IN MUCH THE same manner as a snowball's rolling down the proverbial hill will grow and continue to do so, this story begin in a seemingly insignificant incident. It does so and before one realizes it grows into a giant, incontrollable nightmare.
WE FOUND THIS installment of the MC DOAKES Saga to be particularly relevant today; that being some 65+ years later. Although so many things in life change and disappear into near oblivion, others seem to maintain s certain of immortality of their own. One of these is the Traffic Ticket.
OUR STORY TODAY is quite simple in its basic premise and its construction. Simply stated: Mc Doakes get cited by foot patrolman, Officer Flannigan (Don C. Harvey). Joe argues that the traffic signal in question was defective (it was, we saw it-right, Schultz?). No one at any level of local municipal government ever sees it his way; not the cops, not the magistrate in Traffic Court, not the Judge or even the Jury at his self requested trial.
FANTASTICALLY, HE WINDS up in the "Big House". This gives the production team to do a little spoofing of the old Prison Film genre as well as to utilize some stock footage from the WB vaults.
ONE REFRESHING ASPECT of this installment of the series was the street scenes. A bright Southern California beat down on the Warner Brothers' Studio's city street set; where the use of several other automobiles gave a real urban look and made the short appear somehow more expensive.
ONCE AGAIN WE are treated to the presence of a fine group of supporting players. Forming sort of a MC DOAKES repertory company are: Fred Kelsey, Phyllis Coates (as Alice Mc Doakes), Jack Mower, Paul Panzer, Ralph J. Sanford and Willard Waterman.
DARE WE REFER back to the second paragraph before we say "Bye-bye?" We stated that there is probably more identifiable with the people today than most any other MC DOAKES outings. Simply stated, the Traffic ticket (Moving violation or parking) is one thing in life that will always be there. Like the proverbial "Death and Taxes", it is the first thing that the Good Citizen thinks about when he hears the word "POLICE!"