The Law and the Lab (1956) User Reviews

A look at policework circa 1956

[planktonrules · 5/10 · 1 March 2019]

This short film is from RKO Radio Pictures and is about forensics and police procedures. It begins with a body being discovered in a car. Then, a mobile laboratory arrives to gather evidence and using that evidence, police do a lot of work on foot tracking down leads. It's all mildly interesting but also is presented in a relatively dull fashion...with a narrator describing things instead of allowing the actors to naturally act out the procedures. For major fans of police procedings and forensic science, it's midly interesting as well. It leaves you wanting more.

Law & Order It's Not

[Calaboss · 5/10 · 25 October 2009]

Not CSI either, but this mid 50's short on the semi-details of forensic procedures is about as much as one would expect from the pre-DNA era. Very matter of fact and, frankly, rather droning in nature, it definitely reminds a person of Jack Webb's work, although he had no hand in this. They had their microscopes and vast filing cabinets full of fingerprint cards, but you get the impression that detectives had a hard time of it back then. I think that if you wore gloves and didn't get seen committing the crime, you had a pretty good shot at getting away with it.

Lots of somber nodding accompanies the monotonous narration of this short, but that's pretty much the way they did things back then. When the cops pulled together some guys for a line up, everyone was in the same room, and the witness just walked up and patted the guilty guy on the shoulder (you don't see that very much these days).

If you don't see it, you won't be missing much.

Early, Vague CSI

[boblipton · 5/10 · 18 May 2020]

Here's an RKO Screenliner, one of the many short subjects put out by RKO during their last few years as a major distributor. Like many, it looks less like the sort of fact-filled short subject that told the audience something specific and important, and more a sort of rah-rah film, in which we are told that science finds clues that the D.A. can use as evidence.

Well, that's nothing new, and was something every mystery afficianado has known since Sherlock Holmes talked about his monograph on being able to distinguish some large variety of cigar ashes from each other. Without telling you anything specific that might nail it down for an audience, it simply asserts, in the sort of thing that a movie does poorly: tell, not show.

Decent Short from RKO

[Michael_Elliott · 31 October 2009]

Law and the Lab, The (1956)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Mildly entertaining short from RKO/Pathe has a woman being found dead inside her car so the police have to go to work without any suspects or witnesses. The short then tells how the crime scene unit must gather small bits of evidence, which can then point the police in the right direction to catch the killer. Considering MGM's Crime Does Not Pay series told countless stories like this, this short here really doesn't offer anything new or overly original. The storyline is extremely out of date when compared to today's science but I'm not so sure this stuff wasn't out of date when the film was first released. We really don't get too learn very much about the stuff being used as the short runs a quick 9-minutes and the majority of that time has the narrator simply telling us what's going on but never really saying how any of it is being done. The movie at least moves at a nice pace and the action is pretty good considering what's going on.

"Many a secret lies buried in the clutter of a . . . "

[pixrox1 · 6/10 · 28 January 2020]

" . . . woman's purse," intones the misogynist narrator of THE LAW AND THE LAB. As if it's not bad enough that her gravestone-carving lover has tracked in a clutch of gritty granite debris to mar the floors of this lady's otherwise pristine luxury car, now a pack of snide cynical strangers gets to paw through the contents of her essentials bag. It seems like an American Citizen female's Constitutional Right to Privacy ain't worth the paper on which is isn't written! Back in the 1800s there were some affairs that a career girl was allowed to take to her grave. This was no longer the case by the middle of the 20th Century, THE LAW AND THE LAB reveals, as vast squads of condescending, holier-than-thou Nosey Parkers run around dissecting and Monday Morning Quarterbacking every move made by an eligible young bachelorette. THE LAW AND THE LAB documents how a gang of self-proclaimed caped crusaders are given leave by the Male Chauvinist Pig's Prying Patriarchy to rifle through the private affairs of a female no longer around to defend herself, and titter over pictures of her various paramours with every random Tom, Dick and Barrymore who ever crossed her path! These leering letches will not allow a prolific professional party gal to Rest in Peace (or pieces, as the murky case may be), but instead go to great lengths to dig up dirt about her Past!

While obviously it's just an informational short, it's still entertaining.

[lhmcm · 8/10 · 16 August 2022]

This short film explains how police investigate crimes with fingerprints and such. Of course, it isn't meant for entertainment, but the methods that it teaches the viewers about are interesting.

Obviously, it's not a masterpiece, and it's not supposed to be. But if you have eight minutes to spare, you may as well give it a try.