A Gun in His Hand

Tom Trout is a new graduate from the police academy. His future looks bright. He led the class in many of his subjects. He is also a crook. He had a clean record and figured that the best way to plan a crime is to learn how the police investigate one. Can he be on to something, or will he learn, as many a studio audience has, that CRIME DOES NOT PAY?

This short subject was nominated for an Oscar and it's easy to see why in retrospect. It very daringly concerns itself with police malfeasance. It's a common enough complaint these days, but in an era where the gang wars of Prohibition were not far away, the idea that the foot soldier in the fight against crime might be a problem was a shocker. Usually corruption, pay-offs from the hoods spread from the top in the popular mind.

The MGM back lot sure looks darker and more foreboding here than it does in SINGIN' IN THE RAIN.

This is the story of a young man who knew what he wanted to be once he graduated from the police academy: a thief. Once Dennis Nordell becomes an officer of the law, his grand scheming falls perfectly into place. Officer Nordell walks his beat through the day and plans robberies of liquor warehouses at night. Because Officer Nordell knows the whereabouts of his fellow officers up to the minute, he can plan without fail many robberies over several weeks.

Once Nordell murders a fellow police officer during a robbery, clues start to fall into place and Nordell starts to head unknowingly into a trap. Police headquarters suspect Nordell, but leave it to Nordell to hang himself while taking charge of the investigation. Nordell complies by tampering with evidence. Nordell goes a step too far by trying to put the finger on a street thug who literally doesn't have the fingers required to leave any fingerprints.

This story plays out like a decaffeinated CSI TV show. You won't have to sit through an hour to see how the robberies get figured out, nor will you have to wade through minutes and minutes of beer and car commercials. Best of all, you won't have to watch guys with perpetual two-day beards in khaki pants solve anything.

It's very dated, but who isn't these days….7/10.

Clark Richards

This is a better than average crime melodrama from the producers of the "Crime Does Not Pay" series of shorts made during the '40s.

Today's movie-goers and TV watchers will find it reasonably interesting but primitive in police methods and forensics, especially if they watch the latest CSI shows using modern methods of detection. Still, watching the police on the trail of a crooked officer who's killed a fellow policeman is compelling material for this short subject.

Naturally, the rogue cop has to pay for his criminal behavior. It's all quickly paced and competently performed by a cast of relatively unknown actors that includes ANTHONY CARUSO (who always reminds me so much of RALPH BYRD, another B-actor who played similar tough guy roles).

Some may find it lacks something in the way the detectives go about their work, but I found it held my interest.

This is a very unusual installment of the Crime Does Not Pay series in that the bad guy in this one is a cop! Officer Nordell (Tom Trout) just completed his training in the police academy and you then discover that he's always been a member of organized crime! He joined the police force in order to be an inside man and help the crooks!

When Nordell is discovered by one of his fellow policemen, Nordell kills him--shooting him down with his service revolver. However, the police learn that the slug was from a police gun and begin examining the guns of all officers. Not surprisingly, Nordell switched guns to avoid detection but you know, like all the Crime Does Not Pay films, that ultimately evil will be caught and punished.

This is a decent short film, though the resolution seemed a bit too easy. Still, it is enjoyable and worth your time.

By the way, this is the second film in which Anthony Caruso appears. Caruso played great noir villains and even parodied this on the "Star Trek" episode "A Piece of the Action".

"Nordell" (Tom Trout) is your ideal policeman. Top of his class, studious and meticulous and destined to go far in the force. We know, however, that he has other plans and that he using his skills and his knowledge of internal procedures to lead a gang on some daring warehouse robberies. His colleagues are baffled until one of their number cottons on to their diversionary the strategy and is gunned down. With police efforts redoubled, can "Nordell" keep pulling the wool over their eyes? It's part of the "Crime Does Not Pay" series so jeopardy there isn't, but this is still quite a decent short drama on the ingenuity of both the criminal and the forensic expertise of the scientists. Trout is actually quite effective as the cocksure officer and though the denouement is both rushed and a bit disappointing, it at least sets up a more substantial story to illustrate it's point.