Crook Carl Milletaire and sidekick John Marley buy themselves into Frank Ferguson's shellac and paint business, so they can use his license for tax-free 'denatured' alcohol to make illegal whiskey with. The treasury department gets wind of Ferguson's sudden heavy ordering of the tax-free alcohol, and chief Walter Greaza and agent John Stephenson start an investigation. Meanwhile Ferguson's tipped off by his young son about the illegal liquor but is too scared to do anything about it. But his son isn't.
Promising to depict real stories taken from the treasury department's case files, 'Treasury Men In Action' (syndicated as 'Federal Men') ran for 5 seasons. But only some episodes from its final season survived. Given that each episode lasted only 30 minutes, it's surprising how slow this episode feels. Or maybe it's because too much time is spent on the squeaky-clean kid complaining to his dad that he should stand up to the crooks and won't be able to look up at him anymore if he doesn't etc... There also isn't too much action, Ferguson gets a few punches (but his glasses remain intact) and that's it. The only noteworthy part worth mentioning is that the DoP for this episode was none other than Joseph F. Biroc ('Cry Danger', 'World For Ransom', 'It's A Wonderful World' and future Oscar winner for 'The Towering Inferno'). He doesn't perform any lensing magic tho, probably because of the TV format/constraints. All in all, this episode didn't make me want to track down the other remaining episodes.