The Big Money is a 1958 British film starring Ian Carmichael and Belinda Lee. John Baines provided the story and the screenplay, Patrick Campbell provided some additional dialog, John Paddy Carstairs provided the direction. The studio sat on the film for two years because they didn't think it was funny enough. Did they think it might ripen in storage? A need for product had them release it in 1958. It came out in the US in 1962.
Ian plays a small time crook who wants to impress the barmaid of his local but he's usually skint. Not so impressive, huh. Belinda plays the barmaid. He steals a suitcase and takes it back to his family of pick pockets and shoplifters. James Hayter, Kathleen Harrison and Jill Ireland plays the family. None of them look too highly on poor Ian, he's a failure as a crook. When they open the suitcase they find it full of £1 notes. Ian think he's finally done the family proud, until they find out it's all counterfeit.
Ian manages to attract Belinda's interest with his new cash flow. It doesn't go as planned. The crooks that owned the counterfeit money and the police are also interested in Ian. I like Ian most of the time but I'm not such a big fan of Belinda's. The rest of the cast is pretty good. I knew of George Coulouris, Renée Houston, Leslie Phillips, Ferdy Mayne and Michael Balfour. They do alright with a so-so script. I wish there had been more and better jokes, it's rather predicable and average. I got to the end, I might watch it again, I might not watch it again.
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