Mister 880 (1950)

The Secret Service has been frustrated for more than a decade by a weird counterfeiting case -- file #880. Even though the bills are ridiculously amateur in quality (printed on store-bought stationery; an obvious misspelling on the face), the phonies are single dollars which cashiers just can't be bothered to check.

Burt Lancaster is the star agent newly assigned to the case and Edmund Gwenn is the sweet old junk dealer who only prints the bills when he has no other means of making ends meet. It's a story that's sweet and nutty and so Hollywood-level pat that the fact it's based on a true case is an almost unbelievable piece of trivia.

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