Movie Classic: Who's Minding The Mint?

This is a new addition to my collection that I've been looking forward to for quite some time. Who's Minding The Mint? was arguably my mom's favorite comedy film. I was introduced to the movie sometime around age 7 or 8 because I remember watching it the night I met who was to become my Aunt Cheryl and a couple of new cousins. Anyways, this became a movie that we'd watch whenever it came on TV, usually WGN from Chicago or TBS from Atlanta back when both were considered luxury channels on cable and not your standard editions on streaming these days.

The plot of the 1967 film is of a caper that was pretty much unheard 50 plus years ago- to print several million dollars in new bills overnight in the US mint in Washington. Today, with computers and other tech, such a caper isn't uncommon in film or even TV. 

Jim Hutton (Ellery Queen) plays Harry Lucas, a treasury department employee who lives beyond his means. To keep up appearances as a hip young bachelor, Harry furnishes his apartment and wardrobe on a trial basis. This includes chauffeured cars! Because of this, Harry's boss thinks he's embezzling funds from the mint. Plus, he's jealous that a very demure treasury employee has a crush on Harry, though the young man thinks only of her as a friend. One day, Harry accidentally takes $50,000 with him and destroys it in his garbage disposal. With his boss already suspecting Harry of being crooked, Harry has got to come up with something to replace the money and fast!

Harry has a friend nicknamed Pop, who was forced to retire just before he was about to become a printer for the mint. Pop is more than happy to finally get his hands on those presses. But he'll need a safe cracker to open the vault that holds the plates. Plus, they need a fence who can get supplies on the cheap, a tour guide of the underground sewer system leading to the mint, someone to build a boat small enough to fit through a manhole cover, and a lookout! Now Harry's $50K caper has ballooned into a $10 million dollar heist!

Along with Hutton, Who's Minding The Mint? had an all-star cast! My Darling Clementine's Walter Brennan played Pop. (To this day, I am a huge fan of Walter Brennan and will watch anything he's in!) The Rat Pack's Joey Bishop, TV legend Milton Berle, Victor Buono (Batman's King Tut), Bob Denver (Gilligan's Island) and Dorothy Provine (That Darn Cat) rounded out everyone involved in the crime of the century. M*A*S*H*'s Jamie Farr plays an important part as cousin Mario.

I've been wanting this book since I found out it existed pre-pandemic. Then I just couldn't find it anywhere. But then one day recently on a whim, I decided to go searching for it, finding a very good condition copy on Amazon of all places. I made sure the first night I added this bad boy to my collection that I read it cover-to-cover!

The renderings of the characters were really good. It wasn't SOP to list the artist credits just yet though DC and Marvel were taking big strides to do this by 1967. Thus I can't give credit to who the artist was. But I will surely offer the team praise. 

The anonymous writer of this adaptation did a great job too. I've noticed that with some comic book versions of films from this era, Dell had a bad habit of running out of book and basically shoving in a very abrupt and hasty ending; sometimes to the point, the end of the story split out to the back cover! (See my review of the John Wayne vehicle The Horse Riders as proof!) But with Who's Minding The Mint?, this 4-color version of the movie had good pacing and felt very faithful to the source material. 

Not every joke and character makes it to the screen. Corrine Miller's character of Harry's sexpot love interest Doris was probably cut because her presence probably violated Dell's wholesome promise of comics parents will approve of. The lengthy joke about sex rituals recorded in a recent issue of Playboy was definitely edited out. I'm not really sure why I thought that scene would be in this comic. But I did! Still, I was extremely happy with my purchase.

Now if only I could find this on TV. I'm really wanting to see it on celluloid of all a sudden.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.