The Public Pays

A protection racketeer comes to a small city in the Midwest and organizes a protection racket for the milk distributors: pay them a penny a bottle, raise the price three cents or your milk has some kerosene spilled in it. Of course we know this scheme ultimately will fail because CRIME DOES NOT PAY!

It's a pretty good telling of the manner of such protection rackets, even if the gangsters all talk like well educated WASPs, even the one who speaks Italian. It's a well-paced, if rather talky short subject, with a well deserved Oscar nomination.

During the 1930s mobsters were dipping their fingers into everything to make money: liquor, the numbers racket and-milk? Yes. The production and distribution of dairy milk was a thriving industry during the Depression, and with the immense amount of money dairy products brought in it was natural that corruption would follow. Members of the Academy Awards recognized the scandalous problem and awarded Best Short Subject (Two-Reel) winner to MGM's October 1936 "The Public Pays." The movie peels back an actual case of a racketeering ring whose strong-arming of a number of a state's milk companies forces them to raise their prices and hand over their newly-found profits to the mob.

"The Public Pays" was part of MGM's 'Crime Does Not Pay' anthology series of 20-minute shorts popular from 1935 until 1947. The studio used much of the sets within MGM's Hollywood complex to film this series. In "The Public Pays," the gangsters' city offices they used for their operation room for their enterprise were the same ones seen in Clark Gable's 1936 film "Wife vs. Secretary." MGM's B-level actors were employed to re-enact the case presented. "The Public Pays" was based on an actual trial that described one lone dairy company bucking the mobsters' threat. With the backing of undercover police posing as milkmen, the business frustrated the crime syndicate's monopoly of milk. Kicking off as a documentary, "The Public Pays" shows actor Philip Trent posing as a MGM reporter who introduces a member of the Federal Department of Justice (actor Edwin Stanley) and the police chief of a Midwestern city (actor Cy Kendall). From that introduction stating the facts of the case, the film segues into a dramatic re-enactment of the gang members laying the groundwork in their attempt to coerce the area's milk producers to raise their prices so they can skim the profits.

"The Public Pays" was the first of two Oscars the MGM 'Crime Does Not Pay' series took home while earning seven nominations before its termination in 1947. The Academy's 9th Annual Awards introduced three categories within the Short Subjects: Color, One-Reel and Two-Reel. 'Our Gang's' "Bored of Education" won the One-Reel honors while "Give Me Liberty" took home the Color Oscar. Previously, the Academy's Short Subject awards were divided into Comedy and Novelty. The Color category was dropped after 1937, with the One- and Two-Reelers awards lasting until 1957. The two Short Subjects were then merged into just one award, which continues right to this day.

This is a very well dramatized short subject by MGM in 1936. Extra or bonus shorts such as this played with the main feature films of the studio theater days that ran through the 1960s. This short is on racketeering. It's very well done and won the Oscar for 1936 short subjects.

In the early decades of the 20th century, phony associations were formed in cities by gangsters who then "convinced" merchants to join them. This film shows a racketeering operation in which the phony association then could control the market and set prices to consumers. That's where the term racketeering comes from. This short gives a good example. Other types of criminal organizations didn't set prices or get involved in the marketing, but simply provided "protection" for their members. Those were organizations in name only – usually headed by a crime boss or family.

Public Pays, The (1936)

*** (out of 4)

Crime Does Not Pay

Oscar winning short from MGM's Crime Doesn't Pay series. Gangster move to small cities throughout America so that they can take over the milk business thinking the hick cops won't be able to stop them. This short will entertain anyone interesting in the gangster films that were being made at the time. There's plenty of nice action including one scene with a milk tanker being shot. There's also some nice laughs along the way.