CORRUPTION
US, 1933, 67 minutes, Black and white.
Evalyn Knapp, Preston Foster, Charles Delaney, Tully Marshall, Mischa Auer, Jason Robards senior.
Directed by C. Edward Roberts.
Corruption is interesting to look back on in hindsight, a film from the years of the Depression, a look at elections in New York City, reminders of political corruption, party systems, party influence, political bosses – and the challenge for a mayor to clean up the politics as well as the consequent rackets.
Preston Foster plays a young lawyer who is elected mayor, but is intended to be the puppet of the party system. He is encouraged by the party boss and has interviews with the standover tactician. He is also to be engaged with the party boss’s daughter.
However, with the help of his devoted secretary, he gives speeches denouncing corruption and giving his intentions to clean out the city. When the party tactician and his henchmen pull a gun on the mayor after his provoking them, his friends, a journalist and photographer, photograph them causing an expose in the papers. However, the mayor is misled, a seemingly genuine request to visit a family but it is a set up with a provocatively dressed blonde – more photos, scandal in the paper, the mayor loses his job.
It is even worse when there is a scuffle with a gun in an elevator lobby and it seems that the mayor has killed his political rival, the tactician.
The mayor is then taken to court. The judge seems to be corrupt and, listening to all the evidence, framed against the mayor, he is found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In the meantime, one of the examples of corruption was people getting sick because of the contaminated food which was donated in charity, part of a racket. The coroner and a scientist have denounced the corruption.
Finally, the scientist (Miscah Auer) confesses to having killed the tactician – the coroner is puzzled because there was no bullet in the dead man’s body – and explains that he had ice pellets which could be fired from a gun, he has killed others including the judge, a hit list against the corrupt. He then pulls the trigger on himself.
In the meantime, the governor has praised the mayor and has offered him an attorney job when everything is cleared up. His secretary, always devoted and outspoken in her criticisms of corruption, has lent him money to keep going – but is giving up her secretary job to become a closer supporter, his wife.
(There is quite a surprise when the journalist gives the finger to the opponents – not a modern rude gesture after all.)
