THE COUNTERFEITERS
US, 1948, 73 minutes, Black and white.
John Sutton, Doris Merrick, Hugh Beaumont, Lon Chaney Jr, George O'Hanlon, Gerard Gilbert (Scott Brady)
Directed by Samuel Newfield (as Peter Stewart).
A small-budget supporting feature. Serious intentions, with some comic touches.
It is a film about American counterfeiters, an artist who has produced plates for $20 bills and British 5 pound notes. A businessman in Los Angeles possesses the plates and begins to circulate the forgeries after World War II, especially laundering the notes in Europe. The American T-men are investigating. There is also an Inspector from Scotland Yard.
The action takes place over a few days, the Scotland Yard Inspector (John Sutton) posing as a man interested in the distribution of the counterfeit money, linking up with an American contact on the plane. He is introduced to the man’s girlfriend (whose father is an artist who wants her to come home but she takes a hard line, staying with the criminal). Then, for reasons never explained, there is a Louie, played by Lon Chaney Jr, more or less in the same way that he played George in Of Mice and Men. But, this time, he is not a gentle giant because he can be provoked into violence by the criminals.
The British inspector meets up with his American counterparts, working out strategies, especially when fake notes appear at a racecourse. The Americans do have tabs on Louie and the other criminals. Matters are complicated when the young woman puts her phone number in the coat pocket of the inspector. Also on hand is a comic at a nightclub, Louie staying in his apartment, his wanting to cash in on the counterfeiting but something of a coward.
A lot of plans, Louie being arrested for his violent attack, the inspector going to prison with him to sound him out, a plan for Louie to be released from jail, taken in an ambulance by the police. It does not quite work out that way. There is a confrontation at the home of the owner of the plates, Louie attacking him and his dying of a heart attack. The young woman is involved in all kinds of complexities of emotions and betrayals.
Ultimately, there is a showdown on a boat, the young woman’s father calling the police – with the revelation that his daughter was trying to get the plates in order to save him. Criminals are all rounded up. Leaving the way open for something of an improbable romance.
