Quick Millions is a 1931 pre-Code crime film directed by Rowland Brown and starring Spencer Tracy, Marguerite Churchill, Sally Eilers, and featuring George Raft as the sidekick with a solo eccentric dance performance.

Plot

Daniel "Bugs" Raymond (Spencer Tracy) is a truck driver who is tired of working for a living and not getting ahead. He realizes the trucks and their drivers are making the business owners rich and hatches a protection racket where he controls the use of the trucks and men to drive them. Along the way, he sees Dorothy Stone (Marguerite Churchill), a wealthy woman "with class," and wants her, although he has a girlfriend Daisy (Sally Eilers). Dorothy is engaged to another. Bugs maneuvers his way into the business of Dorothy's brother (who recognizes he will lose everything without Bugs) and participates in society. Bugs and his buddies steal incriminating evidence from corrupt politicians and law enforcement in order to keep them from going after the protection racket. There are great scenes of the gang, including a dance number of Jimmy Kirk (George Raft). Kirk is one of Raymond's lieutenants and he commits murder for hire of a journalist for one of Raymond's competitors, "Nails" (Warner Richmond), who wants to take over the lucrative racket. Bugs then has to take care of Kirk, and society has had enough of the lawlessness and racketeering. The newsreels and politicians speak out against Bugs—making him angry. He decides to crash "in morning coats" Dorothy's society wedding with all his gang and show how he is now a part of society. He delivers his philosophy of how he is as much law-abiding as those in power. Daisy is upset, feeling some foreboding. On their way to the wedding, and during a wedding montage, Bugs is assassinated by Nails and the story comes to an end.

Awards