Larceny, Inc.

Premiered April 24, 1942.

Today we review the Christmas crime comedy Larceny, Inc., which includes contributions from multiple Academy Award winners.

Broderick Crawford won Best Actor for his portrayal of Willie Stark in All The King's

Men (1949).  

The Academy honored Jane Wyman with the Best Actress Oscar in 1948 for Johnny Belinda.  

Anthony Quinn won two Best Supporting Actor Academy Awards for his roles in Viva Zapata! (1952) and Lust For Life (1956).  

Larceny, Inc. is based on a play called The Night Before Christmas, which was written by the husband and wife writing team of Laura and S.J. Perelman.  In 1956, S.J. Perelman won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Around The World In 80 Days.  

1942 lobby card for Larceny, Inc.

J. Chalmers "Pressure" Maxwell (Edward G. Robinson) has just gotten out of prison and has decided to pursue legitimate ways of making money.  His former henchman Jug Martin (Broderick Crawford) has also just been released.  Another prisoner named Leo Dexter (Anthony Quinn) asks them to help him rob a bank when he gets out, but Maxwell turns him down.

Pressure plans to move to Florida and open a dog track with help from his adopted daughter Denny (Jane Wyman), but they're short on funding.  When a bank rejects Pressure's request for a loan, he decides to rob the bank...but not in the traditional way.

The bank is next door to a luggage store.  Pressure buys the shop from the owner and plans to break into the bank's vault through the basement wall.  Their robbery will take place on Christmas Eve.  He and Jug enlist their old friend Weepy Davis (Edward Brophy) and the three would-be thieves begin the process of breaking through the bank's walls. 

Their plans are complicated when smooth-talking luggage salesman Jeff Randolph (Jack Carson) gets Pressure to buy more luggage.  Pressure encourages Denny to go out with Jeff to keep her from finding out about their bank heist.

A funny thing happens while the crooks are planning their crime: the luggage shop turns into a VERY profitable venture.  The owners of neighboring shops come to respect Pressure and they see him as a leader of their community. This gives Pressure second thoughts about going through with the Christmas Eve heist.  When Denny learns of the planned robbery, she encourages Pressure to keep buying new luggage from Jeff, so she can discourage Pressure from pursuing a criminal lifestyle. 

Things get even more complicated when Leo Baxter shows up and learns about Pressure's plans for Christmas Eve.  Leo is determined to enlist Pressure's gang in robbing the bank and will force them to do so at gunpoint if necessary.  

Will Pressure, Jug and Weepy go through with their plans to rob the bank?  Will Leo Dexter ruin Christmas for everyone?

J.A. Morris says:

I've always been a big fan of gangster films and in the 1930s and 40s, Edward G. Robinson was the king of Hollywood's gangsters.  Larceny, Inc. gives Robinson the chance to poke fun at this tough guy image and he's great in this movie.  

Broderick Crawford and Edward Brophy are equally good as Pressure's hapless henchmen.  There's a funny running gag where Jug gets hit by a car so he can threaten to sue drivers and get funds for Pressure's schemes.  

Plus, the movie ends with both Robinson and Crawford wearing a Santa suit, and a Salvation Army band playing "Silent Night" in the luggage shop, which adds lots of Yuletide atmosphere. 

If there's anything that didn't work, I felt like we got a bit too much of Denny and Jeff's budding romance.  However, the characters (and the actors who play them) are likeable, so it doesn't really detract from the film.  

A few notes about the cast:

Jack Carson plays Jeff Randolph.  He also appears in Arsenic And Old Lace, another holiday (Halloween) film we've reviewed here.  

Grant Mitchell has small role as Mr. Aspinwall.  Mitchell also appeared in Arsenic And Old Lace and
in two other classic Christmas films, The Man Who Came To Dinner and It Happened On 5th Avenue.  

Jackie Gleason, years before he became one of the biggest stars of television, has a small role as a soda jerk.  

Last, but not least, near the end of the film, Jug has an altercation with a passerby portrayed by Arthur Q. Bryan. 

Arthur Q. Bryan makes a brief cameo.

That name may be unfamiliar, but Bryan was the voice of Elmer Fudd from 1939 to 1959.

Larceny, Inc. features an amazing cast and is fun to watch from beginning to end, filled with lots of laughs, but also tension.  This is the first gangster comedy Christmas movie we've reviewed and it gets my highest rating.

J.A. Morris' rating:

4 candy canes!

RigbyMel says:

Larceny, Inc. is a lighthearted spoof of gangster movies.   It's also an early(ish) entry in what I'd call the "Christmas caper" subgenre of holiday film.   

