The Public Pays

During the 1930s mobsters were dipping their fingers into everything to make money: liquor, the numbers racket and-milk? Yes. The production and distribution of dairy milk was a thriving industry during the Depression, and with the immense amount of money dairy products brought in it was natural that corruption would follow. Members of the Academy Awards recognized the scandalous problem and awarded Best Short Subject (Two-Reel) winner to MGM's October 1936 "The Public Pays." The movie peels back an actual case of a racketeering ring whose strong-arming of a number of a state's milk companies forces them to raise their prices and hand over their newly-found profits to the mob.

"The Public Pays" was part of MGM's 'Crime Does Not Pay' anthology series of 20-minute shorts popular from 1935 until 1947. The studio used much of the sets within MGM's Hollywood complex to film this series. In "The Public Pays," the gangsters' city offices they used for their operation room for their enterprise were the same ones seen in Clark Gable's 1936 film "Wife vs. Secretary." MGM's B-level actors were employed to re-enact the case presented. "The Public Pays" was based on an actual trial that described one lone dairy company bucking the mobsters' threat. With the backing of undercover police posing as milkmen, the business frustrated the crime syndicate's monopoly of milk. Kicking off as a documentary, "The Public Pays" shows actor Philip Trent posing as a MGM reporter who introduces a member of the Federal Department of Justice (actor Edwin Stanley) and the police chief of a Midwestern city (actor Cy Kendall). From that introduction stating the facts of the case, the film segues into a dramatic re-enactment of the gang members laying the groundwork in their attempt to coerce the area's milk producers to raise their prices so they can skim the profits.

"The Public Pays" was the first of two Oscars the MGM 'Crime Does Not Pay' series took home while earning seven nominations before its termination in 1947. The Academy's 9th Annual Awards introduced three categories within the Short Subjects: Color, One-Reel and Two-Reel. 'Our Gang's' "Bored of Education" won the One-Reel honors while "Give Me Liberty" took home the Color Oscar. Previously, the Academy's Short Subject awards were divided into Comedy and Novelty. The Color category was dropped after 1937, with the One- and Two-Reelers awards lasting until 1957. The two Short Subjects were then merged into just one award, which continues right to this day.