Sorry, this movie sucks

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Blistering performances.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

The very first Crime Does Not Pay short subject featured as its protagonist one of MGM's mainstays for the next three decades. When he did his last film for Leo the Lion in 1963 Robert Taylor set a record for the longest running studio contract for any player.Buried Loot is about as humble a beginning as you could have. Taylor is a bank clerk who has embezzled $200,000.00 plus and then goes into his boss and confesses. Says he spent it all, slow horses, fast women, you name it. He gets a 5 to 12 year sentence for his crime.But while figuring on a minimal two year term, Taylor has the money buried in a secure place, hence the title Buried Loot. Do the time and then live it up. But prison not being the wholesome experience can play funny tricks and you have a lot of time to build things up in your mind and have mind games played on you.During those first years at MGM Taylor was the matinée idol and it was always a tossup between him and Tyrone Power over at 20th Century Fox as to who was the handsomest fellow in films. Taylor's own good looks are woven into the plot in a grisly way.How they get him I won't reveal. But think about White Heat and what was done to nail James Cagney.Buried Loot was highly melodramatic but it serve to give good exposure to a star that MGM was building up for a long term investment.

I first saw this film on Channel 4 back in 1988 whilst I was in secondary school and remember thinking that this was a good vehicle to showcase Robert Taylor as a future talent. It is far superior to 'Society Doctor' simply we see him scheming when he is in court being given a prison sentence. It has the feel of the 'Scotland Yard' short subjects. We see him enjoying himself in prison playing the game until it is time for him to be released and free to enjoy his $200,000. However, the idea is dropped into his head that whilst he is in prison someone may discover his buried loot and leave him with nothing. You see the smile drop from his face and replaced with a dark gloom. There is darkness in Robert Taylor, and it is pity that he always played protagonists because he had enough darkness in him to play antagonists like in 'Undercurrent'.

***SPOILERS*** We get the story straight from the horse's mouth the straight talking and no BS MGM Reporter about a man who thought he can profit from his crime who in the end got far more then he expected in an extended stay in the clink for it.Bank teller Albert Douglas had come up with this foolproof plan to embezzle $200,000.00 from the bank,the Seacoast Bank, he worked for by admitting his crime and later, after he served his time behind bars, retrieve it and live happily ever after. Everything worked like clockwork for the brash and sure of himself Douglas getting 5 to 10 years in Sing Sing and with good behavior he's expected to be out on the street a free man after five years with a stash of $200,000.00 waiting for him. It's when Douglas' cell-mate Louie Rattig came up with this plan to crash out of prison that Doglas started to change his mind about stying for the duration of his sentence and joined Louie in the jailbreak. Louie got Douglas to thinking that the stash of cash may not be around, by being discovered, by the time he got out of prison thus leaving him without a pot to you know what in.**SPOILERS*** With both Douglas & Louie now free by impersonating a priest and the father of a convicted murder about to get zapped in the electric chair it's only a matter of time before Douglas checks out the place in the wilds of New Jersey where he hid the stolen money. To make doubly sure that he'll get away with his crime the handsome looking Douglas, played by a 24 year old Robert Taylor, messed his face up with acid having him look like the Frankenstein Monster so that no one would recognize him when he takes off by boat to South America with the stolen loot!As we and Douglas soon finds out all this was for nothing with him being caught in a sting that was set up for him before he even entered a guilty plea in court. Douglas was given by the law enough rope to hang himself and as things turned out it was his both greed and arrogance that ended up doing him in! Albert Douglas found out the hard way something that he should have known before he ever even thought of breaking the law and then manipulating it in his favor: Crime does not pay and he'll pay for that mistake until he's he's old and gray if in fact he gets that far in prison!

An MGM CRIME DOES NOT PAY Short Subject.An imprisoned embezzler begins to worry about the $200,000 in BURIED LOOT he's secreted in New Jersey.This two-reeler was the first in a series featuring true crime stories told in a compelling, hard-hitting fashion. It is well plotted & acted, with no dull moments or unnecessary subplots. No cast credits are given, but movie mavens will enjoy the ripe performance of Robert Taylor, only steps away from discovery & stardom, as the bad guy consumed not by conscience but by fears of ultimate failure to enjoy his ill-gotten gains.Many of the prison shots were lifted right out of MGM's classic feature THE BIG HOUSE (1930).Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something like writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.