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Easy Money

1936

Crime / Drama / Romance

Plot summary


Uploaded by: FREEMAN

Director

Top cast

Onslow Stevens Photo
Onslow Stevens as Dan Adams
720p.WEB 1080p.WEB
606.21 MB
960*720
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 6 min
P/S ...
1.1 GB
1440*1080
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 6 min
P/S ...

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by rsoonsa6 / 10

After A Brisk Beginning, All That Occurs Is As An Audience Will Have Expected And Wished.

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.

Reviewed by boblipton6 / 10

Flop Artists

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.

Reviewed by bkoganbing3 / 10

Onslow Stevens would have been disbarred

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?

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