Homework Movie - T-Men

You're probably thinking a movie about currency is going be pretty boring, huh?! Well, aside from the opening statement from the real treasury department, the movie T-men is anything but boring. Anthony Mann's 40's crime noir is peppered with humor that you wouldn't expect, intrigue at every corner, and an intimate cast that's very engaging for it's time or any other decade.

We get to look into the lives of two federal treasury department agents lives as they circle a crime ring that's been smuggling fake bank notes into circulation. Dennis O'Keefe and Alfred Ryder star as the two agents, who when given the assignment, have to start infiltrating the criminal organizations they are "stinging" as entry level hoods looking for work. It takes a little work on their part to fit into the group as they go up the ranks to gain trust, and all the while sending word back to the federal department as to their status for progress.

Once the two agents gain the trust of the criminal organization, they start a plan to bring down the whole operation by finding out who’s in charge. At one point they seem to figure out who is on top by how many orders someone takes over the phone. This part was one of the moments that stood out to me as a very funny point to make. You can really tell who's in charge by how much someone has to take down info and what they are told to do. It was a surprise to me for a movie made in the late forties that they would mention the photographer from the club as a possible kingpin, but she did give a lot of orders to the Schemer until towards the end.

Crime dramas today have taken a bit of a cue from movies such as T-Men, in that they show how the operations of both sides of the law get their information through networks and how much goes into every bit of planning. Similar in it's quest to find corruption in society was Force of Evil where a lawyer tries to go strait and becomes tangled into the local numbers racket because of his brother. It challenges morals and ethics, but ultimately, good triumphs over evil.