As J.A. Morris notes, the cast of this film is absolutely top-notch and the comedy is pulled off with great aplomb and timing by folks like Edward G. Robinson that we don't tend to automatically associate with comedic roles.  Seeing Robinson's fast talking con artist character literally scam the suit off a prison warden's back in addition to the crazy schemes he talks his associates into makes me smile every time I watch this movie, I've seen it quite a few times in recent years.  So I can attest that it holds up to repeated viewing.  

Santa Pressure with the original luggage store owner (played by character actor Harry Davenport, who is probably best known for playing Dr. Meade in Gone With The Wind)

And Edward Brophy's character Weepy is a humorous wise guy type who discovers that he has an unexpected talent as a luggage salesman, while also engaging in silliness like trying to hide a drill in a Christmas tree.  

No stolen drills here!  Nope!!  

Speaking of Edward Brophy,  I had a "hey it's that guy" moment with him when we watched Larceny, Inc. for the first time a couple of years ago.  I couldn't quite place where I knew Brophy's voice from, but was convinced that he sounded very familiar.  Upon further research, I learned that Brophy appeared in a number of gangster and detective movies, but I realized that I knew him best as the (uncredited) voice of Timothy Mouse in Disney's 1941 animated classic Dumbo. 

Timothy Q. Mouse from Dumbo

The fact that the luggage shop scam starts to prove legitimately profitable in spite of our loveably incorrigible gang of misfit's best efforts (as well as Denny's efforts to help keep them on the straight and narrow), adds to the fun and feeds into the idea of the holidays transforming people for the better in an unusual way.     

We also get a "good criminal" / "bad criminal" contrast with Robinson & friends' juxtaposition with the more ruthless character played - to perfection - by Anthony Quinn which heightens the drama of the attempted bank caper. 

Larceny, Inc. is a fun and somewhat unconventional holiday caper comedy and it's definitely worth your time if you're looking for something a bit different for your holiday viewing!   

RigbyMel's rating: 

4 candy canes!

Looney Tunes: "The Wearing of the Grin"

Premiered July 28, 1951

It is a dark and stormy night and 12 miles to Dublin.   

Porky Pig (Mel Blanc) spies a "quaint old" castle in the distance and decides to see they can give him a place to stay for the night. 

On the way to the castle, he sees a sign that says "Beware the Leprechauns" and scoffs at the idea. 

Upon arrival, Porky is greeted by a "picturesque caretaker of the auld sod" who introduces himself as Seamus O'Toole  (an uncredited John T. Smith).  O'Toole informs him that nobody lives in the castle - apart from himself and the leprechauns. 

Porky scoffs at this again and demands to be taken to a room, slamming the front door.  This causes a mace above the door to fall, knocking Porky out cold. 

The caretaker is revealed to be a couple of leprechauns (calling themselves O'Pat and O'Mike) who, in true fairy fashion, decide to mess with Porky's head after concluding that he has come to steal their pot of gold. 

When Porky comes to, he is escorted to a room by HALF of the caretaker and doesn't notice at first. When he does notice, Porky is terrified and hides in the bed, which turns out to be a trap door! 

Porky drops down a shaft, landing in a leprechaun courtroom.  There the leprechauns charge and convict him of attempting to steal their pot of gold and sentence him to the "wearing of the green shoes." 

At first Porky admires the nice shoes, but soon comes to realize that they are cursed, as his feet begin a frantic Irish jig that dances him through a nightmarish landscape full of Irish symbols while O'Pat and O'Mike laugh at him. 

Will Porky be able to escape the leprechaun's trickery?  Or is he doomed to the "wearing of the green shoes" for all eternity? 

RigbyMel says: 

This Chuck Jones-directed short is the last solo appearance of Porky Pig in the classic era of Looney Tunes.  Porky was Warner Brothers' breakout star when he debuted, but had since been eclipsed by Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny.  

"The Wearing of the Grin" also stands out since there are not all that many St. Patrick's Day themed cartoons out there.   Some might argue that the short doesn't explicitly take place on March 17th, but with all the leprechaun mischief and Irish symbols (like harps and shamrocks), I think it has enough Irish detail to qualify as a "holiday" short.  

The green shoes plot point in this short borrows heavily from Hans Christian Andersen's 1845 fairy tale "The Red Shoes," which concerns a pair of ballet slippers that never let their wearer stop dancing.  His jig through an amazing surrealist Salvador Dali-inspired landscape is quite memorable.  

It's also interesting to note that the title of this short is a reference to "The Wearing of the Green," an old Irish street ballad. 

The animation is a lot of fun to watch and the voice work is - as always - great.  If there's a complaint to be made about this short, it's that the "Irishness" is a bit overly broad and stereotypical, but as this is a cartoon, broad and stereotypical work reasonably well for comedic purposes.  

"The Wearing of the Grin" is a silly and enjoyable short and is worth including in your holiday viewing this March.  

