Once again, as someone who’ll never be mistaken for the “MGM Crime Reporter” it is my privilege to present an overview of three
two-reel shorts from the popular series cranked out at M-G-M between 1935 and 1947. These down-and-dirty entertainments come courtesy of the TCM On Demand service offered by CharredHer cable…and I’m starting to think that my hypothesis from last week—that we’ll soon see a box set of these babies issued forth from the Warner Archive—is starting to have more and more basis in fact.
Two of these shorts on the free On Demand service had already been unspooled for yours truly, the first being
Then, Crime Reporter Guy clues us in that “for the first time on any screen, you are permitted to see actual reproductions of
United States currency.” (I suppose this was probably a big deal at the time…but now…feh…) He then introduces us to “Captain George D. Waldron of the New York District United States Secret Service”—though he looks suspiciously like character actor Charles D. Brown, a stage and film actor who many of you may remember as “Norris the butler” in
The Big Sleep (1946):
Money tells the story of a gang of counterfeiters run by a gangster named Dominic (Noel Madison), who not only can’t afford a last name but looks like the runner-up in an Eduardo Ciannelli look-a-like contest. At one point in the picture, he’s standing by a dresser bureau glancing at a photograph of himself…and for some odd reason; he turns the picture frame face down on top of the bureau. I have no idea why…is he ashamed of what he does for a living? Is it a superstitious gesture? Comments, of course, are always welcome.
The guy in the spectacles should look familiar—it’s our old pal Frank Orth, who got into trouble last week by not properly “rat-proofing” a waterfront warehouse in
Respect the Law (1941)...which led to a virulent outbreak of bubonic plague. Dude just can’t seem to keep out of trouble, and as I mentioned before Orth had a prominent showcase in quite a few of M-G-M’s
Dr. Kildare films as bartender Mike Ryan. (Sort of makes me wonder how he managed to hang onto his liquor license.) Anyway, Frank’s a tobacconist in this one, helping Dominic & Co. spread the “boodle of queer” throughout the Big Apple—and mid-short, he’s hauled in for questioning along with Josephine Whitfell, who plays a moll posing as a society dame.
When I first saw the guy in the lab coat I thought “Hey—Smiley Burnette now works for CSI.” Of course, it’s not him…the actor is our old pal Emmett Vogan, in a rare showcase as one of the good guys. But the guy next to him should be a familiar face to any fan of serials like
Raiders of Ghost City (1944),
The Master Key (1945)…and my personal favorite cliffhanger of all time,
The Purple Monster Strikes (1945). Yes, it’s straight-arrow Dennis Moore, who also fronted the chapter plays
The Mysterious Mr. M (1946),
Perils of the Wilderness (1956) and
Blazing the Overland Trail (1956). I got so used to seeing Moore as the good guy that when I finally saw him play a baddie (I think it was in a
Lone Ranger episode) it was like finding out that Mickey Mantle corked his bat.
Money is pretty much your typical
CDNP outing—nothing special but at the same time a nifty way to kill twenty minutes between movies.
The second
CDNP short was the last of the series—released, interestingly enough, almost a year after the penultimate entry,
Purity Squad (1945). In
The Luckiest Guy in the World (1947), Barry Nelson plays a hard-luck schlemiel named Charlie Vurn who’s in hock up to his eyeballs from playing the ponies—and to hide the fact that he’s another day older and deeper in debt he’s been skimming the collection receipts from the agency that employs him. His fortunes begin to change one night after he accidentally croaks his wife (Eloise Hardt) while searching for a hidden cache of money…sure, this sounds like bad luck but he comes into a pile of loot afterward and he deftly avoids being fingered for the crime. But as Dolly Parton once observed in a song (
Kentucky Gambler) she wrote for Merle Haggard: “And Lady Luck/She’ll lead you on/She’ll stay awhile/And then she’s gone”—Nelson’s Vurn learns by the end that the weed of crime bears bitter fruit.
