This episode of MGM's long-running CRIME DOES NOT PAY series is a fairly typical one for the period from 1936 through the nation's entry in the Second World War. It concerns fraud of a particular sort. Earlier entries had covered milk, insurance fraud. In this case, it's about medical quacks. We are offered John Miljan, who proposes to cure cancer infallibly through a gizmo and expensive treatment, rather than chancy surgery, the only medically recognized treatment of the era.
Although most fraudsters avoid carrying around guns and committing murder, in this series, they invariably wind up bumping off inconvenient people. I imagine that was the popular thought of the day: start with cheating your friends with a double-headed quarter, and you were less than twenty minutes from arson, murder and jaywalking. Better not start at all, better hew to the straight but narrow path, because CRIME DOES NOT PAY.
Although most fraudsters avoid carrying around guns and committing murder, in this series, they invariably wind up bumping off inconvenient people. I imagine that was the popular thought of the day: start with cheating your friends with a double-headed quarter, and you were less than twenty minutes from arson, murder and jaywalking. Better not start at all, better hew to the straight but narrow path, because CRIME DOES NOT PAY.