Brewster's Millions

The 1945 version of the Winchell Smith/Byron Ongley theatrical war-horse Brewster's Millions stars Dennis O'Keefe as the lucky recipient of an $8,000,000 inheritance. But there's a catch; O'Keefe will receive his legacy only if he spends $1,000,000 in two months. Prohibited from giving the money away, O'Keefe invests in several losing propositions, including a flop Broadway musical; alas, every one of his bad investments turns a profit. African-American comic actor Eddie "Rochester" Anderson co-stars as O'Keefe's valet; the bantering master-servant relationship was much too casual for several Southern cities, which banned the film on the grounds that blacks should behave more "respectfully" to whites. In the original Brewster's Millions, the hero was a stockbroker; in this 1945 version, Brewster is a returning GI. The seventh and most recent filmization of Brewster's Millions (1985) starred Richard Pryor as a washed-up baseball player.