We laugh to win!

In 1925, a group of expatriate Broadway thespians who had moved to the West Coast for film work decided to establish a social club where members could fraternize and enjoy each other’s fellowship.  It would be known as The Masquers Club, and its members included at various times such classic movie icons as Joe E. Brown, Frank Morgan, Pat O’Brien, Charley Chase, Edward Arnold, and Charles Coburn.  It’s still going strong today—you can even check out the club’s website when you get a notion.

The Masquers Club decided to capitalize on the talent present in their membership and get into the motion picture production business in the 1930s with a series of two-reel shorts produced at RKO.  They weren’t the only outfit to express interest in making their own movies; The Lambs Club did a similar series for Columbia (among the familiar faces were Lynne Overman and Leon Errol) while the Thalians (featuring the likes of Franklin Pangborn and TDOY fave Grady Sutton) cranked out shorts for Universal.  But the Masquers Club’s movies were, in the opinion of Leonard Maltin in Selected Short Subjects, “easily the best of these shorts”:

If these two-reelers had one consistent quality, it was that they tried awfully hard.  There was a conscious striving for offbeat humor, which at times was overbearing, but which often paid off.  In Rule ’em and Weep (1932), the sound effects are always wrong. In a duel that runs through the film, every time the guns are fired, different noises are heard.  And when a horse-drawn carriage pulls up to the country of Bulvania, where the story is set, the sound effect of a train slowing to a halt is heard.

Director Mark Sandrich poses with Dorothy Granger and
Eddie Borden on the set of Thru Thin or Thicket (1933)

Alpha Video has issued a fun collection of these bizarre two-reel comedies in The Masquers Club: The Pre-Code Comedies Collection.  The set kicks off with an entry described by Maltin as “one of the wildest in the series”—Thru Thin or Thicket; or Who’s Zoo in Africa (1933).  (Many of the Masquers shorts had double titles, something reminiscent of many episodes of Rocky & Bullwinkle.)  Wealthy dowager Mrs. Chyzzlebottom (Grayce Hamilton) is financing an expedition in Darkest Africa on behalf of Professor Backwash (James Finlayson), who hopes to locate (despite some skepticism) the famous “Tarzan” of motion picture fame.  Instead, the party—with the help of reporter Scoop Skinner (Eddie Borden)—learns that that neck of the woods is ruled by the “Queen of the Jungle”—one Tarkana (Dorothy Granger), whose “yell” resembles in Len’s words, “a combination of Andy Devine and Johnny Weissmuller.”  Mr. M isn’t just whistlin’ Dixie when he says this is a wild short; it’s got some gut busting gags and wacky situations (Tarkana has a “homing pigeon” that’s a pelican) written by Ben Holmes & Walter Weems and directed by future Astaire-Rogers helmer Mark Sandrich.

"Youse is a viper!" declares Barbara Sheldon to villain Sam Hardy in Stolen by Gypsies (1933), who responds: "I hope she don't mean an old windshield viper."  (Okay, I didn't laugh at that so much as I did the reference to the classic Billy DeBeck comic strip Parlor, Bedroom, and Sink.)

Eddie Borden has a bit role in another short on the Alpha set—one that I found wonderfully amusing entitled Stolen by Gypsies; or Beer and Bicycles (1933).  (Borden figures in a running gag with June Brewster as the couple’s attempts to get in a little passionate necking are interrupted by various characters throughout the two-reeler.)  Stolen by Gypsies would the final short in the Masquers’ brief series; the best-known of their efforts (according to the [always reliable] IMDb) is the 1931 classic entitled The Stolen Jools (spoiler alert: the IMDb is wrong), which has been in the public domain for so long everyone’s seen it (if you haven’t—here it is).  A promotional short that sought to raise funds on behalf of the National Variety Artists’ campaign to combat tuberculosis, Jools spots an all-star cast in a funny tale about the hunt for some stolen bling belonging to Norma Shearer.  (Included in the cast are such TDOY favorites as Buster Keaton, Edward G. Robinson, Our Gang, Laurel & Hardy, and Wheeler & Woolsey.)