RigbyMel's rating: 

3 shamrocks

Daffy Duck's Easter Egg-Citement

Premiered April 1, 1980.

Three Easter/Spring-themed cartoon shorts starring some of your favorite Looney Tunes characters!

With Easter approaching, the pressure is on for hens, since Easter is peak egg producing season. Foghorn Leghorn tells his employees they need to speed up production so they have enough eggs for the holiday. Foghorn puts extra pressure on Miss Prissy, who hasn't laid a good egg in months.  She keeps laying oddly-shaped eggs.

This changes when she lays a golden egg!  She thinks it's bad news and tosses it down a hill.

Nearby, Daffy Duck and Sylvester are hungry and scrounging for food.

When they decide to steal an egg from a chicken coop, they wind up stumbling on the golden egg.

This creates a conflict between Daffy and his feline "pal," because they both have dreams of using the egg to gain riches.

Elsewhere, a chocolate factory in Mexico is producing Easter candy.  The factory's owners hire Daffy to guard the chocolate from the local mice.  The town's mayor collects all the money the people have in an attempt to buy chocolate bunnies for the kids.  Daffy takes the money, but he sends the mayor away without any candy.

When all hope seems lost, Speedy Gonzalez, fastest mouse in all Mexico appears on the scene and is determined to save Easter for the children.

But Daffy takes his duty as security guard seriously and pulls out all stops to defeat Speedy.

In the special's final short, as winter turns to spring, Daffy flies north with a flock of ducks.  But Daffy's tired of the same old routine and decides to try a different method of migration.

He tries hitch hiking and skiing, but gets nowhere.  Daffy eventually finds a horse and decides to ride it up north, but the horse is not on board with this idea.

J.A. Morris says:
Longtime readers of this blog know that we're huge fans of classic Warner Brothers cartoons and that Daffy was a big part of our childhood.  However, this Easter special is a big step down in quality from the earlier Daffy shorts.

It's worth noting that when Daffy Duck's Easter Egg-Citement premiered on NBC, the network also aired The Daffy Duck Show as part of its Saturday morning lineup.  This show mostly consisted of cartoons produced in the 1960s by the Depatie-Freleng company that also featured Speedy Gonzalez, Foghorn Leghorn and Sylvester shorts.  NBC did not have the rights to air Bugs Bunny cartoons, which is why everyone's favorite "Wascally Wabbit" doesn't appear in this special.

The positive part of this is that in Bugs' absence, we get to see Daffy interact with characters like Sylvester and (briefly) Foghorn Leghorn, something rarely seen in the classic shorts.
The show opens with Daffy talking to his animators, a nice (if obvious) call-back to the classic "Duck Amuck" cartoon.  It's a fun bit (Daffy calls the animator a "Van Gogh of vandalism!") but ultimately it just makes you notice that this Easter special is inferior.

The two Easter-themed shorts were entertaining and the Speedy toon made me smile a bit (especially Daffy's encounter with a vat of chocolate), and Mel Blanc does a nice job with all the voices.  The last short deals with duck migration and has nothing to do Easter.  It's the weakest portion of the special.  However, this special isn't a "forgotten classic" by any means.  Daffy Duck's Easter Egg-Citement rarely made me laugh, but it's generally enjoyable and fans of Daffy and the other characters will want to seek it out if they haven't seen it.

This special is available on DVD.  It can be found on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume 6.

Daffy Duck's Easter Egg-Citement is mildly entertaining, especially the Speedy short, and nicely animated.  I'm giving it a marginal endorsement for Looney Toons fanatics, but it's not likely to become a part of anyone's annual Easter viewing.

J.A. Morris' rating:

2 and a half Easter Eggs.

RigbyMel says: 

As J.A. Morris, says this special was produced by the Depatie-Freleng company, which also produced things like the classic 1970s Dr. Seuss specials featuring the Lorax and the Cat in the Hat as well as the Pink Panther cartoons.   Unfortunately, their work with Looney Tunes characters is not generally characterized as being classic at all.  In fact, many cartoon historians cite the Depatie-Freleng era as the nadir of Looney Tunes production.    I think I am inclined to agree with that school of thought.

To my eye,  Daffy Duck's Easter Egg-Citement feels like a cheaply animated rehash of things that had been done better previously.  The timing seems off and the music cues are nowhere near as cleverly deployed.  It even sounds like Mel Blanc is phoning in his voice characterizations a bit.  It's not utterly awful, but it really does not stand up well when compared to the classic Looney Tunes shorts.
 

It's nice to see Daffy and pals cutting up Easter-style on screen, I just wish the production values and scripting were up to classic standards.

RigbyMel's rating: 

1 and a half Easter Eggs.