WHEN GANGLAND STRIKES
US, 1955, 70 minutes, Black-and-white.
Raymond Greenleaf, Marge Millar, John Hudson, Anthony Caruso, Marian Carr, Slim Pickens, Mary Treen, Morris Ankrum, Addison Richards.
Directed by RG Springsteen.
This is a rather folksy film. While it begins with a murder in a bowling alley, two men enjoying a game and a sinister gangster killing one of them, his then going to Sing Sing to meet a prisoner being released, accompanied by his lawyer, they stop in the small town to deliver a letter. However, the gangster opens the letter with his lawyer and discovers a means by which he can put pressure on a prosecutor getting the murder case transferred to a more favourable court.
Then the film shows the prosecutor at work, a genial elderly man, Raymond Greenleaf, who prosecutes a young man from the town who is accused of robbing $27 from a businessman. The prosecutor so praises the military record of the young man and his heroism, that the jury spontaneous proclaim him innocent. The businessman is upset and starts a petition to remove the prosecutor from office. Complications – the prosecutor’s daughter is in love with the businessman’s nephew who is also a lawyer.
When the case opens, the killer presents the prosecutor with a copy of the letter from the prison, in fact from a woman whom the prosecutor had sent to jail, pregnant, her husband killed during a robbery, and her giving birth in jail with the prosecutor adopting the baby as his daughter. She does not know. The prosecutor then does not cross-examine any of the witnesses and the case is dismissed – however, with one of the charges waived, it is still open and the young man decides to prosecute.
The killer arrives, confronts the businessman hoping to bribe and leaving the copy of the letter. The prosecutor then gently lets his daughter know, read the letter, and she accepts the reality and rushes to meet her boyfriend only to find that the killer has shot the businessman and she is accused and charged with murder.
There are complications for the prosecutor who wants to retire eventually and go fishing with his friend, a strong comic presence of Slim Pickens. However, the housekeeper also has her eye on him.
While the prosecutor comes from out-of-town, savvy wanting publicity, the prosecutor devises a way to test the bullet, asking for court protection against the killer’s chauffeur at the back of the court, the killer losing his temper, getting his gun out, firing his gun into the roof – and so convicting himself.
Happy ending for the girl and the new town prosecutor – and, going fishing for the prosecutor and his friend.
The film was directed by RG Springsteen, a veteran of small budget films, this time at Republic Studios with a much lesser known cast. Raymond Greenleaf is genial as the prosecutor, Anthony Caruso sinister as the killer, Slim Pickens with his comedy and familiar supporting faces like Morris and crime as the corrupt lawyer, Richard Deacon as the second prosceutor and Addison Richards as the upright lawyer.
The blend of crime and folksiness.
