Inside the Law

This C picture was directed by Hamilton MacFadden, who directed some Charlie Chan pictures, but this was done on an even lower budget, say five dollars. Wallace Ford, known for years as a supporting character actor, actually achieved top billing in this, though there was little for him to do, certainly no acting. The film manages to be consistently amusing, despite being so low-grade. A group of seven con men and women start the picture by staging a fake fight at a Manhattan auction, and after the melee has ended they have vanished and so have the wallets and watches of everyone present. After this, they decide to head west, which is portrayed by an extraordinary montage sequence of changing scenery, with them ending up beside a road sign saying Los Angeles City Limits. They stop and scratch their heads and say: 'But where is Los Angeles?' because there is nothing there but bush and scrub. This was evidently meant to be a joke. Then a drunk driver turns up, is arrested and put away for thirty days, and they naturally pick his pockets, thereby gleaning a letter of introduction to take over a bank in the area. They all move in as the 'staff', only to find that the bank vault is empty, having been robbed. So instead of robbing it themselves, they have to fill it first, by soliciting deposits, which they successfully do. Then they decide why steal it when they can go straight, settle down, and go on running 'their' bank. Then one of them double-crosses them and waves various guns around, but ends up stealing an empty suitcase, and of course there is a suspicious sheriff who wants to arrest them all, and it gets more and more complicated. The script could have done very well with a good cast and director, but it holds up with a bad cast and bad director nonetheless. Well, not every film is brilliant, sometimes they are merely like this. It's short, funny, and corny, what more do you want?