
The System
- APPROVED
- Year:
- 1953
- 90 min
- 13 Views
(5.00 / 1 vote)Put your hands up!
Halt!
Gee, just a kid!
What do you know?
A water pistol.
Not much of a yarn for you, Jerry.
Nothing that'll stop your presses.
- Is he DOA? - Yeah.
Caught one in the stomach
and one in the chest. - Armed?
With a toy pistol.
Fool kid!
- Local?
Don't know. I've got his prints
upstairs, no make on him yet.
You see him before?
Yes.
But never like this.
Sorry to call you at this hour, Chief.
Nonsense. It's only after two.
Come in.
I don't suppose that
It isn't just another story, Chief.
Then I suppose it
couldn't wait until morning?
I couldn't.
Before I retired last night,
I congratulated myself.
Roger, I said..
You smoked eleven cigars yesterday,
today it was only ten.
You're winning your fight.
Eleven.
Mr. Stuart, I've been
working for the paper..
I've been working for you..
a good long while now..
- Take a drink.
Thanks, I don't need it. It..
- Take it!
While attempting to burglarize the
East Main Street at 12:27 this morning,
a man was shot and killed by
officers B. Lamb and F. Miller.
the unidentified burglar was armed
with a toy pistol.
I just identified that body.
It wasn't a man.
It was a boy! 18 years young!
You knew him?
- Since he was that high.
Name? - Don't mean nothing to you.
Gerber. Ricky Gerber.
His father runs that small
bakery over on Ostermeyer.
Just got out of Winauski High, last year.
Wanted to go to State U
with my kid this year.
Mr. Gerber said no. He needed
Ricky to help out around the bakery.
I just saw Gerber.
I had to tell him where to go
to pick up what's left of his son.
It wasn't easy.
- I can sympathize with the father.
It must have been a terrible blow.
We found out the kid
had been gambling: horses.
Hooked by some two-bit book.
Kid couldn't pay off.
Book let him double up.
Sucked in him over his head.
Kid was afraid his father might hear
about it. Panicked, hit the jewelry store.
18 years old!
The same age as my kid! The same
age as a 1,000 kids in this town!
Alright, Alan, make your point.
Gerber made it for me.
The way he looked at me.
He asked he, "Why, Jerry?"
"Why'd you let this happen to my boy?"
He meant me.
He meant you.
He meant the paper.
I'm no crusader, Mr. Stuart.
You know that.
I've always figured
crusades were for young men,
who give no thought
to personal consequences.
Now I know they're for old men too.
Old men who want to do one
decent thing before they check out.
What do you want to do? - I want go
after the Clarkton gambling syndicate!
Yeah.. - Smash it wide open.
Force the authorities to take action.
Root this corruption out at the source,
before it creeps into our
homes and threatens our kids.
How much do you know?
Really know?
I can wreck the whole operation.
- How?
By going after Johnny Merrick.
Alright.
Go ahead.
Write the first piece.
Slant it toward Merrick.
- Slant it?
Maybe you don't understand, Mr. Stuart,
I want to name Johnny Merrick.
Break up Merrick
Enterprises dollar by dollar.
I know.
But not just yet.
Not to begin with. - But if we go,
we have to go all the way.
I can't do that unless I'm free to
name names and places and things.
I agree.
But for now..
I just want Merrick worried, anxious.
But Johnny Merrick isn't the kind
of the man you just threaten.
Either kiss him or kill him!
I assure you, I have no
intention of kissing him.
Believe me, Alan,
I have a very good reason for
not mentioning his name just yet.
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"The System" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2021. Web. 17 Apr. 2021. <https://www.scripts.com/script/the_system_19274>.