Word: racketeer
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...Hamilton, there is no more contemptuous adjective than "Farleyized." Tirelessly he has belabored Democratic National Chairman James A. Farley as a veritable monster of spoils-manship, a brass-conscienced destroyer of good government. Early in the campaign, Chairman Farley plaintively inquired:"We're both in the same racket. Why does he take digs at me?"Since then he has treated Chairman Hamilton to the ultimate political insult of silence, ignoring him with the contempt of a St. Bernard for a yapping Pekingese. Only when the Republican Chairman backed up his Vice-Presidential Nominee on the subject of banks...
Sworn Enemy (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer). A first-rate screen play by Wells Root and a first-rate performance by Joseph Calleia make this otherwise ordinary Gangster v. Government film agreeably nerve-racking. Calleia is Joe Emerald, neurotic head of a protection racket who, because his own legs are so weak he cannot walk without two canes, has set his heart on becoming proprietor of a heavyweight champion prizefighter. The Root screen play shows how a G-man (Robert Young), who has inherited a promising young plug-ugly from a brother the racketeer has killed, uses this obsession to bait...
...Return of Sophie Lang (Paramount) is a shipboard anecdote of a thief's (Gertrude Michael) redemption. Force opposing: Sir Guy Standing as Max Bernard, a scoundrel trying to compel Miss Lang to resume the racket she faked death to desert. Force assisting: Ray Milland, once of the late George V's palace guards, as Jimmy Dawson, a reporter so infatuated that he was in the habit of leaving bouquets on the supposed grave of Miss Lang inscribed "in memory of glamour." Plot development consists mostly of the pastime, so popular at Paramount this year, of passing stolen jewelry...
...London in which almost every one of his male subjects wore a daisy, buttercup, pansy or garden rose in his buttonhole to honor His Majesty. These simple flowers were worn by Edward VIII's express wish that his birthday should not become a "florists' racket." It was more correct to wear a posy plucked in one's own garden than the costliest gardenia...
Sometimes commercial racketeers merely go into business under the name of a reputable company but using a slightly different address. If the manufacturer's shipping department fails to note that difference, the racketeers get the goods, the reputable company the bills. This game can be played for only 30 days. Another racket is to go suddenly into bankruptcy after having disposed of every asset not nailed down...