Easy Money

Onslow Stevens and the rest of the cast play this one straight and serious, without overdoing it; at the same time, the camera work shows that more than the usual amount of care went into the production of this uncomplicated and sometimes silly B picture. As other reviewers have noted, it starts well and then slowly runs out of steam over the length of its runtime, barring only one inventive death plot. Stevens was not a great actor, but he could be credible in the most outlandish situations that Hollywood could throw at him, as he proved time and time again in pictures like THE VANISHING SHADOW and HOUSE OF DRACULA, and that's what he does here. You could do worse for a Late Show movie . . . But, yeah, you could also do much better.

"Easy Money" is a B-movie about fake accident claims...a subject which is as timely today as it was back in 1936. Unfortunately, it's also a rather poorly written B and often doesn't make much sense.

The story starts with all sorts of accidents which are being staged by a gang of con artists. When one of these crooks is caught, the prosecutor in charge throws the case...and it's obvious. His excuse...the accused was his brother so he had no choice. Huh?! This would have resulted in the prosecutor going to prison...especially since he admitted he tried NOT to get a conviction.

Some time later, the ex-prosecutor gets a job with some insurance investigators...though why any would hire the guy, is pretty confusing. And, through the rest of the film he fights to stop the racket...which, based on his earlier behavior, makes no sense nor does it make him any sort of hero.

There's much more to the story than this...but suffice to say that the premise really made no sense. A film about insurance fraud could have been interesting and exciting...but nonsensical writing make this one to skip.

Onslow Stevens is an Assistant District Attorney who blows a case against "flop artists". Those are people who make fraudulent claims against insurance companies for accidents against people who carry their policies. It's a problem we still have today. Stevens' failure is motivated by his brother, Allen Vincent, being part of the ring headed by Noel Madison, who uses his antiques-and-decorating business to hide the cash.

Stevens goes to work for an insurance company, where he can get a larger view of the problem, and where his invaluable assistant is Carol Carter. After a few weeks, he gets the picture: flop artists, some shady doctors, and some crooked lawyers are what is needed to make the racket pay. Because everyone believes that insurance companies have lots of money, the payouts are big, and premiums go up. People get mad at the insurance companies and juries write bigger checks.

However, Stevens begins making headway, and Vicent gets married and goes straight, even though he won't rat on the gang. Not everyone believes that, though.

It's a pretty good movie directed by Phil Rosen in a busy year for the Poverty Row director, just one of nine movies he cranked out that year. The acting is good, the dialogue and visuals move at a good clip and the result is a movie that must have pleased both the audiences and the insurance companies.

Accident insurance premium costs are sharply rising due to fraud schemes organized by "Duke" Trotti (Noel Madison), an oily interior decorator, along with an unscrupulous attorney, Mr. Rusick (John Dilson), who offer generous cash payoffs to bogus victims of rigged "accidents", the two knaves supervising an accomplished band of con artists. A diligent police detective, Sam Belden (Robert Homans), nabs one of these scoundrels in the act of arranging a fake injury incident but, despite the District Attorney's confidence that a conviction will be attained, an assistant D.A. in charge of preparing the filing, Dan Adams (Onslow Stevens) deliberately arranges to lose the case through below standard preparation, because his younger brother, Eddie (Allen Vincent), using a different surname, is the arrestee/defendant, and it appears that the vile gang of schemers will continue to flourish, successfully gathering in more illegitimate proceeds. Feelings of guilt over his purposefully poor court performance cause Don to resign from his position with the District Attorney's Office, and he hires on with a private insurance firm, Consolidated, with a purpose of exposing and defeating the racketeers, this with assistance from a comely Consolidated clerk (Kay Linaker) who goes undercover in an attempt to entrap the clever swindlers. At this same time, Eddie decides to quit the racket and takes a wife as well, but Duke does not intend to permit Eddie's survival outside of the gang, and as he is no longer considered trustworthy by the group's members, and since Don does not believe that Eddie's unlawful ways are at an end, the latter's tribulations mount and perilous circumstances are in the offing for both of the brothers. Efficiently directed by veteran journeyman Phil Rosen, the film follows a fairly original plot theme that focuses upon insurance fraud and that helps in the development of a smartly paced melodrama that offers solid turns from several in the cast, notably Homans, and also Barbara Barondess playing as a new bride hopeful that she may persuade her husband to remain, for the safety of both of them, upon a straight and narrow path. Reissued in a DVD format, without much needed remastering, by Alpha Home Entertainment, its print has moderate debris issues throughout, while its sound quality is often poor, especially synchronization. As is its custom, Alpha provides no extras of value, but yet must be complimented for making available such lightly known films as this often pleasing programmer from the mid-1930s.

A truly terrible premise keeps this film from really a top notch noir crime drama. Otherwise considering that Easy Money comes out of a poverty row studio this could have been a minor classic.

Easy Money is about an organized gang who make a good living at staging accidents and collecting from lawsuits engendered therein. Debonair and swarthy antique dealer Noel Madison who populated dozens of crime dramas in the 30s heads the racket in this city. One of the people involved is the brother of Assistant District Attorney Onslow Stevens, Allen Vincent.

Stevens gets the case to prosecute and he throws it and doesn't bother to tell his boss until after the trial that Vincent using an alias is his brother. Sorry folks, then as now a resignation would not have sufficed. The Bar Association would have weighed and in all likelihood Onslow Stevens would have been disbarred. Certainly Stevens would not have been hired by an insurance company because he came up with a scheme to nail the organized gang of crooks perpetrating these phony accidents.

Easy Money is cheap, still it's decently acted and directed. But how could the creators at Invincible Pictures have made such a catastrophic plot premise blunder?