Money Madness

Wow, this one is certainly a candidate for restoration.. the sound and picture quality are just terrible. Hugh Beaumont is "Steve", a crook on the run from "something"... we're not sure just what. Beaumont was the Dad on Leave it to Beaver. Steve meets up with "Julie", (Frances Rafferty) who ALSO has a past of her own. They hit it off, and that's when the trouble begins! Dick Elliot is in here as a customer in the diner... Elliot was the town mayor in Andy Griffith. Gumming up the works is Julie's elderly aunt, who sometimes fakes being ill to get attention, but sometimes really is sick. Dealing with that brings out the worst in both Julie AND Steve, so it's going to hit the fan fast! Another fun face in here is "Mrs. Ferguson"... Ida Moore. She was ALWAYS a little old lady... she had a great, tiny little part in Desk Set! (Gotta see that if you haven't already) Money Madness flows right along, no plot-holes, or glaring problems. Not many big names, which is probably why its playing on Moonlight Movies channel. Beaumont had done a bunch of war films in the 1940s, and more in the 1950s, but he's probably the biggest name in here. Directed by Sam Newfield.. he and his brother Sigmund were bigshots in "the biz", and they turned out TONS of films, starting in the silent shorts. This one is actually pretty good.

Hugh Beaumont marries Frances Rafferty, poisons her aunt and puts $200,000 from a bank robbery in the attic. Miss Rafferty is her aunt's sole heir, so everyone figures she was one of those batty ladies who doesn't trust banks. That's what Harlan Warde, the lawyer Miss Rafferty hires for probate thinks. He also thinks she is a dish, and unmarried. Then Beaumont's plans begin to come apart.

It's a pretty good, dark movie. Beaumont, for those of us who remember him as the father in LEAVE IT TO BEAVER, is excellent, and Miss Rafferty gives a fine performance. It will come to some as a surprise that this was produced by Sigmund Neufeld and directed by his brother, Sam Newfield (hiding under the name of 'Peter Stewart.' They had been associated so long with PRC, producing cheap movies for the bottom of triple features that it seems natural to believe that is all they were capable of. However, given a good script, good actors, and a halfway decent budget, they could turn out a good movie. Here's the proof.

Constantly underrated Hugh Beaumont puts in a memorable performance as a chilling sociopathic murderer. Soon after he arrives in a small town carrying the proceeds of a recent bank robbery, he finds a vulnerable young woman (Frances Rafferty) and charms her into marriage. He quickly embarks on his nefarious schemes to better himself by arranging for the girl to inherit her Aunt's house and estate by killing the old lady. He continues to terrify and control the girl until she is entirely caught up in his web of murder and deceit and her own character becomes irredeemably compromised as an accessory to his crimes. Beaumont is outstanding and truly menacing as the killer, but he was equally adept at playing the playful and flirtatious, wisecracking hero as in his Mike Shayne films. There is a very natural delivery to his acting which always makes him believable...he seems to embody his roles so effortlessly that it hardly seems he is acting. This is a rare talent that few performers in films have had. For some reason, he never got to be A-list but his talent certainly deserved more recognition. Recommended.

Hugh Beaumont -- suffering from MONEY MADNESS -- and a variety of other pathologies, runs to a small town and romances a small town girl to put in motion his unique (and ingenious) plot to launder his stolen 200 grand. How many people will he have to murder before law or fate catch up with him?

Though this is forgotten by everyone except the rare brave few who go and seek out the B-minus classics issued by PRC and, um, "Film Classics" - this film's distributor -- Hugh Beaumont, before he was father to the Beaver, acted in a fair number of minor film noirs, where he tended to play cops, detectives, and the occasional murderer. In this one, Beaumont brings his trademark likability, and family man charm to the role of a deceptive, conniving creep, on the run from the cops, and his co-conspirators in a successful bank job. And this movie turns on his unshowy but quite strong performance, as the plot depends on him being able to pretend to be "Ward" just long enough to get the heroine into his clutches, and then depends on him being the sort of Ward Cleaver that David Lynch might have used, had he got his hands on the Leave It To Beaver franchise.

It's cheap -- and the last plot twist is a bit much to take -- but it's always good to see an actor use his skills for something he's not usually known for, and succeed. There was more to Hugh Beaumont than his film/TV career really let him show, and this movie is a prime exhibit.

A starvation-budget noir riddled with implausibilities, Money Madness might have been a better movie given a snappier script and an inventive director. That said, it's not that bad. We open in a courtroom where a young woman (Frances Rafferty) is being sentenced; rushing to a phone booth, a reporter tells his rewrite man 'You never know what'll come in on the noon bus.'

Next, the noon bus pulls in, disgorging Hugh Beaumont (it's not entirely clear until the end of the movie that we're now in flashback). In his satchel is $200,000, loot from a bank robbery. But he takes a crummy room and gets a job driving a hack. Picking up some fares one night, he encounters Rafferty, out on a bad date. He either falls for her or sees in her his opportunity.

Rafferty lives in a stuffy old mausoleum on the charity of her crabby old aunt (Cecil – sometimes Cecile – Weston). Beaumont hatches a plan to bump the old witch off, marry Rafferty and say his money was stashed up in the attic of the house. He forges ahead despite Rafferty's reservations by dint of cajolery and intimidation. All unfolds according to plan, but for the fact that Rafferty's lawyer (Harlan Warde) takes a shine to her as well...

Before hitting the big time of '50s TV, Beaumont appeared in dozens of Poverty Row pictures (often, as here, starring). He was never memorable but, like the movie, he wasn't too bad, either. In fact, he's rather effective as the manipulative, controlling bastard (who may be a little bit mad). The movie, though, relies too optimistically on convenient coincidences (when the landlady of Beaumont's rooming house finds Warde rifling his quarters, she calls Rafferty's house to issue an alert. How did she know where to find him?) Money Madness' place in the alphabet is considerably south of B, but it's not quite into the letters that get the highest points in scrabble, either.