Now Playing: Brewster's Millions

Original release: May 22, 1985

Brewster's Millions

Cast:
Richard Pryor – Montgomery Brewster
John Candy – Spike Nolan
Lonette McKee – Angela Drake
Stephen Collins – Warren Cox
Hume Cronyn – Rupert Horn

Directed by Walter Hill
Distributed by Universal
Written by Herschel Weingrod (screenplay),
George Barr McCutcheon (original story)

Montgomery Brewster is passionate about baseball. But the team he pitches for is going nowhere and, after a bar fight, even they don't want him. Down on his luck, Monty gets the shock of his life – an enormous inheritance from a long lost relative. However, Rupert Horn, his estranged granduncle, wants to make it a game. He wants Brewster to spend $30 million within 30 days, down to the penny and with no assets left over. If he can do that, he gets the true inheritance of $300 million. If not, then he gets nothing. Let the games begin.

Some conditions may apply. He isn't allowed to just give the money away as gifts, except maybe 5% for charities. He can hire people but they must perform actual services. He can also use up to 5% in gambling, taking into account that you usually lose, but you might actually win which would mean more money to have to spend. Oh, and he cannot let anyone else know about the challenge or the deal is off. So Brewster is bound to look a little crazy with his new money.




It must be said that Richard Pryor can do shocked excitement very well. Stuttering through lines with expressive faces and gestures comes so naturally that I could almost join in his excitement. And of course he wastes no time in getting started spending. The guy who followed him around to bring him to the lawyers? Hired as his personal photographer. The closest security guard at the bank? Hired as his lead security officer, instructed to bring a group of 20 other guards to work for him. The taxi driver he called to take him to lunch? Hired to handle renting a fleet of limousines for the month. And then all those people plus anyone else standing around wondering what was going on get treated to very fine dining, all expenses paid on behalf of New Money Monty Brewster.

Even today I would have a hard time figuring out how to spend that kind of money without resulting in any assets. And considering inflation, I imagine that back then it would have gone even farther. Brewster managed some tricks by renting his former baseball team, paying for the most extravagant form of transportation (flying from New Jersey to Long Island where they got helicoptors to the press site, and then buses back to Long Island for practice), and then arranging to have them play against the New York Yankees.

One my favorite tricks was paying out $1.25 million for a very rare collectable stamp. This is automatically considered an asset but he bypassed it by using it to mail a postcard to the lawyers who were hoping to see him fail in this challenge. In a way this feels like it “damaged something of inherent value,” which would be against the rules, but they allowed it.

Another trick he managed was getting into politics, running for Mayor of New York City, just so he could drop exorbitant amounts of money. His platform was “Vote None of the Above.”



(Rally the folks behind your campaign to Vote None of the Above and you might just end up getting all the votes!)

How does this movie hold up 25 years later? Interestingly, very well. The comedy was not reliant on popular culture, except for the timeless Yankees, so anyone not familiar with the mid-eighties should still be able to relate. The clothing and hair styles were a giveaway, and I'll be right there in the front row with anyone else who wants to mock them for wearing that in public (while hiding old photographs of myself).

The most glaring difference would be in the technology. They used these strange devices that were wired to these boxes in order to speak to other people. I think they called these devices “telephones”. Where are the Blackberrys and iPhones? The cameras used by TV stations were oddly shaped as well. And then there was the fact that Brewster's personal accountant, assigned to keep track of his $30 million, carried around a hand-held adding machine complete with ticker tape!

Despite the lack of high-tech accessories, and the addition of low-tech accessories, the movie wasn't hampered by the times. It could have worked just as well these days as it did then, or even back at the turn of the century.

In fact, it did, and will.

The book that the film was based on was written by George Barr McCutcheon, published in 1902. The original story has Brewster squandering a $1 million inheritance from his grandfather within a whole year in order to receive $7 million from his uncle. The book has been made into film seven times already, inlcuding this 1985 version.

Previous adaptations have been released in:

• 1914 (directed by Cecil B. DeMille and starred Edward Abeles), 
• 1921 (starred Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle), 
• 1926 (Miss Brewster's Millions, with Bebe Daniels as Polly Brewster), 
• 1935 (changed setting to England and starred Jack Buchanan as Jack Brewster), 
• 1945 (starred Dennis O'Keefe as Montague Brewster, a U.S. Soldier returning home from active duty in WWII), 
• 1961 (retitled “Three on a Spree” and starred Jack Watling as Michael Brewster) 

Aside from the English version released in 1935, which naturally used pounds, the 1985 adaptation was the first to change the amount of the inheritance. Looking to the future, Warner Bros. plans on a new adaptation for a 2012 release, making a total of eight adaptations for one book published 108 years ago. No information is available yet other than it being written for the screen by Michael Diliberti and Matthew Sullivan.