Buried Loot (1935)

The very first Crime Does Not Pay short subject featured as its protagonist one of MGM's mainstays for the next three decades. When he did his last film for Leo the Lion in 1963 Robert Taylor set a record for the longest running studio contract for any player.Buried Loot is about as humble a beginning as you could have. Taylor is a bank clerk who has embezzled $200,000.00 plus and then goes into his boss and confesses. Says he spent it all, slow horses, fast women, you name it. He gets a 5 to 12 year sentence for his crime.But while figuring on a minimal two year term, Taylor has the money buried in a secure place, hence the title Buried Loot. Do the time and then live it up. But prison not being the wholesome experience can play funny tricks and you have a lot of time to build things up in your mind and have mind games played on you.During those first years at MGM Taylor was the matinée idol and it was always a tossup between him and Tyrone Power over at 20th Century Fox as to who was the handsomest fellow in films. Taylor's own good looks are woven into the plot in a grisly way.How they get him I won't reveal. But think about White Heat and what was done to nail James Cagney.Buried Loot was highly melodramatic but it serve to give good exposure to a star that MGM was building up for a long term investment.

***SPOILERS*** We get the story straight from the horse's mouth the straight talking and no BS MGM Reporter about a man who thought he can profit from his crime who in the end got far more then he expected in an extended stay in the clink for it.Bank teller Albert Douglas had come up with this foolproof plan to embezzle $200,000.00 from the bank,the Seacoast Bank, he worked for by admitting his crime and later, after he served his time behind bars, retrieve it and live happily ever after. Everything worked like clockwork for the brash and sure of himself Douglas getting 5 to 10 years in Sing Sing and with good behavior he's expected to be out on the street a free man after five years with a stash of $200,000.00 waiting for him. It's when Douglas' cell-mate Louie Rattig came up with this plan to crash out of prison that Doglas started to change his mind about stying for the duration of his sentence and joined Louie in the jailbreak. Louie got Douglas to thinking that the stash of cash may not be around, by being discovered, by the time he got out of prison thus leaving him without a pot to you know what in.**SPOILERS*** With both Douglas & Louie now free by impersonating a priest and the father of a convicted murder about to get zapped in the electric chair it's only a matter of time before Douglas checks out the place in the wilds of New Jersey where he hid the stolen money. To make doubly sure that he'll get away with his crime the handsome looking Douglas, played by a 24 year old Robert Taylor, messed his face up with acid having him look like the Frankenstein Monster so that no one would recognize him when he takes off by boat to South America with the stolen loot!As we and Douglas soon finds out all this was for nothing with him being caught in a sting that was set up for him before he even entered a guilty plea in court. Douglas was given by the law enough rope to hang himself and as things turned out it was his both greed and arrogance that ended up doing him in! Albert Douglas found out the hard way something that he should have known before he ever even thought of breaking the law and then manipulating it in his favor: Crime does not pay and he'll pay for that mistake until he's he's old and gray if in fact he gets that far in prison!

This is a very strange MGM short because it stars pretty-boy Robert Taylor in a very untraditional role. Because it was very early in his career, the big-wigs didn't know how to use him and experimented by starring him in this short crime drama--a role quite unlike his soon to be established persona.The film is made in a semi-documentary style and is entitled a "Crime Does Not Pay" film. It begins with a narrator and government official preaching that crime is bad and then the narrator talks about a strange case that proves this assertion. Robert Taylor's character works in a bank and embezzles $200,000 (a HUGE sum of money in 1935) and is naturally sent to jail. However, very oddly, he turns himself in to the boss and doesn't try to run--saying he spent the money gambling and having fun. There's a lot more to it than that but I really don't want to spoil it. Suffice to say, though, that it's pretty exciting and what happens to handsome Taylor's face is pretty cool to see.Overall, while not a great film, it is very unusual as well as a great curio for film history buffs and fans of Hollywood's Golden Age.

"Buried Loot" was an MGM one reel feature written and directed by George Seitz that offers a story that could have been written by O'Henry because of the ironic twist in it. Since the whole cast is not credited, one wonders if the studio intended this short film as a showcase, why not have credits that mentioned the same people featured in it.The story is a simple one about how a bank employee decides to confess to the president of the institution his crime of stealing $200,000.00. What's more, he has squandered all the money. The fact is that cunning Al Douglas figures he will spend time in jail and then after serving a sentence, he will be released ahead of the term by his good behavior to dig out the treasure he has buried. But unfortunately, Al, doesn't count on his cell mate's plan to escape prison.The film presents a young Robert Taylor before he became one of the best and most admired actors of the period. Mr. Taylor is heavily made up, as it was the custom of the early films, but one could see how the camera loved him and his virile presence that made him a favorite of the movie fans."Buried Loot" is one of the best examples of the one reel format.