Big Town Scandal

It was always good when a film could bring in a built in audience from another medium. That was the case with Big Town Scandal, one of four films adapted by the Pine-Thomas producing team at Paramount from the radio series Big Town. They actually refer to it as Big Town, not as snazzy a name as Metropolis or Gotham City.

Phillip Reed as crusading newspaper editor Steve Wilson and his star Lois Lane like reporter Hillary Brooke have taken a new interest, this one in juvenile justice. Five kids were caught in a burglary and are paroled in Reed's custody and he gets the nucleus of a basketball team. But there's one if not bad, an easily led apple in Stanley Clements.

After helping with a fur heist he's in deep to racketeer Joe Phillips who wants him to start throwing games. In the end one of the other kids is killed, but Clements redeems himself somewhat.

1948 audiences have an advantage over seeing Big Town Scandal in that they were familiar with the main characters and that covered over a lot of problems. Big Town Scandal is competently made but is hardly Oscar material. Hillary Brooke was better served being a third banana to Bud&Lou.

Decent, slightly offbeat, Eagle-Lion programmer adapted from popular radio series Big Town. Four near-homeless boys are caught breaking into a sporting goods store to steal equipment for their basketball team. In court, newspaper editor Wilson and reporter Kilbourne take pity on the boys, and thus take responsibility for them instead of having them sent to reformatory. Trouble is the boy's leader Tommy has money ambitions and hooks up with gangsters to bet on Tommy's basketball team. So what will happen to the teetering boys now on parole under Wilson's kind supervision.

What suspense there is comes from Tommy's (Clements) wayward actions that also endanger the other boys. He's not a bad boy, just one trying to escape from poverty, likely a leftist touch by leftish scripter Mainwaring. Director Thomas films in fairly straightforward fashion making good use of real street scenes. Perhaps biggest draw is the interesting cast, from ex-Dead End kid Clements to the ill-fated Alfalfa Switzer to budding B-movie starlet Martel. But my personal favorite is the commanding Hillary Brooke as Kilbourne. Here she's got a rather bland role, but her specialty was taking men apart with an icy no-nonsense personality. Once you see her in one of those roles, you don't forget. Anyway, if you can get past ordinary boys playing before arena-size crowds, the hour's a decent time passer.

After some juvenile delinquents are caught stealing sporting goods, "Big Town" reporter Hillary Brooke (as Lorelei Kilbourne) coerces boyfriend, and "Illustrated Press" managing editor, Phillip Reed (as Steve Wilson) into taking responsibility for the gang of five, during their probationary period. Mr. Reed coaches the young men in a basketball team called the "Big Shots", and covers their human interest story in his paper. But, leader-type "Big Shot" Stanley Clements (as Tommy Malone) is tempted by underworld types. Can Mr. Clements, Darryl Hickman (as Harold "Skinny" Peters), Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer (as Frankie Sneed), Roland Dupree (as John "Pinky" Jones), and Tommy Bond (as Waldo "Dumb Dumb" Riggs) stay out of reform school?

**** Big Town Scandal (5/27/48) William C. Thomas ~ Phillip Reed, Hillary Brooke, Stanley Clements

In the late 1940s, Phillip Reed made three films in which he played 'Steve Wilson'...a reporter who is the editor for a big city newspaper. Of the three, "Big Town Scandal" is the weakest...and is much like merging one of his films with a Dead End Kids/Bowery Boys movie.

When the story begins, Steve is on some crusade against juvenile delinquency. However, when he goes to hearing to push for the court to throw the book at a group of boys, the court, instead, ends up putting the teens on probation...and making Steve responsible for them! To help give them a sense of purpose, Steve gets the boys involved in a youth basketball league.

Up until this point, the film worked reasonably well. But what happens next is a bit nutty! Some local thugs are apparently placing bets on youth basketball(!!!?????) and they bribe the star player, Tommy (Stanley Clements), to throw games. The thugs also are involved in some robberies and they try to involve Tommy in them as well!

The idea of gangsters betting on youth basketball is pretty silly. Add to that the character of 'Dum Dum' (Tommy Bond), who is apparently 'deaf and dumb' according to the story...which is pretty gross and insensitive. As a father of a deaf daughter, this sort of character is indeed annoying!!

About the only reason to watch this silly film is to see the young actors. Bond is famous for playing Butch in the Little Rascals films...same with Alfalfa Switzer who is also in this film. Daryl Hickman (Dwayne' brother) is a very prolific child actor and Stanley Clements actually later replaced Leo Gorcey in the Bowery Boys pictures. An interesting lineup...but a silly film whose writing is pretty disappointing.

For a low-budget melodrama, "Underworld Scandal" (also called "Big Town Scandal") is not too bad. While the plot lacks credibility and is mostly predictable, the characters and acting are at least adequate, and the story has a positive message that, while a little forced, comes across reasonably well.

The story begins with a group of youths caught breaking into a store. As a judge is about to send them all to reform school, a pair of popular journalists volunteer to take custody of them. To keep them occupied, they organize them into a basketball team, which turns out to be a very good one. But while the rest of the boys make good use of their opportunity to put the past behind them, one of the boys is still secretly involved with some dangerous characters and activities. The situation leads to several melodramatic incidents, and finally a conclusion that, while not especially credible, is dramatic. An interesting historical feature is that along the way there are a fair number of basketball scenes, which show how differently that sport was played in the 1940's.

While this is a movie without a lot of strengths, all that it really pretends to do is show the importance of giving kids a second chance, and it does make that point reasonably well. On that level, it's not bad at all.