Buyer Beware

This entry number 30 in the "Crime Does Not Pay" series of shorts is one of the first I've paid serious attention to.

Mostly these shorts are used today as fillers on Turner Classic Movies, and I suspect most people use the time to go to the bathroom or kitchen.

Bad mistake, if "Buyer Beware" is any example.

I might have ignored this one too until I started recognizing some of my favorite actors.

If Jack Pennick is in it, I want to see it, whatever it might be.

Milburn Stone, a great actor who is known almost entirely, except by film historians, as Doc in "Gunsmoke," plays one of the chief bad guys in "Buyer Beware." And Ralph Byrd has a moment -- no, more like five seconds -- of glory as a uniformed police officer.

Every one of these generally unknown actors puts on a good show, and they make a relatively tame story well worth watching.

I mean, any film, even a short quickly produced as a time filler, with Ralph Byrd willing to be uncredited, as were all the players, and on screen for five seconds, is a terrific movie-watching, face-seeking ("Say, isn't that ...?") opportunity.