The Man with the Golden Arm (1955 film) US currency - real or fake?

Most of it is real but you can see that reverse (back) in the last photo
bottom right is not real US currency. Some movies you see obviously fake bills,
some you see real. And some you see US bills, but on closer examination they are fakes. Often you can catch anachronism bills if it is a time period piece and the money is more modern than it should be.

 

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Concerning episode 18 of season five of The X-Files known as "The Pine Bluff Variant" (1998):

"A Bank of Canada money depository stood in for the Pennsylvania bank robbed in the episode. The production staff assembled more than 15,000 dollar bills of various denominations—which valued somewhere near $40,000—for use during the bank scenes. Production initially halted because there was only one police guard on duty. Fearful that an actual armed robbery might take place, back-up was brought in, allowing filming to proceed." Source: Wikipedia.

I thought this was interesting to read when it comes to security and money on film sets. Clearly, it sounds like genuine currency was used.

A prime example of this is North Country, which was filmed in 2005 but takes place in 1989. Well, in the film Theron's character is sitting at a kitchen table when she either gives or receives (not sure which- haven't seen this one in a while) a Series 1996, 1999, or 2001 $20 bill!

I immediately noticed this upon viewing; clearly, it is one of the greatest cinematic blunders of all time. The cast, crew, and director alike should all be ashamed of themselves; particularly in 2005 a Series 1995 or earlier-design twenty would have still been more easily found in circulation to use on the set than today so I'm sure finding a proper contemporary one to use would not have been difficult.

 

And every ten-dollar roll of quarters or halves would have been most of a day's wages. The average man's salary in 1955 was $3400 a year. That works out to just over $65 a week, $13 per working day (assuming you got weekends off).

"If I had a time machine" to go back and buy coins like those at face value, I'd instead take enough money to hire a lawyer, set up a trust, and buy into the stock market. One trip could turn a thousand bucks into millions. A second trip could turn those millions into ownership of the planet.

 

Umm, Meow was just having a little bit of a CRH fantasy. For a Cat, a time machine would be for swiping left the next time around instead of swiping right at the mouse that got away. (As the mouse went left, after one committed to a right flank attack.)

 

I used to think that. However in the context of the time, when coins were silver as a matter of course, it wasn’t such a big deal.

also, depends on how wealthy you were. My dad grew up poor and was only able to save about a coin per week, maximum.