Stolen Jools isn’t in this collection, but the remaining shorts that are provide intermittent laughs and classic film celebrity wattage like Laura LaPlante, Walter Byron, John Sheehan, and Olaf Hytten in Lost in Limehouse; or Lady Esmerelda’s Predicament (1933—a funny melodrama that spoofs both Sherlock Holmes and Hairbreadth Harry-heroics) and Mary Carr, Russell Simpson, Lucile Browne, Russell Hopton, and Frank McGlynn, Jr. in The Moonshiner’s Daughter; or Abroad in Old Kentucky (1933—a feud between the Ratfields and Catfields in a tale from the hills).  My personal favorite is The Wide Open Spaces (1931), which features Ned Sparks, Antonio Moreno, Dorothy Sebastian, William Farnum, George Cooper, Claude Gillingwater, Frank McHugh, Tom Dugan, and George Chandler.  Moreno is a suspected bandito who’s smitten with heroine Sebastian…but she’s being pursued by crooked sheriff Sparks (as “Jack Rancid”).  When Dorothy agrees to marry Ned to spare Antonio’s capture (this is decided over a game of checkers), the two of them are about to be “spliced” when the justice of the peace (Gillingwater) asks Sparks to produce the ring.  Ned pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and a buttload of rings in various sizes falls to the ground.  Laughing, Judge Claude observes: “You’ve been ridin’ a merry-go-round!”

If Mack Swain is pourin'...I'm buyin'.  (Mack's the bartender in Wide Open Spaces.)

Brian Krey of Alpha Video provided me with a screener for this most entertaining compendium of classic film shorts…and I think fans of both two-reel comedies and those stars from the bygone days of Tinsel Town will want to add it to their bookshelf.  To quote Br’er Maltin: “Familiar faces and far-out humor were the order of the day in the Masquers Comedies.  They tried very hard to go off the beaten track.  Often they succeeded and sometimes they did not.  But the ingenuity that went into them always shines through.”

Adventures in Blu-ray: When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922)

The Kickstarter project from March of 2016 to raise funds to restore the 1922 Marion Davies feature film When Knighthood Was in Flower came to a most gratifying conclusion on the first of this month, when I received the Blu-ray/DVD combo that was my reward for tossing a few coins into the guitar case.  (There were 317 backers, and a total of $11, 928 was raised; the project’s goal was attained eight hours within its initial Kickstarter posting.  Yowsah!)  We have silent film accompanist Ben Model (and Undercrank Productions—in association with Greenbriar Picture Shows) to thank for this beautiful restoration; Ben availed himself of a 12-reel 35mm nitrate print of Knighthood’s “road show” release in the collection of the Library of Congress…so if you’re saying to yourself right now “Oh, I saw this already on YouTube” you really haven’t seen it the way silent movies are meant to be seen and enjoyed.

Ben Model

For starters, the refurbished Knighthood sports digitally reinstated tints and tones; the LOC print (which includes a reel from a nitrate print courtesy of the Michael Yakaitis Collection at the Academy Film Archive) was in black & white, but the indications for the tinting and toning were printed into the first and last frames of most of the reels, which proved quite a help in the restoration project.  The final reel, which features the film’s protagonists being pursued by soldiers wielding weapons and torches, digitally replicated the hand coloring (thanks to Jack Theakston, the torches give off an orange glow that is amazing to look at) of the original release.  Knighthood also boasts a brand-new theatre organ score composed by Mr. Model, and a most informative liner note booklet written by the woman who trims the hedges at Backlots—Marion Davies biographer and fellow CMBA member Lara Gabrielle Fowler.

Lyn Harding, Marion Davies & Forrest Stanley

Based on the 1898 novel by Charles Major (under the pseudonym Edwin Caskoden—one of the film’s characters amusingly borrows this name) and the 1901 play by Paul Kester, When Knighthood Was in Flower is a romantic melodrama set against the background of England’s Tudor period.  King Henry VIII (Lyn Harding) wishes for his sister Mary to wed French king Louis XII (William Norris) …though it’s more of a merger than marriage.  Alas and alack, Mary has become quite taken with Charles Brandon (Forrest Stanley)—a commoner who makes her poor heart go lub-dub from the moment she meets him at a jousting tournament.  Chuck’s lower societal caste dictates that any coupling between him and the princess is RIGHT! OUT! —so when Henry exiles Charles to “New Spain,” Mary insists on running off with him disguised as his brother.

The male masquerade of Marion Davies’ Mary isn’t any more convincing that the drag she donned in Little Old New York (1923); she and Charles are quickly rounded up by all the King’s horses and all the King’s men.  Charles is to have a date with the executioner…but Mary agrees to marry Louis XII if her brother will spare his life.  The scrofulous old fart (Louis) has his card punched when he attempts to behave like the young lover he’s convinced Mary wants and needs…and with the King’s death, his skeevy nephew Francis (William Powell—billed as “William H.”) decides to put the moves on the Widder Tudor.  Fortunately for Mary, Charles comes to her rescue…and King Henry VIII provides the obligatory happy ending.

