Maybe. It was a less cynical time. Plus the idea of a used car was relatively new. Ordinary people could only afford a car once the Model T's started coming off the line in 1908, and cars were built to last in those times.
So this episode in MGM's "Crime Does Not Pay" series is about racketeering used car salesmen. By racketeering I think that they just meant completely dishonest, because there seems to be no mob involvement. It opens with the dishonest salesman closing the deal on a car to an older fellow who needs the car to make deliveries and hold his job. The car breaks down shortly thereafter, and when the dealership tells him to get lost he goes to the police. Odd how the police department would have time to go over a bad used car with a consumer, but apparently here they do. The police mechanics tell the owner that the car was a former taxi and probably has over 200K miles on it. Examinations of the sales contract and the bill of sale don't hold any guarantees, so the police can do nothing in this case.
But then there are a couple of kids right out of an MGM family film screenplay that buy one of the lemon cars, and you just know this is going to end badly in a way that will get the criminals on the hook. You'd be right or else this would not be a "Crime Does Not Pay" entry.
A couple of things I took away from this. The introduction does not say that this scenario is exactly true. It is probably just representative of a number of actual cases. Also, why is everybody being raised by their grandparents in this short? The salesman who has a little daughter and buys the first lemon car looks like he is at least 50. The man who is the father of the teen who buys the second lemon car looks at least 60. Maybe the decade long depression the country had just come out of aged people badly, but it is very noticeable.
Still, a worthy entry in the MGM series if you are a fan.
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