I stumbled upon this largely forgotten 1942 comedy earlier today. It turns out that it was a very good movie, up there with any feature length comedy of that era. Eddie G Robinson, Broderick Crawford, and Ed Brophy (BEER AND PRETZELS) were great together and showed a lot of chemistry. It left me wishing they had done more films together, but I think this is the only one all three did together. Fred Kelsey has a brief role and Jackie Gleason is nearly unrecognizable in an early role as a soda jerk. If I didn't read ahead of time that it was Gleason, I'm not sure I would have made the connection. Jane Wyman, Jack Carson, and Harry Davenport round out the great supporting cast.
The plot almost seems like something that came out of a Stooge short. Three ex-cons look to buy a dog track, but can't finance it, so they buy a luggage store next door to the bank and hope to build a tunnel from the store to the bank vault. Tunneling into a bank vault was reminiscent of CASH AND CARRY. Hijinks with tools, gushing water and oil, are present.
TCM will air it next on 12/9 @ 8 PM ET. Definitely worth looking into.
Clip: http://fan.tcm.com/_Larceny-Inc-1942-Edward-G-Robinson/video/741182/66470.html