A title card that produced a hearty guffaw.  (Why would she be dressed like a wonton?)

Davies & William Norris

With the help of her producer-patron—newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst—Marion Davies had already headlined fourteen feature films by the time When Knighthood Was in Flower hit theatre screens in 1922.  Flower would be the movie that cemented Davies’ stardom; it was a big budget costume epic, produced at a cost of $1.5 million (about $21 million in today’s dollahs) and believe you me—every penny of it shows in its lavish attention to detail (costumes, sets, etc.).  The 1922 version of the Major novel-Kester play made quite a few “best” lists (in addition to being the sixth biggest box office hit that year); it had been previously filmed in 1908 (though it is believed to be lost) and would see another adaptation in 1953 with Walt Disney’s The Sword and the Rose (the U.S. title).

William (H.) Powell

The more of Marion Davies’ cinematic oeuvre that I am exposed to the more I enjoy, though I’m firmly in the camp that believes that she was showcased best in comedies like The Patsy (1928—still my personal favorite) and Show People (1928).  Her talents as a comedienne are on display in Knighthood though, in very brief glimpses; I laughed loudly at the face she makes at one of the foreign ambassadors giving her the once-over on behalf of their marriage-minded monarchs, and when she and Stanley are hiding out at an inn while on the run from King Henry she does a funny backwards stagger into a fireplace as she cavorts in her male masquerade.  Knighthood started out kind of slow for me (I’m not much of a costume epic guy) but became more engaging as it built up a head of steam toward the finish.  It was also a treat seeing William Powell (in his second film…and in tights, even) as the lecherous Frances; a note at the (always reliable) IMDb states that despite both Davies and Powell being stars at MGM in the 1930s this was the only film they appeared in together.

The restoration of When Knighthood Was in Flower is beautifully done and a round of kudos go out rewarding the hard work that went into this Blu-ray/DVD.  It will be made available for general release July 25, 2017 (according to the listing at Amazon), and if you’re a silent movie buff you’ll want this one for the shelf…if you’re a Marion Davies fan, you’ll definitely have to have this.  Knighthood is also scheduled for a showing on The Greatest Cable Channel Known to Mankind™ when Marion Davies is one of the thirty-one stars feted during Tee Cee Em’s Summer Under the Stars in August.  (It airs at 8pm EDT on August 29th; two other recently restored Davies vehicles—Enchantment [1921; 9am EDT] and The Bride’s Play [1922; 10:30am EDT]—are also in the lineup.)

“Well…how-dee do!”

Rick Mitz, author of The Great TV Sitcom Book, once joked that Amos ‘n’ Andy constituted the “two dirty words” of American broadcasting (and he even thought the “’n’” suspect).  I myself refer to the program as “the third rail” of old-time radio, insomuch as the medium’s first true phenomenon has been clouded with controversy ever since its premiere over Chicago’s WMAQ on March 19, 1928 (the show went national over NBC’s Red network in August of 1929) and stayed with the show long after it left the airwaves on November 25, 1960.  Created by Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, two vaudeville performers who had a talent for black dialect, the long-running serial/sitcom began as Sam ‘n’ Henry over rival Windy City station WGN in 1926; the two men left the following year after a dispute with the station…and since they were unable to use the “Sam ‘n’ Henry” name (it was still owned by WGN) they changed the name of the characters to their better known alliterative association.

Freeman Gosden & Charles Correll

Amos ‘n’ Andy was one of the Golden Age of Radio’s most durable programs in addition to most popular.  In its early years (1928-43) it was a comedy serial, and its history is documented in a first-rate McFarland book penned by my fellow Radio Spirits scribe Elizabeth McLeod, The Original Amos ‘n’ Andy.  (McLeod has always championed that the serialized Amos ‘n’ Andy presented its characters in a sympathetic fashion—that it was only when the show adopted its sitcom format that the racial stereotypes became more blatant.)  From 1943 to 1955, it was presented as a weekly half-hour sitcom, and from 1954 to 1960, the show played out its waning radio years as The Amos ‘n’ Andy Music Hall—a weeknight program with Gosden and Correll performing skits as their characters while spinning records as disc jockeys.  Amos ‘n’ Andy made the eventual transition to television (casting African-American performers in the title and supporting roles, of course) in 1951 but CBS-TV would cancel the series two years later despite its popularity, under protest from organizations like the NAACP…and in 1966, CBS completely removed Amos ‘n’ Andy from its syndication package.  (The Wikipedia entry for Amos ‘n’ Andy notes that Rejoice TV, “a small independent television and Internet network in Houston,” reran the show in 2012…though there’s scant mention as to whether CBS, which purchased the rights to the series from its creators in 1948, brought in their team of attorneys.)

