User Reviews

This is an amusing trifle, set at the turn of the century in England, but based on a story by Mark Twain of all people. Twain at his best could take a trifling idea and run off with it. He demolishes detectives in "The Stolen White Elephant", which describes the ineptitude of detectives in finding a huge creature that has run off. Similarly here he demonstrates the limitations of money and how easy one can live on credit by simply having a note that nobody can cash.

Two brothers who are very wealthy give the Bank of England one million pounds so that they can settle a bet. There is a single bank note for one million pounds in existence. What would happen if someone in need were given the note as an act of charity? An American sailor is shipwrecked, and brought to England when rescued without any money on him. He is given the note. Like the two wealthy brothers in "Trading Places" they have a bet: will the sailor survive or starve to death because nobody can cash the note? Less we think that such notes don't exist, the Federal Reserve System used to use a limited set of $100,000 bills with the face of Woodrow Wilson (the President who signed the Federal Reserve Act into law) for transfers between the branches of the Federal Reserve Banks. I do not know if they are still in use. There were also notes for $10,000 (with the face of Lincoln's Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon P. Chase - who okay-ed the first national "greenback" currency), and for $5,000 (with the face of President James Madison, who refused to save the first Bank of the United States, but did push the recharter of the second Bank of the United States - a semi-private early version of the Federal Reserve System).

The film follows Gregory Peck's discovery that he is a guinea pig for this bet, but making the most of it. The two brothers (Ronald Squiers and Wilfred Hyde-White) stay mostly in the background. Both give good performances, and while I agree with another writer on this website that Hyde-White is better remembered today, Squiers was a widely respected film and stage actor of the time ("The Rocking Horse Winner", for example). Jane Griffiths plays the aristocrat who falls in love with Peck. A.E.Matthews has a nice role as a Yankee hating aristocrat, who suddenly realizes that there is one thing worse that that - a greedy Briton. And Hugh Griffith does the most with the part of a suspicious newspaperman.

Twain was fascinated by a legal case of the 1870s, the Ticheborne Claimant, wherein an impostor claimed title to a baronetcy and it's multi-million pound estate. Twain even wrote a novel, "The American Claimant", based on the incident. One of the noteworthy incidents of the actual case was that "Ticheborne Bonds" were sold promising profit to investors who would give money needed for the Claimant's legal fees (if he won, they'd be paid out of the estate). Similarly here, in the film, bonds supporting Peck's honesty are printed. At one point there is a run by the bond holders when they believe that they've been lied to.

It is a very amusing trifle, and well worth catching whenever it appears on television.

"Man with a Million" is one of the few comedy films that Gregory Peck made. Known as a dramatic actor, Peck didn't play characters who could spew witticisms or clever lines, or who went through hilarious antics. But, he could hold his own in comedic situations, as in this film. He is mostly a straight man who gets into situations that are comedic and in which the cast around him are more the sources of humor. I think his best comedy was "Designing Woman" of 1957 with Lauren Bacall. He had some very laughable situations in that film.

This movie is based on a Mark Twain short story, "The Million Pound Bank Note," published in 1893. It closely follows the Twain story with a few changes. The one thing I would like to have seen unchanged was the ending in Twain's story. One of the Montpelier brothers is revealed as the stepfather of Portia. The movie was filmed in London and at the Pinewood Studios in England. It was released there in January 1954 under the title, "The Million Pound Note." The J. Arthur Rank Organization made the movie and it was distributed in America by United Artists.

The cast are all quite good. Peck is Henry Adams and Jane Griffiths plays the girl he falls for, Portia Lansdowne. Hartley Power is the Adams family friend, Lloyd Hastings. The Montpelier brothers are played by Ronald Squire (as Oliver) and Wilfrid Hyde-White (as Roderick). Joyce Grenfell is Portia's mother, the Duchess of Cromarty. The large supporting cast includes a number of people in various business settings who are very good and humorous with their airs and then humbling demeanor after learning that Adams has a one million pound note. These include George Devine as the Chop House proprietor, John Kelly as the Bumbles Hotel manager, and Maurice Denham as the exclusive tailor, Jonathan Reid.

