLORY: No, but the health department did…you’re in a spot, Mollock…

MOLLOCK: I tell you that beef was okay!

MALLORY: Yeah?  Say, maybe we’ll slap a manslaughter charge on ya…we’re gonna close all your stores and hold you for investigation…

B-b-b-bad to the bone.

“Only if I don’t sing like a canary…and I’m going to do some warming up exercises right now!”  Mollock comes clean and confesses to the cops that he got the beef from Sheafor—still insisting the meat, however, was perfectly okay.  It’s all over but the shouting, cartooners—Moxie and the boys make separate deliveries to all three of Mollock’s stores (he won’t take the beef otherwise) and at each establishment, the cops are waiting to collar them (even Sheafor).  It’s all terribly anti-climactic, though I did chortle when they rounded up Bunco because he remarks “I had a hunch this was coming!” as he’s being slapped into handcuffs.  (Mama said there’d be days like this.)  When they arrest Musclebound at the same store, Rexford removes the tarpaulin from his truck and remarks of the beef: “Enough to kill a city…okay, pour the kerosene over it.”  (Yes, I was kind of surprised by this—I half-expected them to dole out the food out to the poor.)

Take us home, Mallory my man!

MALLORY: Moxie was right…the criminal can’t win…Bunco turned states’ evidence…Moxie and Musclebound went to the chair for Eddie’s murder…

I should point out that it was Torpedo who popped a cap in Eddie…but he was gunned down as the cops swarmed in on him at one of the stores.  (“He asked for it.”)

MALLORY: …Sheafor drew fifty years to life…and Eddie the working boy—who wanted to run with the so-called big shot gangsters—did not live long enough to find out that crime does not pay…thank you…

No…thank you, Captain Mallory.  Next time: a short with a title that’s just plain irresistible to a left-wing scalawag like me—Soak the Poor (1937)!  G’bye now!