With the cancellation of The Amos ‘n’ Andy Music Hall, Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll weren’t quite ready to abandon the characters that made them famous…and with the prompting of ABC, anxious to duplicate the success of their hit animated series The Flintstones, they came up with an idea that would allow them to continue the show in cartoon form.  It was not a new idea; a cartoon version of Amos ‘n’ Andy had actually been attempted as far back as 1934 at the Van Beuren Studios but after two entries (The Rasslin’ Match and The Lion Tamer) the series was abandoned.  This time around, Freeman and Charlie would lend their characterizations to a pair of anthropomorphic animals…and Calvin and the Colonel was born.

Charlie & Gos with their cartoon counterparts

The “Colonel” was Colonel Montgomery J. Klaxon (voiced by Gosden), a crafty Kingfish-like fox who ostensibly ran a real estate firm but more often than not was involved in any number of get-rich-quick schemes.  Like his radio counterpart, the Colonel possessed a streak of larceny and many of the Calvin and Colonel episodes would find the character cooling his heels in the cartoon animal hoosegow.  The “Andy” of the series was Calvin J. Burnside (cartoon characters seem awfully fond of “J” as a middle initial for some reason), a dimwitted bear (Correll) who, depending on the situation, either served as the Colonel’s patsy or confederate in whatever scheme Klaxon had cooking on the burner.  Calvin and the Colonel didn’t really have an “Amos” character (though Andrew “Grover” Leal has posited that that function was fulfilled in the minor character of “Gloria,” Calvin’s manicurist girlfriend voiced by Gloria Blondell) but by the time Amos ‘n’ Andy had reached its radio sitcom stage the character of Amos Jones had started to take a backseat to the Kingfish-Andy shenanigans anyway.  (An acquaintance of mine who had just started listening to the radio show once asked me: “Why isn’t this series called Kingfish ‘n’ Andy?”)

The Colonel had a Sapphire-like spouse in Maggie Belle (voiced by Virginia Gregg)—although her name is spelled “Maggi Belle” in the show’s closing credits, I’m going to go with “Maggie.”  Instead of having to put up with a mother-in-law like the Kingfish, Colonel Klaxon suffered under the domineering thumb of Susan Culpepper (Beatrice Kay)—Maggie Belle’s sister, affectionately known as “Sister Sue.”  The character of Maggie Belle is not one of Ginny’s finest thespic hours, mostly because of the severe limitations of the role (she’s there to be a constant scold to the Colonel and little else) …but Kay doesn’t come off that much better (though I do giggle when she calls The Colonel an “old foof”).  I believe this can be explained by the fact that the radio counterparts of Sapphire and “Mama” were also rather thinly written…yet I wish they had considered letting Ernestine Wade and/or Amanda Randolph perform the Maggie Belle/Sister Sue roles to give their cartoon counterparts a little more oomph.  (I can certainly understand the reluctance to do this, though.)  The remaining character on Calvin and the Colonel was “Judge” Oliver Wendell Clutch (Paul Frees)—a shady lawyer (appropriately portrayed in weasel form) who the Colonel was always asking for advice (Clutch was the show’s Stonewall/Algonquin J. Calhoun counterpart).

Bob Mosher & Joe Connelly

Calvin and the Colonel was produced by Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher through their company Kayro Productions…and if it seems a little odd that the two men responsible for Leave it to Beaver and The Munsters would get involved with a project like this, it’s because Connelly and Mosher not only wrote many of the original half-hour Amos ‘n’ Andy radio scripts but the TV ones as well.  Many of the Calvin and Colonel teleplays are credited to Joe and Bob, mostly because they dusted off a lot of their earlier Amos ‘n’ Andy efforts and recycled them for their “funny animals.”  Even though Amos ‘n’ Andy earned a fair share of criticism for promoting unflattering racial stereotypes, there was never any real malice in the program’s content—you could read the scripts without the black dialect and still enjoy a fitfully funny sitcom…which is why Calvin and the Colonel works so well, in my opinion.  The only thing that gave me pause about the animated series was that Calvin seemed to have an eye for a lot of females who were not of the ursine persuasion (I chortled at the thought of fundamentalists having a field day with this dating “outside of his species”) though he does get engaged to a female bear in “Calvin’s Glamour Girl.”

