Best Two-Reel Short Subject of 1938

 

The Declaration of Independence depicts the events leading up to the signing of the document that created the United States. It’s an earnest short, almost to the point of stodginess, and the acting is particularly stiff, but it does a nice job of showing some of the different points of debate that much of the delegates considered during their lengthy deliberations. The focus here is primarily upon Caesar Rodney, a delegate from the colony of Delaware who had to escape being held by loyalists and sidestep the subsequent attempts to halt him on his journey to Philadelphia to sign the final document. He makes it just in time to cast the deciding vote in favor of independence, but that can hardly be considered a spoiler at this point. Having such a relatively minor historical person get this much attention is a rarity, and it does allow us to consider these events from a different perspective. However, we also get some of the more expected moments of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin hashing out the wording of the declaration. There’s even a mention of the issues associated with slavery, but those are quickly passed over in favor of frequent moments of the reading of lengthy passages from the document. (However, it is a bit jarring to see Adams make the point that the Northern states were too invested in the slave trade to support any anti-slavery statements in the document!) You shouldn’t necessarily turn to a short film, or any film, for that matter, to get historically accurate information, but I do think that the broad outlines of what happened in 1776 ring mostly true in this film. The recreation of the signing of the Declaration of Independence is also impressive, thanks to the use of Technicolor to enliven what has become such an indelible image from our American history.

Swingtime in the Movies manages to cram a series of lively musical numbers into its twenty-minute run time. It’s essentially a backstage musical that shows us what happens when a film production goes badly. The director of the film within a film (a strange Western entitled The Texas Tornado) is Nitvitch (Fritz Feld), and he has a thick unidentifiable accent, and that makes it tough for his actors to understand him. He asks his leading lady for a “sous” or “soused” accent when he wants a “South” accent, and her attempts to play drunk cause Nitvitch even more frustration. Only Sammy (the gifted and sly Charley Foy) seems to understand what Nitvitch wants, and he serves as an ersatz translator, handing out jibes along with his explanations. However, when the leading lady starts to lisp out of nervousness, Nitvitch and Sammy decide a break for lunch is in order. The studio cafeteria is filled with stars of the time: George Brent, Marie Wilson, Pat O’Brien, Humphrey Bogart, Crime School Kids, John Garfield, Rosemary Lane, and Priscilla Lane. It also has some amazingly talented singing and dancing waitresses, who have one marvelous number involving some very precise moves through a row of kitchen doors. One of them, Joan Mason (played by the very game Katherine Kane), catches the director’s eye after there’s a misunderstanding involving a group of aspiring starlets from Joan’s hometown (and he hears her “authentic” Southern accent). Joan is hired, and as the saying goes, a star is born. Despite a series of mishaps during filming, including several attempts by different men to demonstrate how to kiss Joan properly on film, Joan (and Kane herself) shine in the scenes they film, especially the ones in which she gets to sing. Jerry Colonna, famous for his big eyes and large mustache, also has a cameo in the short, playing the title character of the Texas Tornado. Kane, who would later spell her first name Kathryn, also went by the nickname of “Sugar” (as in Sugar Kane…). She was very talented, featured in several shorts and a couple of features, but had a relatively brief Hollywood career. Even though it is a short film, Swingtime in the Movies is a great showcase for Kane’s talents.

They’re Always Caught, an entry in MGM’s Crime Does Not Pay series of shorts, highlights what early crime investigation labs were able to accomplish. The plot revolves around the recently elected Mayor Fletcher (a brusque Charles Waldron) who wants to clean up the city by removing its criminal elements. He upsets contractors who have been taking money from the city without doing their promised work, he fires employees who’ve been taking bribes, and he criticizes and threatens those who are profiting from illegal gambling in the city’s parks. Needless to say, the criminals are unhappy with Fletcher’s crusade, particularly the aptly named Big Matty and his syndicate. The city’s prosecutor, Jimmy Stark (an unctuous John Eldredge), has a radio show where he touts his many successes (all of them small-time crooks) and remarks upon his close working relationship with the mayor. Of course, Stark is also on the take; he’s working with Big Matty more than he is with Mayor Fletcher. After listening to one of Stark’s broadcast, a small business owner, dry cleaner Eddie Diesel (Louis Jean Heydt, appropriately jittery from being a target of the crime syndicate), decides that he needs to talk to the mayor because he’s still having to pay protection money. He feels that Stark is arresting only the “little” criminals, not the ones in control. After the mayor is killed in a car explosion, Diesel gets framed for the murder because he was “prowling” around the mayor’s house the night before the explosion. Stark is particularly anxious to have Diesel convicted, but the crime scene investigations send a lot of evidence to the crime lab. While the plot up to this point has been interesting, when the crime lab (under the direction of Stanley Ridges’ Dr. Pritchard) begins its work, the short becomes much more intriguing as it demonstrates the methodical process that helps to identify the actual murder (if you haven’t already figured out that it’s Stark, you’ve not watched a lot of crime films). Examining burlap fibers and gunpowder residue might sound boring, but the earnestness with which Pritchard and his team search for the truth is quite endearing. They also have a suspect early on—and it’s definitely not Diesel. They allow Stark to watch as they determine the source of the bomb, prompting the prosecutor to get a manicure so that he can’t be connected to the materials from which the bomb was composed. That just makes Pritchard even more suspicious, and when the crime lab uses iodine spray on the mayor’s notepad, discovering that he wanted to fire Stark, they just have to figure out how to ensure that the police can arrest the right person for the crime. The Crime Does Not Pay series always had tight plots and restrained acting, but They’re Always Caught highlights just how even a seemingly minor aspect of law enforcement (a crime lab) can be key to having the right person in jail.

Oscar Winner: The Declaration of Independence

My Choice: They’re Always Caught takes a seemingly minor aspect of police work and makes it central to the solving of crime. This was decades before any of the CSI television series, but They’re Always Caught demonstrates the same sort of intellectual curiosity about how relatively minor-seeming clues can be the key to finding the true criminals.