1933 Movie: Heroes For Sale http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024115/
SPOILERS Ahead! --- --- --- 2 guys in WW1, one gets injured badly (hero) saving the life of his cowardly comrade. The hero becomes addicted to the morphine that he needed for pain. The cowardly comrade receives the credit and accolades for the surrounding war events. After the war, the coward uses his credits to get the hero a job with his father who owns a bank, but his addiction to morphine forces the father to fire him. The cowardly son never admitting that he wasn't the real war hero. Hero gets over his addiction, gets a new job at a large laundry cleaning service as a pick-up and drop-off driver and marries a woman who runs a restaurant that is slowing being turned into a soup kitchen because her father keeps giving the food away to people in need. They have a baby boy. The Great Depression is on it's way. The cleaning service is losing customers, but the hero is able to attract new customers. The owner calls him in and asks him how he does it. He explains his method, and the owner gives him a new management position and a raise. His neighbor (a communist) tells him the capitalist pigs are just using him and that there has to be a catch to this new found rise. The neighbor goes on to explain that he was the head engineer for the largest laundry cleaning service in Cleveland at one time, so he knows how these capitalist companies work. Hero, wife and other neighbors ignore the communist bantering. A few weeks later the communist neighbor comes to the hero with his new invention; a automated laundry machine that allows 100% greater efficiency. But being a known communist he can't take it to the owner of the cleaning business and be taken seriously. So he wants the hero to use his new found position within the company to sell it for him. Communist says he'll split any profits 50-50 with hero. Owner likes it and brings a lawyer in to draw up a contract. Hero says there's one stipulation: you can't lay-off anyone. Owner agrees to the terms and the contract is drawn up to reflect it. Owner has heart attack and new owners take over. 75% of the employees are laid-off and blame the machine for replacing them. Hero tries to stop them and explain there's been a breach of contract and he's pursuing legal actions, but the angry employees don't listen and start a riot. In the riot his wife is killed, and he's convicted and sent to prison for 5 years as one of the riot leaders. Auntie will take care of his boy and run restaurant. After he gets out of prison, the communist presents him with a check for a lot of money he had made with his machine invention just as he had agreed to split the profits 50-50 with him. The depression is kicking into high gear at this point, so he gives all the money to the former restaurant now turned soup kitchen to help those he had unintentionally put out of work. The communist is now a capitalist and despises the lazy unemployed people. "You used to hate capitalists" hero tells him. "Naturally. That was before I had money". The police are keeping an eye on him because they suspect he's a communist sympathizer. Later they tell him in no uncertain terms to get out of town. He then travels from city to city looking for work, but none is to be found anywhere and police and mobs keep running all the unemployed out of their cities. (In a scene very much like one from The Grapes Of Wrath) Hero finds his way in a driving rain to some make-shift shelter full of unemployed down-and-outers. And who is there? The coward who also lost his job after his banker father died. <Paraphrasing> Hero tells coward; "You know, it's kinda' funny, you coming from the top and finding your way down. And me coming from the bottom and finding my way to the top. And yet we both find ourselves here with nothing". Police come and make sure they leave their county. "Keep walking and don't look back if you know what's good for you!" Ever the optimist, hero tells coward; "at least we have one thing to be grateful about....it's not raining anymore". Hero's boy; "when is daddy coming back?" Auntie; "I don't know. But you remember one thing; he gave everything and never took anything". Hero's boy; "When I grow up I want to be just like my dad". <End> --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
