| Easy Money | |
| Director: | Bernard Knowles |
| Producer: | A. Frank Bundy |
| Distributor: | Gainsborough Pictures |
| Country: | United Kingdom |
| Language: | English |
| Budget: | £116,821[1] [2] [3] |
| Gross: | £125,300 (by Dec 1949) or £119,000 |
Easy Money is a 1948 British satirical film directed by Bernard Knowles and starring Greta Gynt, Dennis Price and Jack Warner.[4] It was written by Muriel and Sydney Box, based on the 1948 play of the same title by Arnold Ridley. It was released by Gainsborough Pictures.
The film comprises four tales about the effect a major football pools win has in four different situations in the post-war period.
In the first story, a comedy, a content suburban family is turned into an unhappy lot by their various reactions to a win on the football pools. When matters reach a point where they begin wishing that they had never won the money, the youngest daughter announces that in fact she forgot to post their entry, and they all regain their previously happy lives. But then it is discovered that it was a previous entry she had forgotten to post and the winning coupon was mailed, and they decide that they have learned a lesson and resolve not to let the money ruin their happiness.
In the second, a mild-mannered clerk with a domineering wife wins a large amount but becomes concerned when his wife insists he quit his mundane job. He finds the prospect of having to tell his employer that he is resigning too daunting, so he plots with a friend that he will fake illness as a way of leaving, but the deceit proves so taxing that he suffers a heart attack.
The third is a crime caper involving a part-time coupon checker and his nightclub singer girlfriend who devise a scheme to embezzle the winning pot.
The final episode, another comedy, concerns a disillusioned double-bass player who after a large win on the pools discovers he misses his friends in the orchestra he left, so he becomes its benefactor, subject to the condition that the double-bass section is given unusual prominence in the orchestral lineup.
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote: "On the whole, the film is quite good propaganda for football pools, but it is only very moderate entertainment. For the first two stories, there is music around the Episodes (i.e. accompanying the commentary), not in them. In Episodes 3 and 4, however, there is background music in addition to the necessary featured music – a bad plan, perhaps, but well carried out."[5]
The film earned producer's receipts of £98,600 in the UK and £20,400 overseas.[3] The film earned a profit of £2,200.
Gainsborough Melodrama, edited by Sue Aspinall and Robert Murphy, published by the British Film Institute, London, 1983