Luckiest Guy is a very offbeat
CDNP entry; several people have commented that it plays like an abbreviated film noir—and I’ll certainly go along with that—but I couldn’t help but notice that it’s also a lot like a broadcast of
The Whistler come to life, except Bill Forman is nowhere around to walk by night. There is, however, an old-time radio connection at about mid-short when Nelson’s character hires a drifter (George Travell) to drive his car (he’s actually planning to wreck the automobile with the drifter’s body inside, hoping the gendarmes will think it’s him); Drifter turns on the car radio and listens to none other than “M-G-M’s star clown,” Red Skelton (who goes uncredited).
I’d already seen
Luckiest Guy so the final short,
Jack Pot (1940), was the real treat this week—a slam-bang actioner involving illegal gambling and bookmaking that spotlights quite a few familiar faces, beginning with character stalwart Cliff Clark—introduced by Crime Reporter Dude as “Mr. James Hollister, chief of police of a major metropolitan city” but better-known to classic movie buffs as the dyspeptic Inspector Timothy Donovan in a handful of the
Falcon films churned out by R-K-O in the 1940s:
The greatest single menace to honest law enforcement is not sensational gangsterism or any other open lawlessness. It’s public apathy…your own indifference to petty, seemingly harmless rackets that provide an opening wedge for every type of crime that affects our city. Of such rackets, one of the worst is the ordinary slot machine…into it, you the people pour an avalanche of coins totally nearly one billion dollars yearly—a gigantic down payment on the lawlessness that recently threatened this city…where a scheming underworld fought back against a successful clean government campaign.
Oh, so it’s
our fault? Well, apparently so—not long after the election of Mayor Stephen Andrews (Joseph Crehan) on the Reform Party ticket, racketeer Rocky Fallon (Edwin Maxwell) has instructed his gang to saturate the city with plenty of one-armed bandits…and since his henchmen include (luckless) Joe Downing and Lloyd Gough—not to mention moll Ann Morriss—these plans will go off smoother than the surface of an emery board. What we need is a real swarthy and sebaceous type who can infiltrate the Mayor’s office and keep him distracted while Fallon and Company do that voodoo that they do so well…
Wow…Central Casting usually isn’t that
fast…if this thug looks familiar, that’s because he’s none other than Reed Hadley, famous silver screen Zorro (
Zorro’s Fighting Legion), radio's Red Ryder and narrator of such film noirs as
The House on 92nd Street (1945),
T-Men (1947) and
Boomerang! (1947). In the 1950s, Hadley would become a boob tube star by heading up the right side of the law on
Racket Squad and
Public Defender, but right now he’s been assigned the role of Arthur Jackson, a toady who’s planning to work in Hizzoner’s office as a double agent:
JACKSON: I wouldn’t underestimate him, Rocky…he may give us a lot of trouble…
FALLON: He made you his secretary easy enough…
JACKSON: Only because of my reputation as an attorney…he’s got to have somebody familiar with local affairs…
FALLON: Look here…I was smart enough to plant you on his side when I saw the cleanup coming…and he was dumb enough to fall for it…all I want you to do is to keep me posted on City Hall…and fix it so I can get an injunction when the cops start confiscating these things… (He waves toward a slot machine in the office) They’ll crack the town wide open again…the idea to push now is…
JACKSON: I know—that they’re perfectly harmless amusements…
“They’re also good exercise, too,” cracks Fallon’s moll as she pulls down the lever on one of the machines. There’s a dissolve to a cigar store, and henchman Gough is busily touting the marvels of the slots to the store’s tobacconist (Charles Wagenheim). Chuck is a bit apprehensive at first (“Seems harmless enough”) but when a customer asks him for some nickels to road test that bad boy he’s done, sold, Bob’s your uncle. Another upstanding businessman (Hal Price) who’s trying to run a respectable pool room is nervous about the recently passed gambling ordinance—but the “salesman” tells him he doesn’t have to worry since the machine only pays off “once in a blue moon.” He’s further informed: “Just between us, ten percent goes into a special protection fund…all beefs squared.” (And besides…you want to be one of the
gang, don’t you?)
