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Entry number 23 in M-G-M's long-running "Crime Does Not Pay" shorts finds a racketeer setting up an employment agency, and then sending his henchmen to lineup foremen in companies that employ unskilled labor. The foreman is promised a cut on each new man he hires, and the agency gets a whooping percentage of the new employee's first month wages. The foremen then fire the last new-hires (he had to fire all the old hands to begin with)and then another batch of new-hires goes through the cycle. And another after a month. And this continues month-after-month, as this was 1939 and companies did not employ Human Resources/Relations people in 1939 to track employee turn-over..."Gotta a full crew...good...put'em to work." Anyway, there is no little amount of complaint going on in the unskilled-labor circles of the city and some of it reaches the ears of the District Attorney. He steps in, with the aid of a young unskilled-laborer (Tom Neal) who had been tricked, and finally runs the gangster out of the Employment Agency business, after a murder has been committed.

About the only subject M-G-M missed in this series was one covering gangster control of some of the Hollywood craft unions-and-casting agencies at the time.

Tom Neal JT Evan--labor commissioner is Leon Ames! old man kills himself

I enjoy the Crime Does Not Pay series from MGM so much that I recently purchased the DVD collection. The films are mostly exceptionally well made, enjoyable and often feature contract players who soon went on to stardom. In this case, Tom Neal is featured--long before he starred in such B-pictures as "Detour" and "First Yank in Tokyo".

Like so many of the films in the series, it begins with a government official introducing the picture. The trouble is, these folks were fakes! Here, Leon Ames pretends to be the Labor Commissioner, J.T. Evans! I am sure most folks never noticed these folks were actors--the directors did a good job of making them seem like the real thing. In this case, Joe Daniels (Neal) losing his job this way. And, a bit later, his elderly father Pop Daniels (familiar character actor Clem Bevans) loses his as well. After tragedy strikes, Joe contacts local authorities and a sting operation is attempted in order to catch these thieves.

Overall, this is a rather exciting short. It's not among the very best in the series but is well done and worth your time.