Drunk Driving is a 1939 short film (22 minutes) directed by David Miller.
It is an installment of MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series of short films. The crime in this episode is, you guessed it, drunk driving. The subject is one "John Jones", a salesman for an appliance business. John has just swung a big contract and been rewarded with a promotion. His buddy Rick takes him out to celebrate, John has a few too many at the bar, and on the way home, he gets in a minor fender-bender.
John thinks it's no big deal but law enforcement is cracking down on drunk drivers and he finds out he's facing the possibility of a 90-day jail term which would also mean losing his job. John is horrified but it seems that Rick knows the judge, and after Rick calls in a favor, John gets off with a $25 fine. John reacts to this good news by going drinking and driving again, with far more serious consequences.
Tropes:
- An Arm and a Leg: John's wife has both of her legs amputated at the knee.
- Artistic License – Biology: At the end, the guy at the hospital testing John's blood says his BAC is "one-half of one percent." This after a sequence where John was, yes, too drunk to drive but also walking and talking and coherent after the accident and on the way to the hospital. In Real Life, a BAC of 0.5% would very likely result in death by alcohol poisoning and would almost certainly put even a hardened alcoholic in a coma.
- Downer Ending: Necessary for the Safe Driving Aesop. John's reckless driving kills three people and causes his wife to have both of her legs amputated at the knee, and John is going to prison for vehicular manslaughter.
- Driver Faces Passenger: On the way to the restaurant John is so busy paying attention to his wife that he almost hits an oncoming car. After his wife screams in fear John turns his attention to the road, only for the fatal accident to happen soon after.
- Drunk Driver: Yup. John's recklessness in driving drunk causes a terrible tragedy.
- Exact Eavesdropping: John and Rick go to court so Rick can get a word in with the judge. They crack open the door to the courtroom...and hear the judge giving a drunk driver a 90-day jail term.
- Framing Device: As with most episodes of the "Crime Does Not Pay" series, the "MGM Crime Reporter" (an actor) introduces a member of law enforcement (another actor) who tells a crime story.
- Hypocrite: John gets home after getting into a fender bender and getting a ticket for drunk driving. As he gets out of his dented car, a neighborhood boy on a tricycle whizzes right past him. After the boy zooms away John says "Say, you ought to be a little more careful, Billy."
- Improbable Infant Survival: John hits a fruit truck head-on. The husband and wife riding in the bucket seat of the fruit truck are killed (as is John's mother-in-law). But the little girl riding between the mom and dad (without the benefit of a seat belt because it's 1939) survives without a scratch.
- Mr. Smith: Lampshaded in the Framing Device, wherein "Inspector Doyle of the highway patrol of one of our western states" introduces the story by saying of our protagonist, "Let's call him John Jones."
- Safe Driving Aesop: Don't drink and drive!
- Scare 'Em Straight: The whole point of the movie is to tell the audience not to drink and drive. This is one of the earliest instances of this particular Aesop in an era where drinking and driving wasn't taken very seriously. (Note how even in this Safe Driving Aesop film, John escapes from his first incident with a $25 fine.)
- Wham Shot: John's wife is wheeled out of the operating room. The doctor tells him that she came through fine and that the doctor will talk to him in a moment. Then they wheel the gurney the rest of the way through the door, and the shape under the blanket reveals that Mrs. Jones had both of her legs amputated.
- Whip Pan: Used to transition from the Framing Device to the story of John Jones, drunk driver.
