Jack Pot

This short starts out with something quite innocuous - slot machines - being installed in businesses around an unnamed city where a pro reform candidate has just won election. They are placed there by the head of a gambling syndicate afraid that his big gambling rackets will all be raided and taken down and he'll be left with nothing. So customers wander into a drug store and put a few nickels in the machine. Each machine will only make maybe a couple of dollars a day for the syndicate. But multiply that by 4000 machines and you have quite a haul in 1940 dollars.

The head of the gambling syndicate uses that cash to get into more violent rackets such as protection, paying expensive attorneys to defend his henchmen in court and get them out on bail. To personalize all of this, a young couple planning to marry and the young woman's father wind up as victims in the middle of this criminal activity.

The message is that even participating in small possibly quasi legal activities such as slot machines helps feed the organized crime machine. With Tom Neal as one of the good guys in one of several MGM shorts he made at the beginning of his career, and also an interesting example of mobile recording technology of the time helping crack the case.

Efficiently and spartanly made as all of the Crime Does Not Pay shorts were, there is lots of action in this one.

It's another episode of MGM's Crime Does Not Pay series. The mayor is tackling illegal gambling. Mob boss Rocky Fallon has a mole in the mayor's office. He built his empire from gambling and has so much more.

Some of this is interesting. Some of it is weak. There is nothing weaker than a bad shooting victim. The girl getting acid thrown in the face is a pretty big move. It's almost modern. It's fine as one of these episodes, but it's probably trying to do too much. These shorts work best with a simplistic, straight-forward story. This feels like a story that needs to be expanded into full length.

Like all the other Crime Does Not Pay films I have seen, it begins with a fake public official addressing the audience. These folks were very convincing and are introduced as a judge or prosecutor or some other public official and you assume that's who they are since they are not listed in the credits, but MGM used actors in these roles!

This is the second film in the series that stars Tom Neal. Like the other one, he's a good guy out to stop crime--quite a bit different from his IMDb biography, by the way. He is a shopkeeper who is approached by a mobster and told he must place a slot machine in his business OR ELSE! Well, he's not having any part of it and goes to the police. However, and this is VERY unusual for the series, the town's political machine is corrupt and soon the mobster is released from custody. So, Neal does what any clear-thinking citizen would do--take on the mob all by himself! What's next? See the film.

This is a rather average film from the Crime Does Not Pay series--and this is NOT bad, as the films generally were well-acted and exciting and this one is no different. Not outstanding but still quite good.

Jack Pot (1940)

*** (out of 4)

Part of MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series with this one looking at illegal gambling in the form of slot machines. This is yet another pretty good entry in the series, although this one here isn't among the best out there. There isn't as much drama this time out but the way the story is told keeps it interesting throughout.

Turner Classic Movies is the best place to catch these Crime Does Not Pay series as they usually show at least one a month. Some have been released to various Warner box sets as well.

This 20-minute film is one of an MGM short series called Crime Does Not Pay. "Jack Pot" is docu-drama about how social tolerance for small, seemingly harmless, illegal practices, can lead to major organized crime. The portrayals in this film indeed show how insidious the spread of crime can be. The culprit in this case is the illegal but seemingly harmless slot machine. The neighborhood drugstore has one, so does the laundry, etc.

The players are good in this film as the plot leads to local corruption and violent crime. An unidentified police chief introduces the film with a warning, "The greatest single menace to honest law enforcement is not sensational gangsterism or any other open lawlessness. It's public apathy." By accepting of petty illegal functions, the public provides a wedge for organized crime to move into in a town or city.

The case is well made in this public service type of short.