Who are the bad guys in the story? The crooks or the constables? What is Fruit of the Poisonous Tree? Mary Turner vows to pay back her three years of incarceration to her corrupt boss and the District Attorney with interest, discovering that revenge is a balm best served cold(blooded). Whip-smart and devious, Mary studies the Crimes Code while in stir and learns to twist the statutes into supporting her Breach-of-Promise scam, all perfectly legal and binding, upon release.
The film begins with Mary (Joan Crawford) being sentenced for a crime she swears she didn’t commit, shoplifting. She’s mocked by her boss and the DA as she continues to stridently pleads her innocence, condemning both. The Court sentences her to 3-5 years (holy fuck!) for the crime of theft, not embezzlement of thousands of dollars, mind you, but items from the department store where she clerked (for $16 a week) that were found in her locker. Though I’m unfamiliar with the contemporary era crimes code, I find it difficult to believe that it’s anywhere near the Felony threshold. The battle lines drawn, it becomes obvious that her wealthy boss, living off the hard work of his poorly paid employees, and the police that support him, are the bad guys of this tempestuous tale. Once paroled, Mary’s cohorts soon include the vibrant and sexually charged Agnes (Marie Prevost) and the loyal Joe Garson (Robert Armstrong), who wears his own heart on his sleeve for Mary, but she has eyes for another. Not only does her scam net her gang some healthy profit from rich old men who can’t keep their hands (or other appendages) off the vivacious Agnes, but Mary has her own profitable racket on the side: she seduces the naive son of her former boss!
With over 20 years' experience in a District Attorney’s Office, let me say a few words about the police in this film: their authoritarian entitlement is disgusting. They enter without warrants, ignore a Common Pleas Judge’s restraining order, continue to berate, belittle and intimidate our protagonists after they ask for an attorney, threaten the electric chair to elicit a response, and even point a fucking gun at Garson while demanding he confess! I know this was decades before Miranda and Hamilton v Alabama, but it’s discouraging to see how our Constitution courted Fascist ideals, framed (or hidden) within the illusion of a Democracy. But the worst act is the final one, as an undercover cop (or informant, it was unclear) entraps our gang by implanting the idea of a crime that is an elaborate ambush by the police to capture and punish Mary and her partners, for no other reason than to ensure she doesn’t corrupt her ex-boss’s son!
So, Garson and his crew are told that the Mona Lisa is hanging in the boss’s house and a local museum curator will pay $200,00 cash upon receipt. Obviously, they’re not very sophisticated (who would believe this?) but Garson gives way to the temptation of one last score (sans Mary). When Mary and her boyish husband intervene and the informer revealed, this nark pulls a gun and is shot dead by Garson. Chaos ensues. Garson escapes over the rooftops and one of the crew falls to his death (which we get to see from a high angle shot, plummet and impact!) but Mary and her husband are discovered at the scene. Bullying and emotional torture (without charge, BTW) become police procedure upon the two, as they try every trick to get them to give up Garson. But here’s the catch: there is some damn poisonous fruit being eaten here! Since the police entrapped Garson by creating the very idea of the crime itself, everything that happens during the burglary (including the murder) should be suppressed! If the police discovered a plan and laid in wait, or even infiltrated the group with an informant, then this isn’t a legal issue. However, this is textbook entrapment and Garson should be freed upon a suppression hearing. Instead, the police lead Garson to certain death, while Mary cries for her friend. It’s only a happy ending for the Fascists.
Final Grade: (B+)