Okay, Ray Milland was brilliantly bad and the plot was quite ingenious for the most ppart. However, one thing particularly stuck in my craw. Apparently, Inspector Stereotype took it upon himself to investigate Milland’s purchases and found it suspicious that he was going around spending one pound notes, thus leading to further investigation and the unraveling of Milland’s scheme.
Okay, sure, the inspector seems to be a go by the gut and not the rules type, I can buy that, so maybe I can buy that he wastes valuable cop time tracking down clerks and grilling them about minor purchases. But what in God’s name is supicious about one pound notes?
I thought sure this was going to be about the whole impossibly complicated latch key switcheroo. I’ve seen that bit of the movie several times and I can never get it nailed down.
From my experience in retail, spending large quantities of small bills is just generally suspicious. I don’t know what the perception was in the 50s, but when I worked in a shoe store in the ninties, people paying in only ones or ones and fives were suspicious. So I don’t think the inspector would have a problem getting clerks to remember the businessman who paid in singles.
Also, I think the think that what makes the latch key thing so complicated is that the detective was trying to prove that not only did Ray Miland know that the spare key was under the rug, he needed to prove Grace Kelly did not know it was there in order to prove that she wasn’t in on it, and to establish that it wasn’t just where they kept a spare key for emergencies, and would only be there for the murder. Problem is, since the audience has watched the whole thing unwind, we already know that the detective already has figured out that she is innocent. I always thought the weird thing was that he could convince the police to let a convicted murderer get all her stuff and go back to her apartment just to prove a hunch.
Sure, paying in all ones is odd. But why is it suspicious? What exactly does it lead one to suspect? The only thing I would suspect of a person who paid in all ones was that they were a waiter or a stripper.
Speaking only from my experience, women paying in all ones were usually strippers. (Waitresses often get to change in their ones when they report their tips.) Men or women paying in ones and fives were suspected of being small time drug dealers. Particularly if they ask you to change in some additional small bills while you’ve got the drawer open. All their income is in ones and fives ($5 being the going rate for one hit of crack), and they can’t put it in a bank.
Of course, I realize this is a gross oversimplification. But paying for something in a bunch of small untraceable notes is just highly unusual, and people who handle a lot of money transactions in a day would notice that. Certainly, it’s no stretch that you’d remember it until the detective came to talk to you about it, which would have to be only a few minutes after the transaction. Or, the detectives could just be tailing Ray Miland and recording everything he does, and if each report says he pays cash in small bills, but nobody’s followed him to the bank, that’s pretty suspicious right there.
This brought to mind a story about someone arrested on a charge of breaking into parking meters. The judge quoted a bail of a few hundred dollars… which the suspect paid with a big sack of quarters.
It’s been a long, long time since I have seen this film. Anyone have a link to the script? The question here seems to be what is it about Milland’s character paying in one pound notes that would make him a murder suspect?
When Milland is convincing Robert Cummings to carry out the murder early in the film, he explains in detail how he’s carefully withdrawn and hidden the cash he’ll use to pay for the hit. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it myself, but I think that point becomes germane later on—whatever scheme he hit upon, it was something that looked fairly innocuous on first glance but that didn’t hold up under scrutiny. Milland basically couldn’t account for all that cash without giving himself away, IIRC.
Yeah, I don’t think it was an issue with the small bills, I think it was an issue of him suddenly having too much cash on hand and using it to pay for everything all at once when he had not been in the habit of doing so. It’s been a while since I’ve seen it as well, but didn’t he claim he was taking a small amount out weekly to go to the racetrack? When he suddenly found he didn’t have to pay off the guy he tried to say he’d actually had a horse come in but couldn’t prove he had been to the track recently, or which race/horse it was, etc.
You mean, of course, Anthony Dawson (who plays Swan/Lesgate).
I always found it odd that Wendice would spend that money. He’s such a clever guy that making such a mistake as changing his habits is a big boo-boo that I wouldn’t expect from him. He could have stashed it and spent it later.
It’s such a wonderfully goofy film, however, that I can’t complain, really.
And why change spending habits so quick after the murder when you’d expect you were being investigated? If trying to cover up that he was a murderer, Wendice should have publicly conducted himself in such a way that was indicative of being in mourning. I can see why the detective would think that going on a spending spree was suspicious. It’s just for a good murder mystery one would expect the tipoff clue to be something subtle the suspect does.
Wasn’t a pound a fair amount of money in those days, like around 10 would be today? Or, based on the exchange rate of the time, well over $20 USD in today’s money. That’s still not a huge amount, to be sure, but even today the largest American note in everyday use is th $20 bill.
As a matter of fact, in this regard I remember how one of the early Beatles bios said that Brian Epstein’s silk neckties cost half-a-guinea—and in the context it was clearly meant to be impressive. It gave the impression that most people at that time, at least in the North, counted their money in shillings and pence.