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Easy Money

Director: James Signorelli Run Time: 95 min. Format: 35mm Rating: R Release Year: 1983

Starring:  Jeffrey Jones,  Jennifer Jason Leigh,  Tom Noonan,  Val Avery, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Joe Pesci, Rodney Dangerfield

No cheating! No gambling! No booze! No smoking! No pizza! No nothin’, just EASY MONEY.

I tell you, with my doctor, I don’t get no respect. I told him, “I’ve swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills.” He told me to have a few drinks and get some rest. – Rodney Dangerfield

An early Dangerfield gem that gets no respect at all, Easy Money was the first film to cast the comic in a leading role, this time as a wisecracking Staten Island baby photographer with a gambling problem and a taste for the ganj. Not much of a stretch. But the film allows Rodney to be Rodney, putting his comic persona to the test with a dead mother-in-law whose $10 million inheritance comes with the caveat that he must cut weight, lose the booze and act like a respectable human being for a whole year. Easy money, right?

Part of Nitehawk’s summer program COMEDIANS IN FILM (Late Nite).

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