Music by Kurt Weill and inspiration by Brecht: Lang intended this comedy to function as a "Lehrstuck," a teaching play; if the lesson is simply that shoplifting does not pay, remember it's a comedy, or, as Lang states, "a fairy tale. Is it believable for a department store owner to give jobs to ex-convicts? No!" But that's what Lang's Mr. Morris (Harry Carey) does. Among the ex-cons is Joe (George Raft), who figures his odds are o.k. to rob the place, and organizes his fellow salesmen (who are all nostalgic for prison anyway) to help. The hiest is interrupted not by the police but by Joe's wife (Sylvia Sidney), who mathematically proves that crime doesn't pay.