Last night they showed this short from the "CRIME DOES NOT PAY" series on Turner Classic Movies, just before STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET. So I was able to watch it before the feature (which would have been what I would have experienced when going to the movies in the 1940s or 1960s, of watching the short subject before the feature).
The "CRIME DOES NOT PAY" series was both instructive and simplistic. The purpose was to warn the public of all kinds of frauds perpetrated on them by the criminal classes. Other films in the series dealt with mail frauds or with psychics who were fakes. On the other hand they tried to push the official view that all criminals are caught and punished. This was what the police across the country wanted to indoctrinate into the general population (for reasonable goals - of convincing people not to be criminals!). It was also in line with the Breen Office and the Hays Code not to glorify criminals by showing them succeed. But they do frequently succeed. For all the gangster films like LITTLE CAESAR or SCARFACE where the crime boss dies in the gutter or frightened at being alone at the end, most crime bosses died like Frank Costello or Meyer Lanski quite well-to-do and respected.
The best part of this particular short dealt with the growing number of criminal enterprises dealing with selling used or defective cars, and the way various tricks were used (such as putting strips of asbestos around breaks to replace real break linings, or putting sand into carburetors to reduce noises showing the motor was shot). One interesting trick here that I never saw before was how they take the time to create a fake tire tread on an old tire to make it look new again.*
(*In this same period, Chester Gould's Dick Tracy fought an illegal stolen tire ring during wartime - rubber was heavily rationed during the war. The ring is run by the criminal Beebee Eyes. In the end of that series of stories, Beebee Eyes hides on a barge being towed out to see, which has a lot of garbage on it. When he is accidentally dumped with the garbage (how symbolic) into the Atlantic, he falls into a set of three or four truck tires that entrap his body in their centers. As a result he can't swim and drowns.)
Cy Kendall (fat with that fedora on his head and the cigar parked in the side of his mouth) heads a used car lot. His two assistants are the sleazy salesman (John Gallaudet) and the mechanic. We see two victims of his sales - Tommy Baker as Tommy Phillips, who buys a jalopy from them, and Walter Baldwin, who buys a car he needs for his business. Baker (due to social position) is able to get Kendall to agree to repair work on his jalopy's breaks (and this leads to some shoddy work by the mechanic). Baldwin is less successful, and goes to the police. Although Baldwin learns how he was rooked into buying the lemon he can't bring suit against Kendall as he signed a "contract" that had a waiver in it (Baldwin did not read the contract). Baker is going to football practice, and takes his younger brother Billy with him. Except for Kendal and Baldwin, Billy is played by the best known actor in this film - Daryl Hickman.
There is an accident due to the failure of the breaks, and a fatality results. And we last see Kendall and his two partners getting long, long prison sentences for their crimes. Would it have happened in real life? I don't know, but I hope it would. In any event this short film does give a satisfaction to the viewer...so maybe the fiction of "Crime does not Pay" does not matter if one is entertained by it at the end.
The "CRIME DOES NOT PAY" series was both instructive and simplistic. The purpose was to warn the public of all kinds of frauds perpetrated on them by the criminal classes. Other films in the series dealt with mail frauds or with psychics who were fakes. On the other hand they tried to push the official view that all criminals are caught and punished. This was what the police across the country wanted to indoctrinate into the general population (for reasonable goals - of convincing people not to be criminals!). It was also in line with the Breen Office and the Hays Code not to glorify criminals by showing them succeed. But they do frequently succeed. For all the gangster films like LITTLE CAESAR or SCARFACE where the crime boss dies in the gutter or frightened at being alone at the end, most crime bosses died like Frank Costello or Meyer Lanski quite well-to-do and respected.
The best part of this particular short dealt with the growing number of criminal enterprises dealing with selling used or defective cars, and the way various tricks were used (such as putting strips of asbestos around breaks to replace real break linings, or putting sand into carburetors to reduce noises showing the motor was shot). One interesting trick here that I never saw before was how they take the time to create a fake tire tread on an old tire to make it look new again.*
(*In this same period, Chester Gould's Dick Tracy fought an illegal stolen tire ring during wartime - rubber was heavily rationed during the war. The ring is run by the criminal Beebee Eyes. In the end of that series of stories, Beebee Eyes hides on a barge being towed out to see, which has a lot of garbage on it. When he is accidentally dumped with the garbage (how symbolic) into the Atlantic, he falls into a set of three or four truck tires that entrap his body in their centers. As a result he can't swim and drowns.)
Cy Kendall (fat with that fedora on his head and the cigar parked in the side of his mouth) heads a used car lot. His two assistants are the sleazy salesman (John Gallaudet) and the mechanic. We see two victims of his sales - Tommy Baker as Tommy Phillips, who buys a jalopy from them, and Walter Baldwin, who buys a car he needs for his business. Baker (due to social position) is able to get Kendall to agree to repair work on his jalopy's breaks (and this leads to some shoddy work by the mechanic). Baldwin is less successful, and goes to the police. Although Baldwin learns how he was rooked into buying the lemon he can't bring suit against Kendall as he signed a "contract" that had a waiver in it (Baldwin did not read the contract). Baker is going to football practice, and takes his younger brother Billy with him. Except for Kendal and Baldwin, Billy is played by the best known actor in this film - Daryl Hickman.
There is an accident due to the failure of the breaks, and a fatality results. And we last see Kendall and his two partners getting long, long prison sentences for their crimes. Would it have happened in real life? I don't know, but I hope it would. In any event this short film does give a satisfaction to the viewer...so maybe the fiction of "Crime does not Pay" does not matter if one is entertained by it at the end.