When an actor is enshrined in our consciousness for a particular role, it can actually make it more entertaining to see him play an entirely different type of character. This is especially true for actors who play absolutely likeable characters in their signature roles. For instance, it's always entertaining to see the Professor from Gilligan's island play a bad guy.
We run across this phenomonon again in the 1948 film noir Money Madness, in which Ward Cleaver, the Beaver's wise father (Hugh Beaumont), plays a crook who is guilty of armed robbery and murder and might just be a little bit on the crazy side as well.
The movie starts a little awkwardly, with a courtroom scene that takes us a few minutes to realize is a flash forward showing us the eventual fate of the woman with whom Beaumont's character becomes involved. Then we jump back to his arrival in town by bus.
Beaumont is playing Steve Grant--though we eventually realize that's not his real name. He's got 200 grand in ill-gotten gain stuffed in his suitcase. He's soon transferred this to a safe deposit box. He's unwilling to start spending it too soon and drawing unwanted police attention to him. He takes a job as a cab driver for the time being.
We know that Grant is a crook, but we quickly get evidence that seems to indicate he might have a good side to him. He helps out Julie Saunders (played by Francis Rafferty) when the jerk she's on a date with gets too fresh. He and Julie soon hit it off. Julie, though, is living with her bitter and perpetually angry aunt, which makes her social life awkward.
Grant and Julie soon elope. Gee, maybe he really is a nice guy.
No, he's not. Though in his own twisted way, he has some feeling for Julie (though this is more of a sense of possesiveness than anything resembling real love), everything he's doing is part of a plan. He poisons the aunt, making sure it looks as if Julie was in on it if anyone gets suspicious. Then he plants the 200 grand in a trunk in the attic of the aunt's house. The doctor misses the fact that she was poisoned (she was old and sickly, so no one thinks to look that closely) and it is assumed that she was an eccentric who hid her fortune in the attic rather than trust a bank. Once the probate clears, Grant and Julie will be rich.
The scene in which Julie finds out what Grant is doing is particularly well-played by Beaumont. It's here that his brutal and manipulative side begins to show as he both terrifies her and convinces her that she's trapped. She's got to go along with him or she'll also go up for murder.
Of course, since this story is set in the universe of Film Noir, things start to go wrong. Julie is trying to overcome her fear and tell her lawyer what's going on. Grant is suspicious of her and jealous of the lawyer, who doesn't know Julie is married and obviously likes her. And an old partner-in-crime is looking for Grant with the intention of getting a share of the money. All this comes together to eventually bring everything crashing down.
The plot is a bit thin, but Beaumont's performance as the villain brings it to life and makes it work. This is a Poverty Row film, but like many such films, it gives us a well-told story and generally does a good job of hiding its low budget.
Amazon Prime has the best looking print, though this never restored film does look a bit shabby after more than 70 decades. Here it is on YouTube:
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