Happy New Years everyone! My apologies for the absence of posts for the past week. I was on vacation, visiting family on the east coast and in Arizona.
One month ago I
posted about a group of female criminals from the 1950s called the
"Brassiere Brigade." They stole money from the counting room of a telephone company, where they worked, by smuggling rolls of quarters out in their bras.
I only discovered the story of these women by accident when I came across a reference to them in an old newspaper. I thought I had stumbled upon an incredibly obscure story, and it occurred to me that it was perfect material for a movie -- one of those cute "chick-flicks" that Hollywood churns out. I had visions of writing it up as a screenplay and making a fortune.
But my hopes were dashed when I recently saw the trailer for a movie called
Mad Money that's coming out on Jan. 18. The movie (which stars Queen Latifah, Katie Holmes, and Diane Keaton) is the story of three women who steal money from a Federal Reserve Bank, where they work, by smuggling the money out in their underwear. In other words, it's basically the story of the Brassiere Brigade in a different setting (a bank instead of a phone company). Somebody got to my idea first!!!
I'm not sure if
Mad Money actually was inspired by the exploits of the Brassiere Brigade, though it's close enough not to make a difference. The
Mad Money site doesn't make any mention of the Brassiere Brigade. The movie seems to be a remake of a 2001 British made-for-TV movie called
Hot Money, about a group of British cleaning women who steal money from the Bank of England. The British movie claims to be based on a real-life incident, though it provides no specifics about that incident. Perhaps there was a group of female British criminals who copied the modus operandi of the American Brassiere Brigade. Hiding money in underwear may be a far more common method of theft than I realized.
Mad Money doesn't look very good, so I'm not going to bother seeing it in a theater. Perhaps I'll rent it on DVD. I think it would have been much better if it actually was the story of the Brassiere Brigade, set in Miami in the 1950s.
Comments
Go for it, just donate 1% to me for encouraging you when you thought it was hopeless.
It's been said that "Imitation is the sincerest form of Hollywood."
And the story of the Brassiere Brigade is, indeed, more interesting than this similar one.
the notes would be taken to a facility in the UK once to worn to be in circulation anymore to be incinerated.. and one of them noticed that between the final count and the incinerator was the perfect opportunity to grab some.. the police had no idea how much they stole..
sorry I can't be more help, as in dates etc, but I hope what I do remember can be of help in finding out more information
No, it is not autobiographical.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CiGRpm6Tf3I
The Federal Reserve is not a retail bank and does not have normal "customers". They basically transfer pre-existing bank reserves around and extend credit. None of that would facilitate uncounted amounts of cash around to stick anywhere. Any cash a fed would come into contact with would be of a known quantity and easily missed even if the pilfering were missed.
In real life, I strongly suspect the Federal Reserve has safeguards against this gambit, too. It's highly unlikely that nobody's had that idea before. For that matter, any Federal employee who shows a sudden, unexplained increase in wealth tends to be investigated (that's how they've caught a number of spies and crooked cops). But we can dream, or at least hack screenwriters can.