Purity Squad

Purity Squad is one of the later and more importantly relevant short subjects from the Crime Does Not Pay series from MGM. This could be a plot easily for a feature length film today.

Byron Foulger is a doctor with a mysterious past that includes a felony warrant for malpractice and he's working for a pharmaceutical company trying to develop an alternative medicine to insulin for diabetics. When Foulger's experiment is released without his consent, his employers have him blackmailed to silence. Then the dead bodies start piling up.

Dick Elliott is the head of drug company and he's seeing lost profits and lawsuits in his future. Personally I would have just run with whatever you've made to some place without an extradition. But Elliott and associates are greedy men and the cover-up continues including a murder of an accomplice.

The Feds, the state attorney general and the Food and Drug Administration all get involved here, not to mention the local police. Given that the FDA has come into a lot of good and bad press with some of their policies, the film has a real relevance for today's audience.

I'd check this one out, it might prove interesting.

Just watched this Crime Does Not Pay short on the DVD of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn film Without Love. It tells of how a couple of crooked men-with reluctant help from the doctor who works for them-sell this doc's medicine called diabulin which is supposed to cure diabetes but this doc says it's not ready and shouldn't be sold yet but, well, of course his superiors think differently...Quite dramatically compelling for a 19-mimute short with enough time for the tense climatic end. So that's a recommendation for Purity Squad.

... which had only been on the market for about 20 years. Prior to that, diabetes was a death sentence. But even today it tethers the diabetic to a regimen of shots and blood testing, and they must always have some form of quick sugar on hand because injected insulin is never as good as one's own insulin at self adjustment for stress, exercise, etc. Now there are continuous glucose monitors that also dose the patient with insulin, but 75 years later there is no freedom for the diabetic to be completely spontaneous. But I digress.

This episode in the series is about a discredited doctor, hiding from the law, who comes up with a pill he calls "diabulin" that he thinks can substitute for insulin. The two crooks he is saddled with want to put the pill on the market immediately and not do any further testing, and the doc, a wanted man, is at their mercy. They decide to distribute the drug inside their state only, so in case there are problems they are not dealing with a federal rap. The state's public health lab does tests on the drug too. The doc's guinea pigs die after a few weeks from the side effects of the diabulin. So the crooks decide to pay off somebody who works in the state lab to replace the test rabbits with fresh rabbits to buy time to make more money off the drug.

What they didn't count on is the FDA testing their drug anyways. The FDA lab, being in Washington, is inaccessible to the crooks, plus they don't know about the FDA's involvement in the first place. When the FDA guinea pigs die of the drug, and people begin to die of the drug, yet the state lab's test rabbits are healthy, the FDA and the state public health lab get together and suspect tampering in the state lab. Complications ensue.

It is shown that the doctors of the diabetics warned them against trying such a new and untested drug, but the diabetics' desires to live a life free from insulin injections made them want to believe the claims of the crooks.

There are no small "rackets" selling drugs today. Just giant pharma corporations with teams of lawyers. And there is no marketing a drug in a single state either, so the FDA's extensive testing is involved in the marketing of all drugs. But this is an interesting look back. At this point the Crime Does Not Pay series is trying to come out of the gangster era and into the post War era with crimes and rackets that were relevant to the time. But even with all of this talk of scientific testing, there is gun play in this episode.

MGM released a series of twenty-one two-reelers from 1935 to 1945 under the general heading of "Crime Does Not Pay." These were well made shorts that promoted respect for the law and gave publicity to such government law enforcement agencies as the FBI. Not merely propaganda or indoctrination, these two-reelers were entertaining short stories featuring many of the best character actors of the day, well-written, well-directed, and well-acted.

"Purity Squad" was one of the last in the series spotlighting the efforts of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to protect the consumer from bad medicine, in this case a pill, Diabulin, for type 2 diabetes that would replace the need for insulin injections. Ironically, sixty years later the drug community has actually created such a pill, Metaglidasen, now waiting for the approval of today's FDA. This film shows a much weaker FDA in 1945, largely dependent on state cooperation for approval or disapproval.

The story written by Charles F. Royal, who specialized in scripts for action B westerns, tells of a pair of con artists who take advantage of a discredited chemist to concoct a pill for type 2 diabetes. The two shysters also plant a janitor in the lab at the state capital to make sure the results on the test rabbits are positive by switching hares when needed. The FDA lab in Washington, D.C., runs its own tests which come up negative. Investigators are sent to the office of the state attorney general to find out what is happening to cause the two test results to be different. In the meantime diabetes patients who are taking Diabulin begin dying in alarming numbers.

I've seen most of the films in the "Crime Does Not Pay" series, which also led to a popular radio show at the time. None is boring. All, including "Purity Squad," are exciting and informative.

Purity Squad (1945)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

45th film in MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series looks at the FDA and their attempts to break a drug company from selling a pill to diabetics, which is suppose to be better than insulin but no tests have been done on it. This episode here really packs a nice little punch due to some very good performances and a couple great villains. This was one of the last from the series and the production values have fallen quite a bit from when the series started but the film still packs a nice little punch.