****SPOILERS*** New York City taxi driver Eddie Best is really behind the eight ball in him drowning in personal debt due to his sick gambling habit. It just happens that one of Eddie's customers, obviously drunk, accidentally left a money clip with a whopping $450.00, that's something like $3,500.00 in 2015 dollars,in his cab without bothering to report it. Telling his wife Nora of his good fortune she instead put Eddie on a guilt trip in him not returning the money even though he has no idea,with the money clip containing no identification, who it belongs too! With Nora going psycho over Eddie not returning the money, to whom?, she seeks help from the friendly kind understanding as well as tough, he was later to play General George S. Patton in the movies, social & welfare worker Neil Brock played by the tough and hard drinking ex-US Marine George C. Scott.
Meanwhile Eddie feeling that he's on a lucky streak goes out to paint the town gambling and ends up winning an astounding $1,500.00,That's almost $10,000.00 in 2015 dollars, at the local neighborhood gambling den. With Brock ratting Eddie out, he didn't want to do it but the law is the law, to the police and the Hack Department where he ended up getting a 60 day suspension from his job in making a living driving a cab. Complicating matters even worse Eddie ends up taking a cab out of his bosses, his brother Hal, garage in Long Island City to make money on his own without Hal, who's to get 51% of Eddie's profits, knowing about it! Now faced with not only a suspension but a car robbery charge Eddie has dug himself into a much deeper hole that he originally was in!
***SPOILERS*** The happy ending has Nora, who in fact started this whole mess, get a forgiving Hal, after all he's his kid brother, to drop charges against his brother and her husband Eddie as Brock convinces the by the books, and pay offs under the table,Hack Department to drop its suspension if he promises to be a good boy in the future. Brock the middle-man is all this ends up getting a worthless letter of commendation not a cash reward for straighting everything out since, even back then in 1963, the city of New York was just about bankrupt! That due to the corruption of some of the very people who gave Eddie such a hard time for doing something in him not returning the $450.00 to them, who very probably would have pocketed it anyway, of the the unidentified person who lost or left in in his cab and never bother to claim or report it!
Meanwhile Eddie feeling that he's on a lucky streak goes out to paint the town gambling and ends up winning an astounding $1,500.00,That's almost $10,000.00 in 2015 dollars, at the local neighborhood gambling den. With Brock ratting Eddie out, he didn't want to do it but the law is the law, to the police and the Hack Department where he ended up getting a 60 day suspension from his job in making a living driving a cab. Complicating matters even worse Eddie ends up taking a cab out of his bosses, his brother Hal, garage in Long Island City to make money on his own without Hal, who's to get 51% of Eddie's profits, knowing about it! Now faced with not only a suspension but a car robbery charge Eddie has dug himself into a much deeper hole that he originally was in!
***SPOILERS*** The happy ending has Nora, who in fact started this whole mess, get a forgiving Hal, after all he's his kid brother, to drop charges against his brother and her husband Eddie as Brock convinces the by the books, and pay offs under the table,Hack Department to drop its suspension if he promises to be a good boy in the future. Brock the middle-man is all this ends up getting a worthless letter of commendation not a cash reward for straighting everything out since, even back then in 1963, the city of New York was just about bankrupt! That due to the corruption of some of the very people who gave Eddie such a hard time for doing something in him not returning the $450.00 to them, who very probably would have pocketed it anyway, of the the unidentified person who lost or left in in his cab and never bother to claim or report it!