Before long, the slots are being stationed in establishments like the one run by kindly old pharmacist Mr. Higby—whom you’ll no doubt recognize here as veteran character actor-director Lloyd Corrigan. And though the mustachioed guy below…
…looks like Kurt Russell in black-and-white, it’s not…it’s B-picture actor Tom Neal, about six years away from his signature turn as another luckless chump in the film noir classic
Detour (1945). His Frank Watson’s a square shooter in this short, however—doesn’t drink anything stronger than a chocolate malted…but the dame to his right, his girlfriend Ruth (Jean Rouverol), tells Higby not to serve him one “because it will spoil his dinner,” opting for a root beer instead. (Apparently they’re setting up these machines in
Carvel.) And he can’t even do
that right; he ends up spilling the soft drink all over his nice suit…but fortunately he’s in the clothes cleaning bidness. He, too, notices the slot machine at Higby’s and Higby parrots the party line of the slots being “harmless.” “Probably keeps a lot of fellows like that off relief,” he further editorializes, pointing to henchman Downing as he empties the machine of its “take”:
What follows after this is a montage of slot machines and coins being emptied into satchels, which are then carried into a room where drones hunker over adding machines tallying up the loot in a sort of blueprint for the counting rooms featured in Martin Scorsese’s
Casino (1995). With a daily income of nearly 12 large, Fallon and his employees are sitting pretty…until Jackson comes in and informs him that the police and the mayor are on the receiving end of a lot of static from those civic-minded individuals obsessed with keeping hard-working capitalists from making a dishonest buck. Fallon gives a pep talk to the dedicated workforce at Slots R Us:
They can’t stop us now…when the boys here get going, the Mayor and the Chief will be up against a crime wave that’s liable to wash them right out of office…now, Mike, I want you to bring the bookies in with us no matter how they feel about it…Al, the clip joints and the honky tonks are your territory…Rand…you peddle protection to the gamblers…come to Lukka here if you run into any jams…I’ve got what it takes to pay the bills…
Corruption soon spreads like kudzu throughout the nameless city. Fallon's mob even starts to put the squeeze on our hero Frank, whose establishment is visited by Tony Lukka (Downing), posing as a representative of the “Cleaning and Dyeing Association”…who promises to keep inspectors out of Watson’s hair if he’ll play ball. But our root beer-guzzling friend don’t play that—he starts to call the authorities, prompting Lukka’s speedy exit. “I’ll be back later…just in case anything happens that changes your mind.” (Well…you can’t say he isn’t polite.)
More montages of illicit activities—roulette wheels and dog racing, followed by shootouts in the streets and banner headlines in the city newspapers. Clearly, the city’s populace has had enough of this lawlessness…but the police are powerless to do anything because, as Chief Hollister explains to the Mayor: “Money talks and bullsh*t walks.” (Okay, I paraphrased that a tad.) For me, this is the most effective part of the short—seeing paralyzed officials unwilling to do anything, and actor Crehan is most effective as the clueless Mayor…
Hollister beseeches the Mayor to get him an ordinance to smash the slot machines in town, since they’re providing the funds needed by Fallon to pay off crooked lawyers and judges. Aide Jackson—who really looks concerned here—tries to argue that the proposed law won’t be effective, but the Mayor reiterates that he wants “these outrages stopped…I expect action!” As such, the same “plumbers” who bugged the Democratic National Committee’s offices in the Watergate are brought in to set up a listening post inside Rocky’s inner sanctum…but Fallon proves to be too clever by half. (Well, it’s pretty easy to discern that something’s stinky in Denmark when you walk in on the guy who’s doing the bugging.)
