Crime, Inc. (1945)

The Age of Commercialism

Beautiful, moving film.

A Masterpiece!

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

***SPOILERS*** Tom Neal is crusading crime reporter Jim Riley who's connection with mobster Bugs Kelly, Danny Morton, who's being pressured to join the syndicate. It's the Idreaded syndicate who controls most of the politicians as well as police in the state as well as D.A's office. Being an independent mobster who doesn't like to take orders as well as kick back to the syndicate Buggs signs his own death warrant when he has syndicate big shot Pat Coyle, Lionel Atwill, kidnapped and held for a $100,000.00 ransom in order to get it off his back. With the syndicate coming to Coyles rescue, by finding him and killing his captors,Bugs end up on the syndicate's sh*t end of the stick when he's tracked down with one of his goons in a Conley island wax museum and gunned down has he sitting in a fake electric chair having a smoke.Meanwhile Jim got to know and fall in love with Bugs sister night club singer Betty Van Cleve, Martha Tilton, who just happened to be the late Bug's sister who had no idea what her brother, he told her he was an insurance agent, was involved in. On top of all that Jim is now under investigation by the local D.A in what he knew, if anything, about Bug's murder and who was responsible for it. Playing it safe Jim now also in the cross hair of the syndicate ends up going on his own in order to get the goods on it before he ends up getting rubbed out, like his friend Bugs, for knowing too much.***SPOILERS*** Using 1945 state of the art electronics and photography Jim gets the evidence on the syndicate as well as those in the police and city and state politics that it controls just when he was about to get indited for withholding evidence in Bugs' murder. And it was a number of those in the police and D.A's office who were prosecuting Jim who ended up getting busted for using their office to do the syndicate bidding! With his job done and the bad guys now safely behind bars Jim can now concentrate on hooking up Betty by getting married and putting all of this-Crime reporting- behind him. P.S It was later that year that Tom Neal was to star in what was to be his signature movie "Detour" that turned out to be one of the most significant "Film Noir" movies of that genre.

Crime, Inc. is one of those films that had it been done at a major studio it might have been a classic. It bears some resemblance to the MGM classic The Secret Six that starred Clark Gable, Wallace Beery, and Jean Harlow a decade and a half earlier.It also borrows a bit from Sherlock Holmes in that there is a thesis that crime is a tightly controlled business and there's a Moriarty like head of it in this city. When the identity of this particular Moriarty is revealed we can understand why the police have been powerless to crush the crime syndicate.The stars of this PRC film are Tom Neal as a crime reporter, Martha Tilton as a nightclub singer, and Danny Morton who is an independent operator and won't join the crime syndicate. Tilton is his sister and Morton's been a confidential source for Neal.A nice group of character players are in this one and they make it worth a look, people like Harry Shannon, Grant Mitchell, Sheldon Leonard, Don Beddoe, and Leo Carrillo. Most interesting is Lionel Atwill as a mob attorney, offbeat casting for him, but it works.But pedestrian direction and a script with enough holes in it to look like it was used for target practice consign Crime, Inc. to a mediocre fate.

Okay, all the things we've expected to find from Poverty Row productions- Bad sound.Uneven lighting.confused, incomprehensible plot.Cheap Sets.Washed up actors who worked for bigger studios working for booze money. Kind of what "Direct to DVD" movies are today.Usually, we find these movies in DVD collections because no one bothered to copyright the few messed up copies that are left, and they get picked up at garage sales.

I recently got this film from a good source and was worth the money. It was great to see Sheldon Leonard as the mouthy cop. Tom Neal one of my favorites as the go get 'em reporter. Leo Carillo is debonair as boss man "Tony" and of course Atwill as the man who "calls for the kill" This is worth a sit down to look at. It even has agreat uncredited bunch of actors among them Syd Saylor (remember him?), Earl Hodgins and I. Stanford Jolley. Those guys were in everything! I'm sure if you check it out you will love what you see!!! A B-Movie must see!!