My interest in Calvin and the Colonel was stoked by the recent Oldies.com purchase of three volumes of the show released by Alpha Video.  I’d previously watched an episode or two at YouTube, but the more episodes I tuck under my belt the more I enjoy this pleasurable little series.  I’ll state right off the bat that this is due in large part to my familiarity with the source material, but as someone who loves old-time radio I think like-minded folks will follow my lead.  It’s quite hooty hearing the voices of Kingfish and Andy emanate from a fox and a bear, and in addition to the regular cast you’ll hear OTR/character favorites (in various episodes) like Joe Flynn, Jesse White, Frank Nelson, Barney Phillips, Will Wright, June Foray, Howard McNear, Hans Conried, Charlie Cantor, Frank Gerstle, Marvin Miller, Elvia Allman, Forrest Lewis, Olan Soule, and Peter Leeds.  (“It’s too piercing, man…too piercing.”)

It’s television animation, of course, but despite the limited budget the style of Calvin and the Colonel is reminiscent of that in the creations of Jay Ward (Rocky and His Friends) or Total Television (King Leonardo, Underdog).  A 2006 post at Michael Sporn Animation notes that the company who produced Calvin was TV Cartoons/Creston Studios (who also did the non-Jay Ward version of Crusader Rabbit), and the roster of talent that cranked out the installments included Chuck McKimson, Norm Gottfredson, Lee Mishkin, Phil Roman, John Sparey, Ben Washam, Tom McDonald, Volus Jones, Dave Weidman, Jim Davis, and Bob Bemiller—“They were more WB & Disney people unlike the Hanna Barbera shows which initially seemed to use more of their MGM cohorts.”

That post also observes that Calvin and the Colonel was the “second prime time show to premiere” after The Flintstones—which I don’t think is entirely accurate if The Bugs Bunny Show is worked into the equation (you can argue that the animation on Bugs had already appeared in motion picture theatres…but the segments that introduced the cartoons had not).  (Television Obscurities notes that CBS Cartoon Theater even predated The Flintstones by four years—though like Bugs, the show featured shorts previously unspooled in theatres.)  It is accurate to say that the success of that “modern Stone Age family” ushered in a slew of prime-time cartoon efforts in the 1961-62 season, with Calvin joined by the premiers of The Bullwinkle Show (okay, technically a continuation of Rocky and His Friends), The Alvin Show, and Top Cat.  Calvin only lasted two months in its 8:30pm Tuesday slot (stiff competition from Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis) before it returned in January of the following year to a Saturday time slot (7:30pm) to fulfill its obligation to sponsor Lever Brothers.  It then made Saturday a permanent home—mornings, that is—for another year before fading from the small screen landscape.

Calvin and The Colonel working for the sponsor.

Though produced in color, Calvin and the Colonel originally aired in black-and-white…which is why so many of the prints you’ll find at YouTube and elsewhere are presented in monochromatic form (most of the sources I’ve consulted question as to whether the series was ever syndicated), except for the program’s inaugural episode, “The Television Job”…

…which I will graciously share here with you until some hoser pulls the YouTube plug.  “Job” (the black-and-white version), “The Polka Dot Bandit,” “Thanksgiving Dinner,” and “The Costume Ball” are featured on Alpha’s first volume of the series, while Volume 2 includes “Sycamore Lodge,” “Wheeling and Dealing,” “Sister Sue’s Sweetheart,” and “Nephew Newton’s Fortune.”  (“Wheeling” is one of my favorite Calvin outings—The Colonel is under orders from the women in his life to ship Nephew Newton’s car to him out on the West Coast…but he and Calvin have a mishap that results in Newton's ride being filled with cement.  It’s an unusual episode in that The Colonel emerges victorious in this one—at the end of the show, he breaks the fourth wall as he enjoys breakfast in bed: “I know I didn’t earn all this love and affection, but…I’m a married man, so I’m gonna take what little I can get.”)

But if you’re like me and there’s often too much month at the end of the money, Volume 3 is the Alpha Calvin and the Colonel collection is the one you should get—it features four color episodes in “The Colonel’s Old Flame,” “Sister Sue and the Police Captain” (this one was an episode I watched on YouTube—in color!—but it has apparently been yanked), “Calvin’s Glamour Girl,” and “Colonel Out-Foxes Himself.”  This last one is very funny (it’s the one on which I heard Conried and Cantor), as The Colonel attempts “The Pocketbook Swindle” after it’s been pulled on him…with unsuccessful results.  Animation history king Jerry Beck calls the show “illustrated radio” …which is certainly fair, though I’ve heard the same term applied to much of the Hanna-Barbera product as well, and Calvin and the Colonel can certainly hold its own with Huck, Yogi, and the rest of my childhood heroes.

