It May Happen to You

The "Crime Does Not Pay" series from MGM was a well-made and interesting series of short films illustrating real life crimes. And, as the title says, the criminals ultimately get theirs. Here in "It May Happen to You", once again the production is top-notch. The film is about truck hijackings. At first, the crimes are not that serious but later the crimes involve murder and manslaughter. This is because this time they steal a truckload of meat. Being criminals, they don't exactly care how they handle the meat and it soon spoils. To handle the stink, they soak the meat in chemicals. But these chemicals do nothing to eliminate spoilage and soon people get very sick and even die due to this contaminated meat.

J. Carrol Naish stars in this one as the boss of the baddies. As usual, he's excellent. But what I really liked were how realistic and non-glamorous the police work was as well as how gritty the dialog was late in the film. A few examples would include: a cop exclaiming 'he asked for it' after blasting one of the gang as well as another cop saying 'go on--make a break--save the state a lot of money on a trial' as he takes aim at Naish's head! The only negative, and it's a tiny one, is the number of bullets fired at very close range in an early scene--yet no one is even hurt! Still, a tough and well made short.

J. Carrol Naish is the head of a bunch of crooks who are robbing meat trucks during the depression. They have not been very successful so they hire a witless kid to help them. He is broke and needs the money. Not much of a story. It is designed to show the "Crime Does Not Pay." That is the name of a series of films, probably shown in movie theaters before the major feature.

Fun "Crime Does Not Pay" short from MGM. This one stars the great character actor J. Carrol Naish. He plays Moxie, the leader of a gang that hijacks trucks and steals their cargo. Moxie gets the idea to start robbing meat trucks and finds an inside man who works at a meat company to tip them off. The problem is the crooks don't know how to properly store meat and so the stuff they sell is spoiled. People start getting sick and some even die. The police investigation leads them to Moxie's inside man. Will the cops catch the bad guys? Well they don't call it "Crime Does Not Pay" for nothing.

This is one of the better series of short films made back in the day because they had good casts, scripts, and production values. I have yet to see one that I didn't like. The characters in this particular short are well-written. The police are portrayed as competent, which is something you didn't see a lot back then. It also serves a valuable public service. This short no doubt made many criminals think twice about stealing meat.

It May Happen to You (1937)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

J. Carrol Naish gets top billing in this exciting entry in MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series. Naish plays the leader of a gang who are stealing trucks of meat so that they can resell them and make some quick cash. A poor boy at the meat plant joins the gang thinking he can make some good cash but soon people are dying because the meat is spoiled. Fans of the series will certainly get a kick out this entry as it contains your typical good story, darker action and some fine performances with Naish clearly stealing the film. It's rather amazing to watch his films because he never gets enough attention or respect for his acting skills. He works so well in the gangster role that it's a shame he didn't get to play it again some of the Warner big guys like Cagney and Bogart. The story here is certainly meant to make people think twice about the life of crime and it gets the message across just fine. The cinematography is also worth mentioning here and I really enjoyed the dark style brought by director Bucquet.

J. Carrol Naish has a racket of hijacking the truck from the slaughterhouse, so he can sell it cheap to Clarence Wilson. But the truck drivers have been beating Naish. He needs an inside man. He finds it in Arthur Rankin, an honest lad who doesn't mind a few extra dollars. The young fool! Doesn't he know better? Doesn't he know that CRIME DOES NOT PAY?

Perhaps it's my exposure to wide-open crime dramas in the 1980s and on, and my fondness for the pre-code gangster films from Warner Brothers. I find this award-winning series from MGM rather bloodless. That's not entirely fair. While the stuff I prefer is more exciting, this series showed you how these things worked, and how they worked out.