Mark Twain (nee, Samuel Clemens) set a number of stories in England. He was an avowed Anglophile. From his first trip to England in 1872, he fell in love with the culture, the people and the country. But this didn't stop him from poking a little fun at the Brits from time to time. He was taken under wing by the upper-class and wrote glowingly of the people, their love of history and tradition, and the countryside.

This story is a soft satire of both England and America. The Duke of Frognal says rhetorically to the Bumbles Hotel manager, "Are you trying to tell me that American money means more than an Englishman's name? I won't stand for it. This country's going to the dogs."

This movie is a fine production from the Twain story set in England. It doesn't have rollicking laughter, but it has warmth and an endearing tale amidst the mostly gentle humor. A later film, made in America, did a successful take off on the Twain story. "Trading Places" of 1983 was an adult comedy that starred Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd.

Mark Twain's story is converted to the screen play by a respected British Woman which I think helps the story flow better. While this is not the classic script like To Kill A MockingBird Peck would get later, it is a good chance for him to show the talent he has.

Wilfred Hyde-White who would later become more known for television roles is one of 2 brothers making a bet that if they give a poor man a million dollar note that he will able to get anything he wants with tht note. Peck's American character just happens to come along and when he reads the note with the million pounds, he knows he has a month to use the note and then present it back to the brothers intact.

The note acts like a VISA Credit card as no one can change it, and it allows him to buy lots of things on credit including his first lunch. Things snowball as everyone from charities to tailors and a hotel give him credit. Some things in this script show the Twain touches.

For example, Peck enlists a circus Strongman to help guard the note, though the guy can't speak. An American friend uses his name to try to become rich on a gold mine. There are several other subplots on how Grant becomes accepted in British society as an eccentric millionaire.

Then there is the beautiful young red-headed grand-daughter who falls in love with him and not his money, which he really does not have. The film is really quite strong except the ending. The note the brothers put with the million pound note promises him a job when he brings back the note intact/ At the end, the only job he gets is becoming the grand-daughters husband. The borthers wo supplied the note never say what job they are supposed to give him, instead bickering about a disagreement on who actually won the bet, because of the technicality of the granddaughter.

The charity auction sequence in a way is just a part of the plot to advnace the relationship between Peck and the Grand Daughter. It might be the most crass money sequence in the film as it seems a lot of Brits are willing to wait to be paid.

The British way of doing the story makes it entertaining fare. The film is in color, though the sets and location make it look like the film was shot on a shoestring. The quality of the script and the strength of Peck carry this film.

Gregory Peck is Henry Adams, a raggedy, good-natured American shipyard worker stranded in London and penniless. Poundless too, and this was 1903 when a pound was worth a pound. He's picked off the street at random by two millionaires of a betting disposition who hand him one of only two existing notes for one million pounds. If he returns the note intact at the end of one month, he'll have any sort of job he wants. Peck doesn't discover until later that he's rich beyond imagining. And he's aghast, as is the suspicious waiter who has just served this ill-groomed customer an expensive meal. Peck tries to return the note but his benefactors are on holiday for the month. It's all up to him.

That plot point is a little confusing. Maybe I missed something. But suppose that, instead of giving the note back in a month, Peck just said, "The hell with it," and skipped town? He could live like a Pasha for the rest of his life.

At any rate, when the public discovers that Peck has the note, everyone kisses his ring. Tailors give him a free wardrobe, Bumbles Hotel puts him up in the Bridal Suite, London society opens its doors to him, and when rumors start that Peck has invested in the New Hope Gold Mine, the price of shares skyrockets.

There are less harmless memes. Nobody has seen the note recently. They've been operating on the sociological principle that "if men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences." Does he really HAVE such a note or is Peck "an adventurer"? Peck's fortune goes down, then up again, and he winds up in a clinch with Lady Bracknell's niece or something.

