Phantoms, Inc.

On the strength of a positive recommendation, I watched this documentary short with little in mind other than to see what it was all about. The title alone, "Phantoms, Inc.", was enough to drag me in, and when someone said it was worth viewing, well, I was hooked. I'm sad to say there is virtually no entertainment value to the offering. It is downright depressing. It is the kind of thing which ought to be shown in schools as part of a course on how to use your common sense in life, and not rely on superstition, supernatural belief systems, and the word of con men. If a person is so gullible as to believe in mediums and soothsayers, then they should view this film. But for someone simply looking for entertainment, don't bother.

This installment of the Crime Does Not Pay series is a warning to the public about the evils of psychics--though the story is indeed an extreme one. It begins with a grieving couple whose son has died. The wife insists that they consult a psychic and they are told some general things which please the grieving mother. At first, her husband (Frank Reicher) goes along with this but he soon realizes she's spending a fortune to get information from the psychics which anyone could know if they researched the family (which the psychic, played by Arthur Shields*, and his confederates did do). When the husband confronts the psychic, a fight occurs and soon the bodies start piling up!

This is a violent and exciting film. Hopefully it also warned some would-be victims about this racket, though I tend to believe that folks wanting to believe will usually believe--no matter what evidence you show them. Regardless, it's well made and worth seeing.

*Arthur Shields is actually the brother of Barry Fitzgerald and you can see the similarity between them--if you know to look!

I'm very fond of stories about confidence men. The better ones can take a basic story and fill it with sufficient detail extemporaneously to convince the unwary victim of its reality. The 'long cons' have made good movies, too, most famously the Academy-Award-winning THE STING. It lures you into a world where you think you know what is happening, then dumps you out, laughs at you, and you laugh too, knowing it's just a movie.

I've never thought of the spiritualist racket as a confidence game, but that's what this episode in the MGM CRIME DOES NOT PAY series claims, and it makes a good case for it. It's a slow example of the series, but it is well put together, with some nice Dutch Angles and good actors who spent most of their movie careers in small supporting roles, like Harry Hayden and Arthur Shields. It's worth a look.

A rarely seen dramatic performance by matronly Ann Shoemaker, who played dozens of "mother" roles in the '40s and beyond, adds some interest to this otherwise run-of-the-mill MGM short. The cautionary tale shows how a team of "confidence men" (and a couple little old ladies, inexplicably) interviewed neighbors and pored over newspaper archives to help their ringleader con an unwitting, grieving mother (Shoemaker) out of her life savings. (In a dramatic moment, after confessing her sins to her mousy husband, she steps in front of a car, ending her own sad existence). TCM occasionally airs this as one of its One Reel Wonders. It's worth catching, for camp value, if you get a chance.