Let 'em Have It

In 1930s America, three young men join the newly formed federal investigation bureau. They train, learn methods like fingerprinting and ballistics, and go after the bank robbers sweeping the country. The man they want has a prominent scar on his face and goes to a plastic surgeon to be rid of it. The film is not interested in crime. It is interested in a new institution introducing itself: it is openly a work praising the federal bureau and arguing the superiority of scientific method over gangsters. One of the cultural answers to the real crime wave of the period. The form is thirties crime: fast cutting, laboratory scenes, gunfights and a short running time. The surgery section is unexpectedly harsh for the genre. Sam Wood directed. The film belongs to the wave in which Hollywood stopped making heroes of gangsters and put law enforcement at the centre; pressure from the censorship board drove that change. Richard Arlen plays the agent and Bruce Cabot the scarred criminal. Cabot's finish is the most remembered thing in it. Who it is for: viewers who like classical-era crime and law-enforcement narratives. Who it is not for: anyone after complexity. The film is close to propaganda, its characters are one-dimensional and the romance is unnecessary.