Counterfeit (1936)
Thriller Concerning 'T-Men' Seen at Globe
B.R.C.
Published: July 20, 1936
An almost morbid zeal for self-sacrifice appears to be creeping into inter-office relations at the Department of Justice. Not content with being gassed, machine-gunned and bombed by the underworld, the boys are now going out of their way to take it on the chin from their own undercover people—romantic young investigators, for example, as reckless with socks-in-the-jaw as Chester Morris is in "Counterfeit" at the Globe. When Chester is told to sock somebody—even a colleague— Chester socks to kill, if only from force of cinema habit.
But the shellacking taken by the agent in this particular case is small-time masochism. You should see what Chester does to ingratiate himself with Lloyd Nolan, leader of the counterfeit gang who loves to toy learnedly with his Phi Beta Kappa key—like Mr. George Arliss with a monocle. When a couple of "T-men" (Treasury operatives) come bowling along in a car, Chester shoots their tires out and watches with scientific detachment while they are hurtled through a billboard at approximately seventy-eight miles an hour.
After this impressive display of loyalty, Chester not only fools the scholarly Lloyd and Margot Grahame, his adoring moll, and Marian Marsh, her law-abiding ingénue sister who is unwillingly caught up in the gang's meshes, but he nearly fools the audience. In fact, if Columbia's "T-men" (who can't be G-men because Warner Brothers say grr-r when any one approaches this meaty phrase) ever succeed in stamping out Federal crimes from the cinema, it will be a triumph due to them for putting on a better criminal act than the criminals themselves.
The picture opens with what was obviously intended to be a neat twist, and very nearly is, showing the kidnapping of a master engraver right out of the bureau at Washington, and the elaborate plot to make it appear that he has been cremated in a burning automobile. When a flood of bad bills of unprecedented artistry appears in the Middle West, investigators are puzzled till they find the clue on one of the bills. It would not be fair, in more ways than one, to tell at length how they and Chester affect the engraver's rescue.
COUNTERFEIT, from a story by William Rankin; screen play by Mr. Rankin and Bruce Manning; directed by Erie C. Kenton; produced by B. P. Schulberg for Columbia.
John Joseph Madden . . . . . Chester Morris
Aimee Maxwell . . . . . Margot Grahame
Capper Stevens . . . . . Lloyd Nolan
Verna Maxwell . . . . . Marian Marsh
Tom Perkins . . . . . Claude Gillingwater
Angel White . . . . . George McKay
Pete Dailey . . . . . John Gallaudet
Gus . . . . . Gene Morgan
Matt McDonald . . . . . Pierre Watkins
Dint Coleman . . . . . Marc Lawrence