It's based on a story by Mark Twain, a curious writer. He had a fine sense of irony, perhaps because he'd lived through the Civil War and was even briefly in the Confederate Army. "Tom Sawyer" is a child's adventure story but "Huckleberry Finn" is not. Twain poked understated fun at European pretensions and especially nobility. Huck and Jim pick up two scalawags who get into a quiet conflict over their social status, until one finally admits that he's the lost son of the King of France, which Huck swallows.

That European nobility business gets a poke in the eye with a sharp stick in this film. So does capitalism. The question that wafts like a bouquet through the comedy is whether simply having a lot of money is better than being a gentleman. Is it better to be rich or to be a Duke?

Peck's forte was never comedy. He seemed by nature to be upright and bourgeois. And, to the extent that he was amusing on screen, rather than only likable, it was because that air of self righteousness was made ludicrous by events. His reaction is always one of masked embarrassment. It requires only the slightest change in his features. He must have had a very good time playing a mad Nazi scientist in "The Boys From Brazil." The cast is filled out with familiar faces from British movies of the period.

It may have been written by Mark Twain, whose name is itself a joke, but it's veddy British, colorful, and funny. You'll like it.

Although it stars Gregory Peck, one of America's most popular and charismatic film stars of the period, "The Million Pound Note" is surprisingly little known today; mine is only the 17th review it has received on this site. Part of the reason is that, unlike most of Peck's output, it was not made in Hollywood but in Britain. (Peck made another British film, "The Purple Plain", during this period). Even in Britain, however, few people seem to have heard of it.

The film was a based on a short story by Mark Twain. The basic idea, that of two elderly, wealthy brothers entering into an eccentric bet which affects the life of a complete stranger, is similar to that in the later American comedy, "Trading Places". That film was a contemporary satire on the "greed is good" attitudes of the 1980s, but "The Million Pound Note" is a period piece set in the early twentieth century. (The exact date is uncertain. A forty-eight-star flag flying outside the U.S. Consulate would seem to indicate that the film must be set in 1912 or later, but some of the costumes, and the absence of motor vehicles in the streets, would suggest a rather earlier date).

The hero is Henry Adams, an American who finds himself stranded in England by an unusual combination of circumstances after a sailing accident and needs money for his passage back home. By chance he meets the two brothers, Oliver and Roderick Montpelier, who give him an envelope, telling him that it contains money. When Adams opens it he finds that it contains a single banknote to the value of one million pounds. (This is a fiction invented by Twain; in reality the Bank of England has never issued notes for such a sum. For the purposes of the story, however, we have to accept that the note is genuine and not a forgery).

Like "Trading Places", "The Million Pound Note" is a satire on the capitalist system, but satirises it in a rather different way. "Trading Places" sends up the rapaciousness and heartlessness of the rich, represented in that film by the greedy, avaricious and corrupt Duke brothers. The satire of "The Million Pound Note" is directed less at rich people themselves than at the absurdities of the system through which they have obtained their wealth. While Adams has the note he is taken to be an eccentric millionaire. He can obtain whatever he needs without having to pay for it. (This is the reason for the wager; Oliver has bet the sceptical Roderick that mere possession of the note will enable the possessor to obtain limitless credit)

Adams is accepted into the company of England's grandest High Society and is asked to back a business venture when a fellow American wishes to start up a gold mine. He does not actually have to put up any money himself; the mere fact of his association with the project is enough to start a boom in the value of the company's shares. When he temporarily mislays the note and a rumour spreads that he never actually had it in the first place, the share price plummets. It does not matter that a geological report has indicated that the company is actually on the verge of striking gold. What matters to the capitalist system is not reality but belief and confidence. A falsehood that people can believe in can be more persuasive than the truth. Businessmen may like to think of themselves as hard-headed realists, but in Twain's eyes they are as prone to fantasy and delusion as anybody else. Indeed, they are more so, because they operate within a system which depends upon fantasy and delusion in order to function.

