Moneychangers, The

1 9 7 6 (USA)
1 x 120 minute episode
3 x 90 minute episodes

Bottle after bottle of Dom Perignon flowed in this six-and-a-half-hour NBC miniseries about lust and power in banking.

Roscoe Heyward (Christopher Plummer of the blue eyes in an Emmy-award-winning role) and Alex Vandervoort (Kirk Douglas of the dimple) were both executive vice presidents of the First Mercantile Bank of America, struggling for the presidency of the bank.

Heyward – who had the intellect of an adding machine and the soul of a ledger – was seduced into a $50 million loan by George Quartermain (Lorne Greene) and into bed by Avril Devereaux (Joan Collins). He did not get on with his frigid wife, Beatrice (Jean Peters), who had trouble keeping up appearances on $75,000 a year.

Alex Vandervoort – the social conscience of the bank – loved bright young radical chic lawyer Margot Bracken (Susan Flannery from Days of Our Lives) and did not get on with his mad wife, Celia (Marisa Pavan), who was institutionalised in a mental hospital where her redoubtable keeper was played by Helen Hayes.

Teller Miles Eastin (Timothy Bottoms) stole $6,000 from the bank, was sent to jail and brutally gang-raped while another inmate looked on.

He redeemed himself by uncovering a counterfeit charge card operation that was threatening to foreclose on First Mercantile’s assets.

Heyward’s loan disappeared when Quartermain’s company dissolved.

There was a bit of street violence, a run on the bank, and the bank was blown up by a group of blacks and Chicanos whose credit rating wasn’t good enough to finance a community housing project.

It was all good meaty soap opera stuff. Unsurprisingly, given that the source material was an Arthur Hailey novel.

Alex Vandervoort
Kirk Douglas
Roscoe Heyward
Christopher Plummer
Miles Eastin
Timothy Bottoms
Margot Bracken
Susan Flannery
Edwina Dorsey
Anne Baxter
Nolan Wainwright
Percy Rodrigues
Jerome Patterton
Ralph Bellamy
Avril Devereaux
Joan Collins
Tony Bear
Robert Loggia
Celia Vandervoort
Marisa Pavan
Beatrice Heyward
Jean Peters
Lewis Dorsey
Hayden Rorke
Wizard Wong
James Shigeta
Juanita Nunez
Amy Levitt
Harold Austin
Patrick O’Neal
George Quartermain
Lorne Greene
Dr McCartney
Helen Hayes
Fergus Gatwick
Roger Bowen
Ben Rosselli
Leonardo Cimino
Danny Kerrigan
Douglas Fowley
Stanley Inchbeck
Basil Hoffman
Deacon Euphrates
Lincoln Kilpatrick
George Sperrie
Harry Lewis
Mr Tottenhoe
Woodrow Parfrey
Lew Endicott
Michael Shannon
John Dinkerwell
Stan Shaw
Julius LaRocca
Joseph R. Sicari
Humphy Lopez
Chick Vennera
Miss Callahan
Virginia Grey
Estela Nunez
Yxta Murray
Matt French
Alex Sheafe
Donniger
Vincent Schiavelli
Karl
Tony Burton
Moonbeam
Nancy Hsueh
Cliff Castleman
Lincoln Kibbee
Timberwell
Bing Russell
Beth Euphrates
Marla Gibbs
Vernon Jax
Redmond Gleeson
Vic
Tim Everett
Rhetta
Jo Jo Malone
Cal Coogan
Frank O’Brien