I told Grover I'd only buy these dolls if one of them said "Holy mackerel, Calvin!"

Dell Comics published two Calvin and the Colonel comic books in 1962 (one of which was in their “Four Color” series, which is why the second issue was labeled “#2”) and Milton Bradley released a board game to capitalize on the (non)popularity of the program (Leal also notes that there were “Calvin” and “The Colonel” dolls available for purchase—they talk, too!—and Beck has published this image of a C&C coloring book)—you can find the board game/comic books on eBay, if you’re curious.  I’d settle for a DVD release of the complete series only because I believe it’s much better than its reputation and it doesn’t deserve its current obscurity.

Crime Does Not Pay #4: “A Thrill for Thelma” (11/23/35)

After a two-week hiatus from the blog, Crime Does Not Pay returns to Thrilling Days of Yesteryear…and I should probably issue this heads-up: this bedroom office desk chair of mine, being the most uncomfortable piece of furniture in the house, is going to be a major impediment in my making sure I crank one of these out a week.  It was so much nicer when the CDNP shorts were available on YouTube; for the tragic tale of how that was “nipped in the bud,” you’ll need to brush up via the presentation of the last short, Desert Death (1935).  Suffice it to say, the vacation I took from CDNP was essentially an engraved invitation for all the well-honed wits on Facebook to jockey for seats at the Algonquin Round Table with pithy observations like “Crime Does Not Pay…where Ivan’s concerned.”  Fortunately, I touched upon this week’s entry, A Thrill for Thelma (1935), in a blog post back in 2010…which means I’ll be able to recycle a few of the jokes.

After the Gang Busters-like opening credits, the MGM Reporter (William Tannen) invites us to pull up a chair at “Women’s State Prison,” and have a bit of a chinwag with “Warden Hannah Graves” and “Captain Richard Kyne.”  The (always reliable) IMDb does not identify the dour actress playing “Warden Hannah” (perhaps one of you character thespian experts could lend a hand in the comments) but the actor essaying the role of Kyne is Robert Warwick, a veteran performer whose films include The Little Colonel (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936), and The Sea Hawk (1940).  Those of us with more of a comedic bent recognize Warwick from several Preston Sturges-directed pictures including The Lady Eve (1941) and Sullivan’s Travels (1941); as for myself, I remember Warwick best as the dipsomaniacal actor pal of Humphrey Bogart in In a Lonely Place (1950).

“There is your answer,” Graves replies to MGM Reporter Guy as she stares out the barred window at a line of female inmates, because he’s started in on his “crime does not pay” spiel as he’s required to do.

GRAVES: Those women are living out their hopeless, empty lives…because they tried to beat the law…

“Hopeless, empty lives?”  I’m going to take a stab in the dark here and guess that Warden Hannah is the last person they notify if a female prisoner is on Suicide Watch.  Graves singles out for Reporter Guy a “red-headed girl” who’s “a living example that crime doesn’t pay.”  Because Captain Kyne worked the case, the two of them get their tickets punched for Flashback City and recall two years ago that young Thelma Black (Irene Hervey) was graduating with her classmates at Debutante High School.  As they wait in line to receive their diplomas, one of Thelma’s fellow matriculates asks what her plans are after high school.  “I’m going to get a kick out of life while I’m still young enough to enjoy it,” she firmly declares.

Thelma is played by Irene Hervey, a 1930s ingenue who appeared in such classics as The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), Three Godfathers (1936), and Destry Rides Again (1939).  Hervey also graced a lot of programmers (San Francisco Docks [1940], Night Monster [1942]), and around the House of Yesteryear she’s remembered fondly as the heroine in the serial Gang Busters (1942) and as “Aunt Meg” on Anne Francis’ TV show Honey West.  As Thelma, she has been summoned by the jovial Warden Graves to her office “to tell her story.”

THELMA: After I graduated…I went to a school of beauty culture…and then I got a job in the Astor Salon…I made up my mind that I was going to get everything life could offer…I wanted money, clothes, luxuries…

A wealthy salon patron, reeking of high society, gives Thelma a tip because she’s humble and lovable.  (She does not bite down on it, because it is paper money.)  The scene shifts to a nightclub, where Thelma is enjoying the company of Steve Black, a handsome young swain portrayed by Bob Livingston.  Livingston began his film career in the silents in various bit parts and continued his extra work with the arrival of talkies.  He had a bit part in a previous Crime Does Not Pay short, Buried Loot (1935), but really didn’t become a big name until he moved to Republic Pictures…where he not only starred in such serials as The Vigilantes are Coming (1936) and The Lone Ranger Rides Again (1939), he played “Stony Brooke” in that studio’s popular Three Mesquiteers B-western series.  He later teamed up with Al “Fuzzy” St. John in PRC’s Lone Rider franchise, filled in for Gene Autry when Gene went off to “do his bit” in WW2, and finished his onscreen career with numerous character parts.

