Alibi Racket

The second entry in MGM's long-running crime series has Al Bridge telling the MGM Crime Reporter a long and unlikely yarn of an unbreakable alibi and how it was broken, as it always will be broken because CRIME DOES NOT PAY.

MGM was moving slowly and erratically into short subject production. On the minus side, MGM, from its amalgamation in 1923, had been the home of prestige features, and short-subjects could best be left to the companies that specialized in such movies. On the plus side, those companies could no longer show comfortable or even any profit, and in-house production gave MGM a means to train talented newcomers to the industry.

This one is well-produced with a fine cast, although I think the story offered is so unlikely as to be nonsense.

A Crime Does Not Pay Series No. 2. A notorious gangster is murdered and the police believe that another gangster, Leo Rinelli, committed the murder. However, there is no hard evidence of this and worse yet, from the police's point of view, is that Rinelli has a cast iron alibi. He was at the movies and can prove it because he was called away to take a telephone call. The police delve deeper and come up with an interesting albeit old hat resolution to the problem. The short is filled with stalwart character actors whose faces will be familiar if not their names. Edward Norris as Rinelli does a great job and it's surprising that he didn't have an even more illustrious career, although he did dozens of movies.

It's the MGM presents Crime Does Not Pay Series. It's the second short in the series. The Chief Inspector of Police recounts the murder case of racketeer Mike Lichter. Joe Rinelli is the next in command and the obvious prime suspect, but he has an airtight alibi. The cops work to break it.

This is the standard Crime Does Not Pay Series episode. It does have a fun little murder mystery with an ending reveal buried within it. It's not the most compelling, but it's zippy. Not all of these are that fun. At least, they're not bringing out the rubber hose. That would be something and not this series.

During the 1930s and 40s, MGM made a string of "Crime Does Not Pay" shorts--all of which illustrate excellent police work and serve to convince viewers that crooks ultimately WILL get caught. It's interesting, but these films usually showed a lot more realistic police procedures than the regular movies at the various studios (many full-length films portrayed the cops as idiots). In addition, they tell great stories that even when seen today are quite satisfying.

The film is told through a flashback. The story begins with a mobster being killed--and the most logical killer is a fellow mobster. However, this suspect has a seemingly air-tight alibi--one in which it appears he went to great lengths to establish where he was and when. But, thanks to nice work by the police, they are able to prove exactly how the guy was able to be at one place while killing another at a different location. Very enjoyable and well-written.

This MGM Crime Does Not Pay short subject concerns with breaking an alibi that gangster Edward Norris. Al Bridge who is the chief police inspector of an unnamed city narrates to a colleague how one of his men Charles Trowbridge solves a few murders by showing how in a particular case a false alibi is broken.

Up till now Norris's family has shielded him from the law, but not any more. Norris's stock and trade has been the creation of false alibis to get away with his evil deeds.

Let's say some unique family circumstances allowed our perpetrator to get away with his crimes until now.

But the moral of these shorts is you can't keep getting away with it.