Summary
A chaotic tangle of inheritance, identity, and moral ambiguity, *The Millionaire* charts Jack Norman’s transformation from a disheveled, love-struck office drudge to a target of a cunning criminal syndicate. When the $80 million bequeathed by the dead financier Silas Gyde catapults Jack into a realm of wealth and peril, his relationship with the pragmatic Kate Blair becomes a litmus test for his character. The film’s duality—part farcical heist, part noir-esque suspense—oscillates between slapstick and tension as Jack’s alter ego, a vaudevillian actor named Bobo, becomes both shield and weapon against the gang’s machinations. The narrative’s deft pacing, juxtaposed with the stark moral calculus of its characters, reveals a story less about riches than the corrosive allure of status, echoing the existential voids of *The Strangler’s Grip* and the duality of identity in *Wolves of the Street*.
Synopsis
On the morning that Simon Fisher dismisses him, Jack Norman, who has fallen in love with Kate Blair, the bookkeeper, is notified that he has fallen heir to $80 million, the estate of murdered financier Silas Gyde, who once loved Norman's mother. Kate decides that she will not marry Jack until she can see what effect sudden wealth will have upon him. After many adventures, Jack discovers that the gang that murdered Silas is after him, and he persuades an actor friend to pose as the heir, while he acts as secretary. His friend Bobo is vamped by Marion, a female gang member, who marries, then tries to rob, Bobo; but Jack arrives with the police and captures the entire gang.
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