STEVE: Having a good time, honey?

THELMA: Oh, I’m thrilled…

STEVE (leaning in): Like me a little bit?

THELMA: Steve, I’m crazy about you…

I think it’s just the champagne talking.  As Steve lights Thelma’s cigarette, he glances over at a neighboring table to see another customer paying his bill with a ginormous bankroll.  Seeing that Bucky McBigBucks is leaving with his lady friend, Steve suggests to Thel that the two of them “go places” as well.  Soon, they’re tooling down a stretch of road with Thelma at the wheel as Steve gives her a kiss.

STEVE:  Say…there are a lot of parked cars along here…

THELMA: Yes…other people seem to have the same idea we have…

Hot monkey love!  Spotting the gentleman from the restaurant, Steve tells his lady love: “I’ve got a swell idea for a gag.”

STEVE: I’ll bet we could give a couple of those front-seat wrestlers a scare that would stunt their growth…you game for a big laugh?

Thelma, who has already been established as a gal looking for thrills, is ready to be dealt in and so Steve instructs her to pull over, whereupon he exits from the vehicle and walks back to the car where Rich Restaurant Guy is inspecting his girlfriend’s tonsils.  Brandishing a pistola and making sure he’s covered his face with a muffler, he relieves the gentleman of the weight of his wallet…and back in the car with Thelma, the two of them have a healthy chortle at Steve’s prank.

STEVE: You should have seen their faces…scared?  I thought the girl was going to fold up like a camp chair, and the fellow’s teeth were doing a castanet routine!

(Thelma laughs…and then she sees Steve counting the contents of the man’s billfold)

THELMA: But you’ve still got his wallet…

STEVE: Yes…so I have…

THELMA: Well…let’s take it back to him…

STEVE: Oh, I’ll send it to him by special delivery tomorrow…

“Oh…okay!”  Seriously—Thelma didn’t spend all that time at Debutante without learning a few things (I’ll spare you the details), and she calls bullsh*t on Steve by turning the steering wheel hard, intending to return to the scene of the crime.

STEVE: Hey—what do you think you’re doing?

THELMA: We’re going back!

STEVE: Oh, no we’re not—keep going!  Keep going!

The two of them struggle for control of the car, unaware that there’s an automobile approaching from the opposite direction.  The second car swerves to avoid Thelma and Steve, crashes through a fence and lands on its side…and then immediately catches fire.  Thelma faints at the wheel, so Steve takes control of the car…and a scene shift finds Thelma contemplating the foul, evil deed that she’s done.  After handing her a stiff belt to deal with her anguish, Steve elects to tune in a news broadcast…and that’s when they get the bad news…

RADIO ANNOUNCER: Police tonight are searching for the hit-and-run driver who crashed into a car on the High Line Road a few hours ago, causing the death of J.J. Willis, the driver, and gravely injuring his wife…police believe the hit-and-run car is the same which carried the bandit pair, a man and a red-headed woman in a tan coupe who held up a parked sedan on Willow Road shortly before the accident…

Sweet honey bee of infinity!  You’re in terrible, terrible trouble, Thel!  She rises from his chair and makes tracks for the door.

STEVE: Hey, you going someplace?

THELMA: Yes…to the police!  I’ll tell them how it was…I’ll tell them I didn’t mean…

STEVE: Sure, sure you will…but remember…you just killed a guy…you were driving the car at the time of the stickup, don’t forget that!

THELMA: Oh, Steve…what are we going to do?

