Ian Carmichael comes from a respectable family -- father James Hayter has never been caught, although he has been a pickpocket all his life. Carmichael, however, dreams of the big money, and one day, pursuing his trade of snatching unattended baggage, he achieves his dream, in a suitcase full of small notes. He displays them proudly to his family, but Hayter points out they all have the same serial numbers, obvious forgeries, and that's a specialist's job. Carmichael doesn't care. He's going to enjoy them, one pound at a time, so he's kicked out, despite the protests of his mother, Kathleen Harrison.
Carmichael falls for pub assistant Belinda Lee, who is much taken by the money he throws away; she has no problem spending the money, and Carmichael is too besotted to care. He also has Robert Helpmann, ringleader of the counterfeit gang on his trail.
It's a rare misfire by dependable director John Paddy Carstairs. Carmichael spends his time split evenly between being an idiot and jittering, and Miss Lee is stupid and predatory. I grew tired of the pair of them well before the movie's 85 minutes were up. With the only non-idiot, non-money obsessed character being Hayter, there wasn't much fun here. Apparently the producers agreed. It sat on a shelf for two years, until the Boultings made Carmichael a star with PRIVATE'S PROGRESS.
With George Coulouris, Renee Houston, Jill Ireland and Leslie Phillips.
Carmichael falls for pub assistant Belinda Lee, who is much taken by the money he throws away; she has no problem spending the money, and Carmichael is too besotted to care. He also has Robert Helpmann, ringleader of the counterfeit gang on his trail.
It's a rare misfire by dependable director John Paddy Carstairs. Carmichael spends his time split evenly between being an idiot and jittering, and Miss Lee is stupid and predatory. I grew tired of the pair of them well before the movie's 85 minutes were up. With the only non-idiot, non-money obsessed character being Hayter, there wasn't much fun here. Apparently the producers agreed. It sat on a shelf for two years, until the Boultings made Carmichael a star with PRIVATE'S PROGRESS.
With George Coulouris, Renee Houston, Jill Ireland and Leslie Phillips.