The general idea of this film is a good one: In the run-up to the Great Depression and stock market crash, and then in their throes and wake, high-level executives have been cutting corners and cooking the books at a financial firm, first trying to get rich and then trying to hide their titanic losses. A city district attorney gets wind of the fraud, and is murdered to halt his investigation. The murder is made to look like the work of a jealous mistress, bringing scandal upon his name. But the new district attorney and a journalist who is his close friend don't believe the conclusions of the police, and set-out to uncover the truth.
But the execution is very poor. This story is full of holes, of pieces that don't really fit, of loose ends.
The story hangs upon people being even less communicative than the typical lack-wits of real-life. For example, this district attorney has basically told no one, in his office or amongst his confidantes, which firm he has been investigating. Eventually a scrap of paper turns-up amongst his effects; but beyond that he seems to have kept no records beyond whatever he might have carried on his person when he was killed.
An initial scene shows a process of repeatedly subcontracting a crime through a series of middle-men, each passing on the job for half of what he receives, so that the immediate perpetrator receives on 5% of the initial payment. Yet it is a sudden and completely unexplained short-circuiting of that intermediation which allows the journalist to develop an idea of who would be the immediate perpetrator. Since the fellow who originally took the assignment gets few of the benefits of intermediation, he might as well have pocketted its cost.
The journalist, in any case, collects sufficient evidence to establish the identity of the immediate perpetrator. But he doesn't give the evidence or information to his friend the new district attorney. (Perhaps by way of an explanation, the journalist does make the insulting insinuation that the new district attorney might participate in the cover-up for personal profit, but the journalist could have talked to the police as well.) Instead, the journalist kidnaps the perpetrator. It's not clear where and how the journalist keeps the fellow.
With the perpetrator removed, the journalist then continues his investigation, and basically learns nothing more. The story is just spinning its wheels as far as he is concerned. The district attorney, in the mean-time, gets a couple of notes-ex-machina, without which his investigation is utterly inert.
Finally, we learn that the some of the killers have been stringing the journalist along, to find out what he knows. Amongst them are the fellow whom he kidnapped, who has escaped as mysteriously as he was being held. Under threat of death, the journalist is persuaded to summon the district attorney, so that the killers can dispatch them both. But the district attorney becomes conveniently suspicious of behavior for which an innocent explanation could easily be produced, and the day is saved.
Meanwhile, the highest official of the financial firm has learned of the fraud, and commits a murder-suicide so that insurance can repay the missing funds. Too bad for the investors in the insurance firm, but apparently: policies for many millions of dollars were written on the lives of just two executives; the insurer didn't grasp the problem of moral hazard, and write the policies to exclude payment in the event of suicide; and the insurer is sufficiently solvent to make a huge payment, even while the rest of the financial structure seems to be in crisis.
The wife of the previous, murdered district attorney is ecstatic that her husbands name has been cleared. Perhaps she looks forward to telling him about it when he gets home.
BTW: This movie is amongst those that perpetrate the notion that "blanks can't hurt you", which notion killed Jon-Erik Hexum. And what Vanderbilt said in full was "The public be damned! I'm working for my stockholders."
But the execution is very poor. This story is full of holes, of pieces that don't really fit, of loose ends.
The story hangs upon people being even less communicative than the typical lack-wits of real-life. For example, this district attorney has basically told no one, in his office or amongst his confidantes, which firm he has been investigating. Eventually a scrap of paper turns-up amongst his effects; but beyond that he seems to have kept no records beyond whatever he might have carried on his person when he was killed.
An initial scene shows a process of repeatedly subcontracting a crime through a series of middle-men, each passing on the job for half of what he receives, so that the immediate perpetrator receives on 5% of the initial payment. Yet it is a sudden and completely unexplained short-circuiting of that intermediation which allows the journalist to develop an idea of who would be the immediate perpetrator. Since the fellow who originally took the assignment gets few of the benefits of intermediation, he might as well have pocketted its cost.
The journalist, in any case, collects sufficient evidence to establish the identity of the immediate perpetrator. But he doesn't give the evidence or information to his friend the new district attorney. (Perhaps by way of an explanation, the journalist does make the insulting insinuation that the new district attorney might participate in the cover-up for personal profit, but the journalist could have talked to the police as well.) Instead, the journalist kidnaps the perpetrator. It's not clear where and how the journalist keeps the fellow.
With the perpetrator removed, the journalist then continues his investigation, and basically learns nothing more. The story is just spinning its wheels as far as he is concerned. The district attorney, in the mean-time, gets a couple of notes-ex-machina, without which his investigation is utterly inert.
Finally, we learn that the some of the killers have been stringing the journalist along, to find out what he knows. Amongst them are the fellow whom he kidnapped, who has escaped as mysteriously as he was being held. Under threat of death, the journalist is persuaded to summon the district attorney, so that the killers can dispatch them both. But the district attorney becomes conveniently suspicious of behavior for which an innocent explanation could easily be produced, and the day is saved.
Meanwhile, the highest official of the financial firm has learned of the fraud, and commits a murder-suicide so that insurance can repay the missing funds. Too bad for the investors in the insurance firm, but apparently: policies for many millions of dollars were written on the lives of just two executives; the insurer didn't grasp the problem of moral hazard, and write the policies to exclude payment in the event of suicide; and the insurer is sufficiently solvent to make a huge payment, even while the rest of the financial structure seems to be in crisis.
The wife of the previous, murdered district attorney is ecstatic that her husbands name has been cleared. Perhaps she looks forward to telling him about it when he gets home.
BTW: This movie is amongst those that perpetrate the notion that "blanks can't hurt you", which notion killed Jon-Erik Hexum. And what Vanderbilt said in full was "The public be damned! I'm working for my stockholders."