What Price Crime

From 1935, What Price Crime stars Charles Starrett, Virginia Cherill, and Noel Madison.

Starrett plays Allen Grey, who is assigned to bring down a group that steals guns from warehouses and then sells them. The man they suspect, Dougas Worthington (Madison) owns prize fighters. The police set up Grey, an ex-college boxer, to get Worthington's attention by entering the scene as a fighter.

Grey has no problem getting Worthington's attention, but then he realizes that he met the mobster's pretty sister (Cherrill) when the two were in a car accident. There's an instant attraction, and that complicates matters.

Very stiff acting from the supporting players, though Starrett and Cherrill were okay. Cherrill was Cary Grant's first wife. She retired after they married.

This is a very old film, and it comes off that way.

Charles Starrett seemed destined for great things after the release of "The Mask of Fu Manchu." So tall, so handsome, so well-built. No wonder Fu Manchu's daughter (played by Myrna Loy) nearly had an orgasm while watching his bare torso writhe under the lash! However, although Starrett kept busy after "Fu Manchu," filming several movies every year, none of his parts seemed to lift him out of the "lightweight leading man" category and he soon drifted into a series of popular but undistinguished B-westerns. "What Price Crime" -- there is no "?" in the title -- comes toward the end of his leading-man period and it's typical of his work at the time: brisk, efficient, forgettable. In this effort he plays a G-man who goes undercover as a boxer in order to ingratiate himself with a nightclub owner, (and possible gangster), who wishes to become a fight promoter. There's an extended boxing sequence in the movie which gives Starrett a chance to appear bare-chested and sweaty, but unfortunately, he's not posed or photographed to make maximum use of his "beefcake" appeal. The rest of the movie seems shrewdly designed to appeal both to men, who are provided with the crime and boxing angles, and to women, who might enjoy the nightclub scenes as well as the romantic subplot. (Undercover G-man falls in love with the sister of the nightclub owner.) The overall result, even after the passage of some 75 years, remains quite watchable but you still get a sense of Charles Starrett's stardom slowly slipping away.

Someone has stolen a lot of guns and killed watchman Lafe McKee at a government warehouse, so it's up to G-man Charles Starrett to crash his car into Virginia Cherrill's. No, that's a coincidence, because her brother, Noel Madison, is a night-club owner, a prize-fighter owner and the suspect for the gun-running operation. The plan is for Starrett to go undercover as a boxer, get Madison to buy his contract and find out all about the operation.

It's the usual mix of good points and bad ones that Gower Gulch producers got in their movies. The story is a good if standard one; Al Martin's dialogue is banal, at best. Starrett and Madison deliver their lines well and Miss Cherrill poorly. Al Baffert, whom Starrett fights, looks like a well-conditioned professional and no one holds their hands up to defend themselves in the ring.

Director Albert Herman tries an interesting visual hook start the movie; the raid on the government warehouse (which we know it is because there is a small, neat sign reading "Government Warehouse") is shot showing just the shadows of the actors. After that it settles down a standard plot, though there are a nice couple of twists along the way. The result is a very watchable B movie.

Charles Starrett stars in this film as an undercover agent. After a warehouse is robbed and a night watchman killed, there is some evidence that a local businessman MIGHT actually be a mobster who's behind this. Starrett was chosen because he is an excellent boxer—and the man who might be the mobster has a very strong interest in the fight business. When Alan 'Knockout' Gray (Starrett) starts winning fight after fight, he is noticed and soon his contract is bought by the suspected mob boss. But there are some problems—the boss' sister is a pretty lady who Gray is interested in knowing better and soon his cover is blown and Gray has to think fast to get himself out of that mess.

While I found this film a bit predictable and formulaic, I liked it. Starrett, while NOT a famous actor today, was excellent. The only negative were the boxing scenes—where the guys punched each other like rabbits on crack!! No one boxes that intensely in real life—they'd never make it past the first round! Still, the film was exciting and well done—making it a better than average and exciting little B-movie.

UPDATE: Just a week or so after seeing this film, I watched a 1959 film "T-Bird Gang" and was surprised to see that it was a remake of "What Price Crime?"! IMDb doesn't indicate this but the later film clearly is the same story idea with only a few minor changes.