Underworld Scandal (a.k.a. Scandal in Big Town)

Genre: Drama
Released: 1948
Directed by: William C. Thomas
Starring: Stanley Clements, Hillary Brooke, Phillip Reed, Tommy Bond
Alfalfa portrays: Frankie Sneed, member of the Big Town Big Shots basketball team
Alfalfa's screen time: 7:09
Lines of dialogue spoken by Alfalfa: 21

Alfalfa (center) as "Frankie Sneed". At far left is Darryl
Hickman; next to Hickman is Tommy Bond.

Alfalfa plays Frankie Sneed, a member of a bunch of street kids from a city called "Big Town". Frankie and his pals get caught one night sacking a sporting goods store. At the juvenile court hearing, a reporter from the local paper (Hillary "Abbott and Costello Show" Brooke) convinces the judge to put the boys into the custody of Steve Brodie, the paper's managing editor. At first, Brodie is reluctant, but he soon dives into his new responsibility headfirst, supervising the construction of a rec center and the formation of an official basketball team: The Big Town Big Shots.


Nice sign, but perhaps it
needs to be a bit more
generic?

The team's captain is Tommy Malone (played by Stanley Clements, who appeared with Alfalfa in "Going My Way".) Tommy gets mixed up with some thieves and gangsters who use Tommy to help them manage their stolen fur ring. Soon Tommy is flashing monogrammed cigarette cases, and buying his girlfriend expensive watches. Steve Brodie suspects something is amiss, but can't do anything except give Tommy some strict warnings.



Two shots of Alfalfa as a member of the "Big Shots". Note
Tommy Bond and Darryl Hickman (Hickman in foreground
in picture at right.) Click both to enlarge.

One day after practice, a deaf and dumb member of the team (Tommy Bond, who plays the indelicately-named "Dum Dum") discovers that there is a stash of stolen furs in the basement of the rec center. The rest of the Big Town Big Shots get Tommy Malone to admit his complicity, and he agrees to bring the furs back to the store from whence they came, with his teammates' help. That night, one of the boys, Pinkie Jones, get killed by the cops when the switch goes wrong. The rest of the boys escape. Inexplicably, none of them are even questioned, so they go about their business as usual the next night by playing a big game against the Basketball Giants (presumably, they have all been able to work through their grief.) The gangsters expect Tommy to continue throwing games for them (Tommy's poor play against a team called the "Scrubs" led to a loss for the Big Shots in a previous game, and as Tommy Malone goes, so go the Big Shots, as we are reminded by the game's play-by-play announcer.) But Tommy, distraught at the shooting of Pinkie, decides to renege on his deal with the gangsters and play legit. The gangsters, sitting in the first row of the mezzanine, shoot Tommy just as he makes the winning basket. As the rest of the Big Shots surround the fallen Tommy, it is Alfalfa who boldly fingers the shooters.


Alfalfa ID's Tommy Malone's assailants. Click both to enlarge.

The cops subdue one of them, but the other is about to get away until Dum Dum (Tommy Bond) swings on a rope hanging from the ceiling and knocks the bad guy down from the mezzanine all the way to the court.


Tommy Bond as Dum-Dum, "the deaf and dumb boy".

Tommy Malone survives the shooting and from his hospital bed, surrounded by his teammates and well-wishers, pledges to take his punishment like a man and expresses his wish that the Big Town Big Shots don't suffer because of his own mistakes. After leaving the hospital room, Hillary Brooke plants a well-deserved smooch on Steve Brodie for all his help as the film fades to black.

This is a standard late-forties era gangsters and juvenile delinquents-gone straight potboiler. Alfalfa doesn't have that much to do throughout except play a pretty good game of basketball (he wears number 2, by the way) and identify Tommy Malone's shooters at the film's end. He does have a funny Alfalfan moment in the beginning of the film, during the juvenile court hearing. He tells his pals not to worry, that his Uncle Louie will show up and fix everything; it is Louie that first asks Hillary Brooke (who he calls "Goldilocks") to help set the boys straight (couldn't he do it himself?) After they are handed over to the custody of Brodie, they file out of the court room and pass Uncle Louie.

Alfalfa [to the rest of his buddies]: I told you Uncle Louie would fix everything!
Uncle Louie: "Uncle Louie would fix"—[slaps Alfalfa upside the head] Go home and wash the dishes!!


Alfalfa gets smacked by Uncle Louie. Click both to enlarge.

The film is notable for the reunion of Alfalfa with Stanley Clements from "Going My Way", as well as the appearance of Tommy "Butch" Bond as Dum-Dum (real name "Waldo") and Darryl Hickman (Lionel from "The Human Comedy"). "Underworld Scandal" would be the third and final film pairing Alfalfa and his former Little Rascals nemesis (but real-life friend) Tommy Bond. Another conspicuous bit of casting is the classy-looking Brooke, better known from her appearances in "The Abbott and Costello Show". Perhaps Brooke might have enlisted the help of Mike the Cop to help straighten things out...


Hillary Brooke


Below: Opening credits from "Underworld Scandal"





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