A Slight Case of Murder

Here's to the end of Prohibition!

Old Man Prohibition passed away...

at exactly 5:
32 and a half p.m.,

New York time, when Utah ratified...

Folks, here's the last keg

of Prohibition beer in the house.

Marco's ether and it's on the house!

Here's to Remy Marco, the king of beer.

And he kept us supplied for four years!

Marco is all right!

Yeah, but thank Heaven

we don't have to drink his beer anymore.

To Remy Marco! To Remy Marco!

All right, shut up. Shut up, you lugs.

I've got something to say.

Prohibition is over, sure.

What of it? Well, I'll show you what of it.

It's the birth of a new day for us.

Come here, all of you.

I'll show you something.

Get over here.

Look. Get an eyeful of that.

I tell you, it's great. A land office business.

Everybody's drinking beer.

- Don't that mean anything to you?

- Yeah, but Remy...

Well, they've been drinking my beer

for four years, ain't they? And liked it.

They had to like it.

Well, they're gonna keep on drinking it,

more than ever now.

It's gonna be the same beer,

the same customers.

They're gonna be just as thirsty

as they ever was.

The only difference is,

from now on, Marco is legitimate.

- What's gonna happen to us?

- What about us?

Oh, shut up, will you? Shut up, you lugs.

I'm gonna take care of every one of you,

just like I always did.

- I got a job for every one of you.

- Yeah?

From now on, you're gonna be salesmen.

- Salesmen?

- What kind of salesmen?

Yeah, that's what I said, salesmen.

Well, that's what you've been up to now,

ain't it? Beer salesmen.

Well, that's

what you're gonna keep on being.

Only there's gonna be a little difference

in our sales business.

Come on, boys. Take out the artillery.

Come on. Hurry up.

Hurry up, now. Loosen up.

I'll be lost without this.

That's it.

Hey, some of you guys over there,

bring up the rest of those persuaders.

Come on, now. Make it snappy.

There, that's it.

Lefty, Blacky, I want you to dump this

on one of our trucks...

and cart it down to the East River.

You mean dump it, boss?

Hey, we can get a lot of money

for this stuff, boss. We can sell it.

Not us. Now, I told you,

from now on, we're legitimate.

There's gonna be a lot of changes

around here.

In the first place,

this ain't no still no more, see.

It's a brewery.

Yeah, it's a business enterprise

operated on a strictly legitimate basis.

Get me?

Oh, yeah, and I'm gonna give this place

a lot of class.

Now, that reminds me.

Mike, I want you to shave every day.

Every day?

- Lefty, lay off these striped silk shirts.

- Oh, boss...

From now on,

everybody wears white shirts. Get me?

With clean collars.

Listen, boss.

Will it help us to sell Marco's Beer

any better with clean shirts?

Oh, yes. Say, there's another thing.

From now on,

it ain't Marco's Beer no more.

Come here. I'll show you something...

Say, you know, Marco ain't been asleep.

You know, I'm all ready for this new setup.

Come here. Get a gander at this.

Tomorrow, the warehouse sign

comes down, and up goes this one.

That sign? That ain't big enough.

Oh, you dope.

Ain't you got no imagination?

This is just a miniature model

just to give you an idea.

Well, I'm going home.

- Here you are, boss.

- Thanks.

"Drink Gold Velvet Beer. It's the tops."

It's a good thing

the boss never drinks beer.

I want everybody to show up

bright and early tomorrow morning...

ready for business.

Oh, and Butch, wash your neck.

Come on, Mike. And get a manicure.

Come on.

What's Remy gonna do now, Nora?

I don't know.

He never tells me till he's done it.

Everything was going swell

under Prohibition.

Then the government has to step in

with repeal.

Yeah, they're always passing laws

interfering with people.

- Hello, Remy.

- How are you? Hi, how are you?

Hiya, Joe.

Well, Nora, I want to talk to you.

Excuse us, folks.

Go right ahead.

Oh, you look great, kid.

Come right in, honey. Into the music room.

Music room? Up to now,

this has always been a slot machine room.

Well, that's all gonna be changed

from now.

We're gonna start putting on

plenty of class.

Oh, and, by the way, have Mike

take the spittoons out of the living room.

Remy, you aren't thinking

of going into some other racket, are you?

No, we're going legitimate.

Take a look at me.

You are now looking at the president

of Gold Velvet Brewery.

"Drink Gold Velvet Beer. It's the tops."

It all sounds swell, Remy.

If I could only be sure

you ain't got a bug in your nut.

Well, listen, doll,

I got the whole thing figured out.

I've been telling the boys about it, too.

Why, I've been making plans for all this.

But what about Mary?

Will we keep her in that Paris school?

Why not? It's the most expensive school

in Europe, ain't it?

Well, that's what I mean.

Will we be able to afford it

after we're legitimate?

Afford it?

Now, look here, Nora.

Nothing's too good for Marco's daughter.

I'm telling you...

I'm gonna have the biggest beer business

in the country.

In the world!

Now that it's legal to sell it,

and you don't have to push it...

you just watch Marco sail ahead.

Imagine, us being legitimate

after all these years.

Gee, I won't hardly know how to act.

Well, after we're legit a little while...

you'll get so used to it,

you'll forget we ever were anything else.

Well, that being the case, we gotta

start changing things around here...

right away.

Gentlemen, I beg your pardon.

Please refrain from any rough talk.

What kind of a joint

do you think you're in?

What do you mean?

Remy's going legit, see.

- What?

- Yeah, that's right.

From now on, Nora wants you

to be high tone and talk refined.

Attaboy, Remy.

Yeah, put a muzzle

on that "attaboy" lingo.

That goes for all of you.

What will it be?

Schindlers, Budweiser, or Gold Velvet?

Anything but Gold Velvet.

I'm sorry. We are not renewing

our order on Gold Velvet Beer.

This joint used to take care

of two dozen barrels...

of Marco's stuff a week in the old days.

Those days are over.

They want real beer now.

- What was in that glass?

- Gold Velvet Beer.

Take it away.

I'm not having a tooth pulled.

- Remy?

- Yeah?

We got another letter this morning

from Mary's school.

Yeah?

We're six months behind on her bills.

They want $4,850.

Well, they got a lot of nerve

bothering Marco...

about chicken feed like that.

Nora, I ain't got it.

They gotta wait.

Remy, I knew things were pretty bad,

but I didn't think they were that bad.

I'm in pretty deep.

Four years legit,

and I'm worse off than when I started.

You'll pull out of it. You've done it before.

But in the meantime,

we gotta start cutting down on expenses.

First of all, Mary's gotta come home.

Gee, I hate to do that.

You know, I want her to get a load of all

that swell education they got over there.

But how can we do that?

You say she's in hock for 4,850 smackers.

Well, we gotta sell some stuff. That's all.

Look, why don't you call her up right now?

Start economizing this very minute.

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