The film was directed by Ronald Neame who two years earlier had made "The Card". The two films have much in common. Both are based on literary sources, "The Card" on a novel by Arnold Bennett. Both are comedies set in Edwardian England. And both have similar themes, the importance of belief, even credulous or misplaced belief, to the money economy. (Or, to be more accurate, to the credit economy. The very word "credit" is derived from the Latin for "to believe"). Denry Machin, the hero of "The Card", is a young man who makes a fortune by promoting business schemes which, if not exactly dishonest, are nevertheless heavily dependent upon his charm, persuasiveness and plausibility. When one under-capitalised venture seems set to fail, he manages to save the situation by persuading an aristocratic lady to back him. As with Adams, the mere fact of her association with the scheme brings the investors flocking in.

I would not rate this film quite as highly as "The Card", perhaps the greatest non-Ealing British comedy of the early fifties. Nevertheless, it has a lot going for it. It has some serious points to make, but makes them in an amusing way with wit and style. Gregory Peck had a wide range as an actor, but he was often at his best playing an ordinary, decent man who finds himself in extraordinary circumstances- "The Big Country" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" are two other examples- and here he makes a charming hero. It is visually attractive, being shot in what would today be regarded as the "heritage cinema" style. It may be little known today, but I would consider that it deserves to be known more widely. 7/10

Yep, I knew I had seen that plot somewhere before, and the characters played here by Wilfrid Hyde-White and Ronald Squire are brothers just like Ralph Bellamy and Don Ameche in that 1983 modern comedy classic. They notice the downtrodden Gregory Peck on the Street and decide to give him the test of handing him a banknote for 1 million pounds, giving him a month to see what happens with it and if he comes back with the entire amount, they will give him a job. They then disappear from view from the majority of the film, and as Peck makes his way around London, word gets out that there's an eccentric rich American in town and that opens doors to all the find houses in London. He falls in love with the pretty Jane Griffiths, niece of wealthy do-gooder Joyce Grenfall, and the local stock market becomes busy with investors in a gold mine from which the note is based on. It's a question of true love being found for Peck and Griffiths rather than marrying for money, and the results are wacky to say the least.

Frankly, the whole stock market subplot bored me (mainly out of my disinterest in investing schemes), but it was very funny to watch Peck make his way around the city looking like a very handsome, clean-shaven bum and gain favors in the best hotels, restaurants and clothing shops. A hysterical segment has the hotel managers confusing a mute weightlifter for Peck, and of course the good-natured Gregory invite him to join in. Lighthearted and colorful, this isn't certainly an earth-shattering comedy of manners, but Peck is a dashing down on his luck honest hero, and it's easy to root for him. A fine supporting cast of eccentric comic actors helps make this flow by easily. It's the type of film that is like a bowl when you watch it, but easily forgotten. This was the third time I'd seen it, and I remembered nothing about it.

I came across this film because the mother was flicking through the channels and we decided to give it a watch.

I have to admit, it was alright like. I wouldn't call it the best movie I've ever seen.

Although it was good seeing Gregory Peck as the main character, I have never seen him as a young man before but I have to say this is my first movie when he was young.

I only saw him on the Omen but nothing else until this!

I don't have much to say about this movie but, I do consider it watchable!

Starts off well, with lovely London locations and a pleasant performance from Peck. The conceit is good, but then what is obviously a short story gets padded out with a tedious, slapstick "wind blows note away" scene and a drawn out love interest angle. Unconvincing also is the way the people are so easily bowled over by the very SIGHT of a million pound note (which, as far as they were concerned, didn't legitimately exist) - handing over hundreds of pounds (in 1903) worth of goods, food and accommodations, and then how easily they turn and turn back with the farcical twists of the plot. Disappointing after a strong start.

Yes, even the great Gregory Peck could make a colossal bomb and he sure did it with this 1954 ridiculous nonsense of a film.

Two old codgers, one played by the venerable Wilfrid Hyde-White, make a wager to see if someone with a million pound note can get by by not spending it.

Along comes a homeless Gregory Peck and the two rues give him the note. It's basically a story of what money can buy. With all that money, Peck seems relevant to society and doors begin to open up for him. As rumors spread that Peck really doesn't have the money, those doors are about to close up until movie writing changes all that.

It's an inane film which really lacks any quality.