The story is told in flashback as Julie Clark (Frances Rafferty) is sentenced to 10 years and a reporter quips "you never know who will come along on the noon bus"!!! Like Sam Clark - he got off the noon bus eager to get a safety deposit box to stash $200,000, courtesy of a bank robbery and a too trusting partner. While driving a taxi he rescues Julie from a drunken date and she is exactly what he has ordered!! An unhappy waitress who lives with her dominating Aunt Cora, you know, the type who conveniently have a bad turn whenever they don't get their way!! Steve has ingratiated himself into their home, overhears words, enough for him to realise that with the aunt out of the way Julie would come into a nice inheritance.
Hugh Beaumont, even though he ended up as father to America's favourite kid brother in "Leave It To Beaver", had a varied career in the 1940s playing everything from Michael Shayne in a series of P.R.C. films and more interestingly a couple of oddball characters - a murderous husband in "The Lady Confesses", a money mad psycho in "Money Mad" and "Apology For Murder" a sort of "Double Indemnity" on the cheap. The characters worked so well because he looked like such a regular good natured guy but behind a door or in the shadows - watch out!!!
Steve and Julie marry but through circumstances (contrived by Steve involving a non existent first wife) find themselves back at Aunt Cora's again: Julie acting fed up and irritated, Steve like an ideal husband but behind that façade making sure Aunt Cora will not have a long life. He plans to plant the $200,000 in the house and when the Aunt does die (from poison he is putting in her coffee), surprise! surprise! it will soon be known that the eccentric Cora didn't believe in banks!! Julie has already discovered Steve is a homicidal maniac (that's what he is called on the blurb on the back of the DVD!!) but is forced to go along with his murderous scheme as he is also psychotically fixated on her as well ("no one can take anything away from me - including you!!"). That is because lawyer Donald whom Julie has gone to regarding probate etc, can tell by her jittery mannerisms that something is not quite right with her and he decides to do some investigating. Meanwhile Steve's disgruntled partner comes looking for him and the money - the radio is turned up loud, then boom!!!
Did the writers forget the beginning by the time they got to the end or did that realise that it would be hard for an attorney to convince a jury that preppy looking Frances Rafferty could actually be a willing participant in the preceding mayhem!! Rafferty, who looked like she would really have fitted into a 1950s family TV show ("Father Knows Best", "The Donna Reed Show") was contracted to MGM in the 1940s but didn't rise above the bland ingénue - "Money Madness" may have given her her meatiest role.
Hugh Beaumont, even though he ended up as father to America's favourite kid brother in "Leave It To Beaver", had a varied career in the 1940s playing everything from Michael Shayne in a series of P.R.C. films and more interestingly a couple of oddball characters - a murderous husband in "The Lady Confesses", a money mad psycho in "Money Mad" and "Apology For Murder" a sort of "Double Indemnity" on the cheap. The characters worked so well because he looked like such a regular good natured guy but behind a door or in the shadows - watch out!!!
Steve and Julie marry but through circumstances (contrived by Steve involving a non existent first wife) find themselves back at Aunt Cora's again: Julie acting fed up and irritated, Steve like an ideal husband but behind that façade making sure Aunt Cora will not have a long life. He plans to plant the $200,000 in the house and when the Aunt does die (from poison he is putting in her coffee), surprise! surprise! it will soon be known that the eccentric Cora didn't believe in banks!! Julie has already discovered Steve is a homicidal maniac (that's what he is called on the blurb on the back of the DVD!!) but is forced to go along with his murderous scheme as he is also psychotically fixated on her as well ("no one can take anything away from me - including you!!"). That is because lawyer Donald whom Julie has gone to regarding probate etc, can tell by her jittery mannerisms that something is not quite right with her and he decides to do some investigating. Meanwhile Steve's disgruntled partner comes looking for him and the money - the radio is turned up loud, then boom!!!
Did the writers forget the beginning by the time they got to the end or did that realise that it would be hard for an attorney to convince a jury that preppy looking Frances Rafferty could actually be a willing participant in the preceding mayhem!! Rafferty, who looked like she would really have fitted into a 1950s family TV show ("Father Knows Best", "The Donna Reed Show") was contracted to MGM in the 1940s but didn't rise above the bland ingénue - "Money Madness" may have given her her meatiest role.