It appears that TCM chopped the ending out of its showing of the Burt Lancaster movie, Mister 880 tonight, Nov. 20th. There must have been some programming problem, but it was startling. Lancaster was excellent and Edmund Gwenn was perfect in the part of the old man passing counterfeit money. Right now, we are frustrated. When you sign on to a TCM showing, you assume the network cares enough about its own choices to give you the entire story. Evidently not. At least not tonight. They chopped it and sailed on. Why? This is the first time that has happened when we've been watching. Will someone please tell us how the movie ended?

New York-area counterfeiter, a kindly old junk collector who means no harm, may have met his match in a new Secret Service man determined to nab the 10-year offender of phony one-dollar bills. Despite an early placard telling us the film was made with "the special permission of the Secretary of the Treasury", as well as with "the assistance of the Treasury Department of the United States Secret Service", the film is surprisingly light and blithe. Edmund Gwenn, Santa Claus in 1947's "Miracle on 34th Street", ends up before the judge again, and his sweetly honest disposition and gentle nature puts us on his side no matter what the crime. Agent Burt Lancaster, wooing Gwenn's neighbor Dorothy McGuire, is perhaps too intense an actor for such a breezy, frivolous take on this situation, yet he works well with his co-stars and has a good scene questioning some Bowery kids (Billy Gray among them). Not an important picture by any means, though mildly entertaining. Gwenn received a Golden Globe for his performance, followed by an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. **1/2 from ****

Burt Lancaster was always one who took firm control of his career. He got out of the studio system very early in Hollywood and was always the one who called his own shots. I'm guessing that he probably owed someone a favor which is why he did Mister 880.It's not that Mister 880 is a bad film, but it's most definitely not a Burt Lancaster project. Burt and leading lady Dorothy McGuire play a definite second fiddle to Edmund Gwenn as the whimsical old neighborhood character who does some counterfeiting on the side when he runs short of money.The title stems from the number on his file with the United States Secret Service. Mister 880 isn't even that good a counterfeiter, but his case has been put on the agency back burner for years while they assign top priority to organized gangs of counterfeiters. Gwenn does his work on cheap office supply paper with a hand press. He even spells Washington wrong on the one dollar bills he prints. And he's been getting away with it for years because of the small denominations.McGuire comes to Lancaster's attention as she gets stuck with one of Gwenn's phonies. He's the agent who the New York office finally decided to assign to the 880 case. Of course the usual romantic complications get in the way of the case, but not forever.Edmund Gwenn is one of those delightful character actors you cannot help but like. His charm is infectious, never more so than when he won that Oscar for Miracle on 34th Street. His character of the Skipper is in the same vein as Kris Kringle in Miracle on 34th Street. Who could not like Edmund Gwenn and therefore who could not like Mister 880.

Secret Service agent Steve Buchanan (Burt Lancaster) and the entire New York Field Office of the Secret Service have been trying for many years to track down an elusive counterfeiter who has been making poor imitations of $1 bills. The counterfeiter, called "Mister 880" by the Secret Service after the file number assigned to the case, has been passing the counterfeit $1's all over New York City for many years. Agent Buchanan notices a pattern of passing activity that follows a subway line from Manhattan to Brooklyn. He and his fellow agents "stake out" Coney Island (the next stop on the subway line) and soon develop "The Skipper" (Edmund Gwynn) as a suspect. He is a kindly old gentleman who prints only enough counterfeit money to survive. Agent Buchanan has a big heart and feels terrible about arresting The Skipper. He asks the U.S. Attorney and the Federal Judge to go easy on The Skipper. The movie is based on the true story written by St. Clair McKelway. Ironically, in real life, the Secret Service never identified the suspect, who was a "junk dealer", until a fire started in his apartment. The New York Fire Department responded and "threw out" of the apartment window all sorts of "junk" while putting out the fire. Among the items tossed out the window was a small hand operated printing press and plates for the counterfeit $1 bills. The press and the plates were found by the NYPD who called the Secret Service. But, as we know, the real story wouldn't have made such a good movie, and Lancaster and Gwynn (Oscar winner for this role) are terrific.