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Q: What was the old movie with Edmund Gwenn, in which he plays an old man who counterfeits $1 bills when he is down and out? He hangs the bills in the basement to dry. I believe it also stars John Payne.

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The film you're thinking of is the 1950 comedy "Mister 880," but his co-star was Burt Lancaster. The film Gwenn did with John Payne was Gwenn's career-defining "Miracle on 34th Street," which came out three years earlier.

Though Gwenn played charming old men in both, in "Mister 880" he traded Santa's toy factory in the Arctic for a much more grown-up money-minting factory in a New York apartment. Lancaster played a Secret Service agent sent to apprehend the bumbling counterfeiter, who had nonetheless eluded the force for decades.

The film was actually based on an article by St. Clair McKelway, published in The New Yorker, which related the true-crime tale of counterfeiter Edward Mueller. The article was later part of McKelway's similarly themed book, "True Tales From the Annals of Crime & Rascality," released the same year as the film.

Gwenn was nominated for the best-supporting-actor Oscar for his turn in "Mister 880," three years after winning it for "Miracle on 34th Street."

 

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