Rocky’s not out of the woods yet. Since he entered the apartment with Jackson, the Mayor’s aide deduces that the electrician (actually an undercover cop) has probably recognized him…so Fallon suggests Jackson take some time off to be with his family:
JACKSON: You know what it means if I quit under fire…disbarment, ruin…I can’t come back…that isn’t quite what we planned…
FALLON: From my point of view, it’s better...”Mayor’s aide flees to South America”…the papers will howl for his Honor’s scalp…you better get packed right away…and do me a favor…don’t see the Mayor or the Chief…
Naturally, since Jackson’s main concern is…well,
Jackson…he rings up Hollister (who’s already been given the scoop by the phony electrician) and gives him a load of road apples about how he was “working undercover” to expose Fallon, promising to turn over “names, dates…the whole works.” Unfortunately for the little rat bastard stoolie, henchman Lukka is conveniently tailing him from the next phone booth…and when Jackson has completed his call, he winds up on the receiving end of a few rounds fired from the henchie’s trusty roscoe.
With screaming headlines like this, no wonder fine citizens like Watson and Higby are shocked,
shocked I tell you, about the continuing lawlessness running rampant in No Name City. As the two men discuss the further need for reform, Watson’s helpless girlfriend Ruth has stopped by his cleaning establishment to meet up with him….and she finds an intruder on the premises. The marauder was apparently trying to start some sort of conflagration with acid, because he chucks what’s left at the girl, and Ruth ends up like Lon Chaney's Phantom.
With Ruth hideously scarred for life, a vengeance-obsessed Watson is able to finger Lukka as the goon who tried to shake him down earlier from a mug book at the police station. Hollister leans that Lukka was one of the first individuals picked up when the acid-throwing incident occurred…but now he’s scot-free on a writ of habeas corpus. (Goddam activist judges…) “He goes free…you can’t
arrest him?” Frank asks Hollister’s aide (Guy Kingsford). “Can’t prove anything,” he replies with a shrug. And when it rains, it pours—a nameless cop reports to Hollister’s sidekick that Ruth won’t be any help in identifying her assailant…because the accident has left her blind.
The cops aren’t licked yet. Mike, Hollister’s assistant, decides to try a second wiretap and installs one in Fallon’s automobile which has been conveniently put in for service at a garage…
…and yes, that grease monkey is who you think it is…future television dad Hugh Beaumont. Anyhoo, Fallon picks up a carload of political hacks and starts blabbing about the recall campaign they’ll institute against the Mayor and the strong-arm tactics and dirty tricks that will be employed. The cops follow Fallon and his pals to his gambling club, where they hope to pick up not only Rocky but henchie Lukka…whom Fallon has just fingered in a confession recorded by the fuzz during the car conversation. Lukka and Fallon head for Fallon’s office inside the club—Lukka is concerned that the gendarmes will pick him up for Jackson’s murder but his boss assures him that everything is A-OK.
Well, here’s a loose end we hadn’t counted on…Watson has been waiting for the two men in the office, and he’s not a happy camper about the fact that Ruth is now going to have to sell pencils out of a tin cup. Fallon’s henchman Mike sneaks up behind Frank and gives him the business end of his gat, sending him to the floor like a sack of potatoes…then Lukka decides that Frank needs a little ventilation when he recognizes him as Ruth’s boyfriend. He manages to put a slug in Watson’s arm…and that’s the signal for the cops to raid the joint, surprising Fallon and his gang…
Hollister asks Watson: “Are you badly hurt?” Frank, looking as if he has no idea as to what just went down mutters, “I must have been crazy.” (This prompted me to nearly fall off the couch in hysterics, by the way.) With the baddies conveniently rounded up and headed for a one-way ticket…to the Big House…it’s up to kindly old Captain Hollister to sum up just what we’ve learned:
Organized crime depends wholly on the public it attacks for the profits on which it feeds and grows…the heedless citizen who puts his nickel or dime into an illegal but seemly harmless slot machine can only win a jackpot of lawlessness and corruption. You have seen how the underworld almost captured one city…don’t give it a chance in yours.
Oh, and stay in school, kids…g’bye now!