STEVE: Well…we’ve got to get out of here as soon as we can…

THELMA: Okay, Steve…let’s go right away…

Now…had you or I happened to be in that same room with our budding Bonnie-and-Clyde, our advice to the impressionable young Thelma would surely have been “Don’t listen to Steve!”  But while you can learn many things at DHS (Debutante High School), good judgment is apparently not part of the college preparatory curriculum…

STEVE: Now listen, honey…I’m wild about you…I’m sorry I got you into this mess…but you and I are going to stick together…

THELMA: Steve, I’m afraid…

STEVE: Don’t worry…I won’t let you down…

Spoiler alert: he’s going to let her down.  Thelma even acknowledges this as we return to her confession in Warden Graves’ office (“That was my mistake”).  “I was frightened,” she says tearfully, “bewildered…I couldn’t think clearly…I realize now that what I should have done was go to the police to tell the truth…but instead I took the easiest way…”

Thelma continues her tragic tale of her quick descent into crime.  “Such an easy way to get everything I wanted out of life…luxury…money…excitement…”  A montage shows our heroine and her ne’er-do-well beau living the high life downing quarts of champagne—though in his defense, he does make an honest woman (well...kind of honest) and “put a ring on it”:

Okay, enough with the oohing and ahhing.  “Oh, I thought I was riding high,” Thelma narrates.  “Things I craved were coming my way…I wanted thrills and I was getting them.”  But not only is crime a dangerous gateway drug—there are certain side effects involved, so ask your doctor is Crime© is right for you.  As Thelma and Steve lounge in their luxurious flat, a newsboy hawks papers outside, informing potential customers that there was a victim who perished in the latest “bandit heist.”  “Well, I had to do it,” Steve explains as he receives the stink-eye from his girlfriend.  “He wouldn’t behave.”

THELMA: The police will get us for this!

STEVE: Oh yeah?  (Laughing) Not the way I operate, baby…don’t I use a different gun every time?  Don’t I use a different car every time?  Oh, come on, honey—no dumb cop is gonna get me…I’m too smart for ‘em!

Cocky will come back and bite you in the ass every time.  That’s…Burke’s Law.  “We thought we were smart,” laments Thelma, “but the police were smarter.”  At this point in the narrative, Thelma demurs to brainy Captain Kyne to explain just how the gendarmes brought an end to the “bandit heist” crime wave.

Truth be told, the cops didn’t have to be that much smarter than Steve.  They were already clued into the fact that different weapons were used in the holdups, and that the bandits relieved their victims of their transport during the robberies…with those cars later found abandoned.  With the help of his sidekick, John Hennessey (Pat O’Malley), Kyne interrogates the woman who was snogging with the murdered victim at the last holdup, and she fills in some much detail on how the robbery went down.

"I can't swear to it...but I think the hold-up man was Bela Lugosi!"

At the mention that they had just left the El Royale Club, Kyne and Hennessey swing into action.  You see, Steve the Brainiac has been operating his crime wave in an area that makes it devastatingly simple for the police to stick pins in maps…

…in fact, as the two men are going over their theory, there’s a notice over the station intercom that there’s been another stickup—near the 22 Club!  The solution to stopping Steve the Mastermind is to station cops—a lot of cops (what would be the proper nomenclature for that, I wonder—a pigpen of cops?)—in the various nightclubs in that area.  The police impersonate doormen, waiters, and patrons—and they’ve been told to keep an eye out for a red-headed dame (because a strand of Thelma’s ginger hair was found in one of the abandoned vehicles).  Finally, their persistence pays off; one night, a customer clearly in his cups whips out a fat wad of moolah and starts spreading it around to the waiters and a cigarette girl…that sort of behavior attracts Steve like flies to you-know-what.

The customer (an undercover cop) and his concubine (another cop) leave the nightclub and drive down the road some ways, noticing that Steve and Thelma are following.  As the two detectives pretend to do a little passionate necking, our couple drives by them…and then turn around in a clearing to go back the other way.  Steve is completely unaware that once he exits the car to rob his next victim, a pigpen of cops will gun him down like the mad-dog killer he is…

 …Thelma speeds off in a desperate attempt to escape the consequences for her pathetic thrill-seeking life…but as we know fully well by now, something something not pay.  Still, we should feel a little sympathy for Thel…a good girl who only decided to accelerate the acquisition of those shiny trinkets that our rotted-with-corruption capitalist system assures us we need to own.

KYNE: Thelma made a complete confession and was sentenced to twenty years…the best years of her life will be spent behind prison walls…

I’m sure she’ll make a lot of new friends.  And there’s a ping-pong table, they tell me.  But here comes Warden Laugh-a-Minute with the kicker:

GRAVES: The state saved Thelma’s child the stigma of being born in prison…but her greatest punishment will be throughout the years to come…Thelma will be denied seeing her child for twenty years…her trail of thrills has ended in the knowledge that her baby must never know that his mother is a convict…and that his father was a murderer slain by the law…

“Well, gotta run—there’s bread and water to be supervised!”  Next week: Hit-and-Run Driver (1935).  G’bye now!