The Jackpot
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Walter Lang
James Stewart
Barbara Hale
James Gleason
Fred Clark
Alan Mowbray
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Bill and Amy Lawrence live with their children, Phyllis and Tommy, in Glenville, Indiana, where Bill works at the Woodruff Department Store. Bill is bored by the routine aspects of their life and feels that their future is already programmed. One day at the store, Bill and co-worker Fred Burns are summoned to Woodruff's office. Woodruff is concerned because business is slow and wants them to come up with ideas to improve the situation. He also informs them that he will be going to Europe the following month and that one of them will be selected to run the store in his absence and will receive a promotion. Later, at home, Bill receives a phone call from New York asking him if he will be home that evening to listen to the Federal Broadcasting System's quiz show, Name the Mystery Husband as his number has been selected to be called as part of the $24,000 jackpot contest. Bill assumes the call is a joke being played by one of his friends, who will be present for the regular canasta game that evening, but nevertheless phones his friend, newspaperman Harry Summers, for tips on the mystery husband's identity and learns that it might be either band leader Harry James or writer Charles MacArthur. As the program begins, the card game crowd gathers around the radio, anxious to hear if anyone can guess the identity of the mystery husband, whose disguised voice has been stumping contestants for ten weeks. The program is almost over when Bill's phone finally rings. Bill has to answer a riddle before qualifying to guess the mystery husband and Tommy supplies the answer. Bill then guesses that Harry James is the mystery husband and wins. Prizes are soon delivered to the Lawrence home, and a Mr. Leslie of Harrington Interiors arrives to make over their house. Crowds gather at the house to watch several trucks unloading various items, including a washing machine and a piano. After Harry arrives with a photographer to do a story for the local paper, a taxi delivers another prize, the glamorous Hilda Jones, who has come to paint Bill's portrait. Suddenly, Bill discovers that he will have to pay income tax on all his prizes and consults a tax expert, who tells him that his liability will be $7,000. As his annual salary is $7,500. Bill and Amy decide to sell off most of the prizes. In the meantime, rumors circulate about Bill posing for Hilda, but she is actually painting a portrait of Amy from a photograph Bill has given to her. When Bill sells one of the watches he has won to a store customer, Woodruff tells him to desist. To counteract Bill's "involvement" with Hilda, Amy goes to dinner with Leslie. Bill then takes Amy to see the portrait at Hilda's hotel room, but when Hilda answers his knock at her door very affectionately, Amy leaves in a huff. Several strange people come to the house to view the numerous items for sale. When Bill finds he has to go to Chicago on business, Harry tells him that a sharp character by the name of Flick Morgan might buy some of the rings and watches from him. Bill goes to see Flick, who runs an illegal bookie operation behind a candy store. As Morgan examines a ring, the place is raided by the police, and he takes off with the ring. The police find other jewelry and watches in Bill's possession and arrest him. Meanwhile, the man who bought the watch from Bill has brought it back to Woodruff complaining that it doesn't work and consequently, when Woodruff receives a call from the Chicago police asking to verify Bill's employment, he denies knowing him. After Bill spends a night in jail, Harry comes to clear him and they drive back to Glenville. Along the way, they stop for a drink and Bill has one too many. Harry then phones one of Bill's friends to arrange a surprise wedding anniversary party for that evening. However, Bill and Amy have a fight, and when the party guests arrive, they find Bill leaving, suitcase in hand. The next day, Hilda delivers the portrait and Amy is surprised that it is of her. Hilda tells her that there was nothing between Bill and her and that Amy should hold onto him. When a lawyer, Pritchett, later arrives at the house saying that Bill is on his way, both Bill and Amy assume that Pritchett is there to negotiate divorce terms. Pritchett, in fact, represents Flick Morgan, who has lost the ring he was examining when the raid started. Pritchett tells Bill that Morgan is very grateful to him for not implicating him in the raid and wishes to pay Bill the full amount he asked for the ring, $5,000. After Bill realizes he can use this money to pay his tax liability, he and Amy reunite. Woodruff then drops by to say that his statement to the police was intended only as a joke. Although Bill socks him, Woodruff later promotes him to vice-president.
Director
Walter Lang
Cast
James Stewart
Barbara Hale
James Gleason
Fred Clark
Alan Mowbray
Patricia Medina
Natalie Wood
Tommy Rettig
Robert Gist
Lyle Talbot
Charles Tannen
Bigelow Sayre
Dick Cogan
Jewel Rose
Eddie Fetherston
Estelle Etterre
Claude Stroud
Caryl Lincoln
Valerie Mark
Joan Miller
Walter Baldwin
Dorothy Adams
Syd Saylor
John Qualen
Fritz Feld
Kathryn Sheldon
Robert Dudley
Billy Wayne
Minerva Urecal
Milton Parsons
Kim Spalding
Dulce Daye
Andrew Tombes
Marjorie Holliday
Peggy O'connor
Jack Roper
Dick Curtis
Guy Way
June Evans
Harry Hines
Carol Savage
Franklin Parker
Robert Bice
Tudor Owen
John Roy
John Bleifer
Tony De Marco
Philip Van Zandt
Bill Nelson
Jack Mather
Jay Barney
Ann Doran
Jerry Hausner
Billy Lechner
Frances Budd
George Conrad
Sam Edwards
Harry James
Elizabeth Flournoy
Harry Carter
Colin Ward
Ken Christy
Crew
Don Anderson
Jerry Bryan
Esperanza Corona
Raymond B. Egan
Samuel G. Engel
Henry Ephron
Phoebe Ephron
Paul Geller
Gaston Glass
Earle Hagen
Roger Heman
Harry Jones
Wesley Jones
Gus Kahn
Hal Klein
Joseph La Shelle
Charles Lemaire
George Leverett
Franz Liszt
Thomas Little
Lionel Newman
Ben Nye
Robert Petzoldt
Frank Prehoda
Stuart Reiss
Fred Sersen
Al St. Hilaire
Edward Stevenson
Erich Von Stroheim Jr.
J. Watson Webb Jr.
Lyle Wheeler
Richard A. Whiting
Joseph C. Wright
Darryl F. Zanuck
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
"They might detatch your salary."- Lawyer
"Then I'll quit my job and live on soup."- William
"They might detach this house."- Lawyer
"Then I'll burn down the house!"- William
Trivia
Notes
According to documents in the Twentieth Century-Fox Records of the Legal Department at the UCLA Arts-Special Collections Library, the studio purchased all rights to the John McNulty article, which appeared under The New Yorker's "A Reporter at Large" column, for $12,500. A radio version of the screenplay was broadcast by Screen Directors' Playhouse on April 26, 1951. That version starred James Stewart and Margaret Truman.
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States Fall November 1950
Re-released in United States on Video September 3, 1996
Re-released in United States on Video September 3, 1996
Released in United States Fall November 1950
