Crime, Inc.

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.