Another round of shorts: March 1, 2014

I've mentioned the short La Fiesta de Santa Barbara before; it's airing again on TCM tomorrow morning at about 9:23 AM, or just after Grand Hotel (7:30 AM, 113 min). There's not much more to be added to what I wrote a year ago, so for those who can't be bothered to click on the link let me just point out that it's got Judy Garland with her sisters, before she was a star. If you like Garland, that alone makes the short worth watching. If not, there are still a bunch of other stars and lovely color.

Before that, however, you can watch a couple of Crime Does Not Pay shorts. The first of these is A Gun in His Hand, at about 2:40 AM, or just after For Whom the Bell Tolls (midnight, 156 min plus an intro and conluding remarks from Robert Osborne). This one looks at how a gangster with a clean record joins the police force for the express purpose of getting the gun and badge, giving him the priviliege of being able to go around the city much more freely. This aids him and his gang in their scheme to rob all the booze distributors. Things go well until another patrolman is killed during one of the robberies. It's interesting, although of course it's got the heavy-handed touch that MGM tended to put in these Crime Does Not Pay shorts, which were intended to inform the public as much as entertain.

The other Crime Does Not Pay short, which I think falls further down the "inform" part of the inform vs. entertain spectrum, is Drunk Driving at 7:05 AM, or after Madame Curie (5:00 AM, 124 min). I said last year that it's a bit heavy-handed, although I might temper that a bit by saying the heavy-handedness in some of these Crime Does Not Pay shorts is enough to turn them intu unintentionally funny things. Drunk Driving is one of those shorts.

I didn't check to see whether any of these are extras on DVDs of other movies.