BEFORE: Maisie Williams carries over again from "The Book of Love" - her third film in a row, and she also gets a special birthday SHOUT-out today, as she was born on 4/15/97.
Today's film is about the "Press Your Luck" game-show scandal of 1984, in which a contestant figured out the "random" patterns of the game show's prize board just by watching at home, and when he was on the show, once he got the timing down, he was able to avoid all of the Whammies and land only on the prize-winning spaces that also awarded more spins. He kept spinning and kept winning so long that his streak had to be continued in the next episode of the show, and he set a record for most prize money won on a game show in a single day, $110,237 in cash and prizes which is equivalent to about $341,000 in 2025 money. His record stood until 2006 when someone on "The Price Is Right" won $147,517.
THE PLOT: An unemployed ice cream truck driver steps onto the game show "Press Your Luck" harboring a secret: the key to endless money. But his streak is threatened when the bewildered executives uncover his real motivations.
AFTER: The story of Michael Larson is indeed a fascinating one, there's so much more to the story that is not told in this film. "The Luckiest Man in America" really only tells us the story in the present tense, but of course Michael Larson had a past and he had a future (he died in 2024, but still, that's 40 more years after "Press Your Luck" had him on. Of course, nobody knows the exact conversations that the game show executives and employees had, or exactly what went on behind the scenes, so of course some of this film's events are speculation. So it's important to know, though, where the film deviated from the facts of the case.
We know that Michael Larson worked part-time as an ice cream truck vendor, also he sometimes repaired air conditioners. Outside of that, he ran a lot of scams and schemes - one of the simplest was opening up bank accounts to receive a $500 credit for each one and then closing them down just as quickly to walk away with the bank's money. He once registered a business JUST so he could fire himself and collect unemployment in addition to selling stolen goods and running various Ponzi schemes. Considering how much time he spent memorizing the patterns of the game board on "Press Your Luck", that was possibly the hardest he ever worked at anything and the most honestly, too.
Technically he wasn't cheating, because there was no specific rule against memorizing the game board's patterns - and there were only FIVE patterns to memorize, because the game show was produced very cheaply. The show's creator knew that memorizing the pattern was possible, he just didn't believe that anyone would take the time or the trouble to do so. Once they realized that Larson was looking at the different squares BEFORE they lit up, they figured out exactly what he was up to. And the prizes that equaled a couple thousand dollars PLUS one spin were always in the same places, it's just that each square rotated between three different prizes or whammies, so it was all just a matter of timing and memorization. He landed on the best squares (the ones with extra spins) 29 times in a row, which allowed him to build up such an enormous bankroll.
The host was instructed to try to scare him into quitting, reminding him that he was defying the odds each time he ordered another spin, but Larson didn't care, because once he knew how to avoid the whammies and stop at the right time, he could not lose. He had spent MONTHS watching VHS tapes of the show to determine the patterns, and he used the pause button on the VCR remote to practice his timing.
NITPICK POINT: The film suggests that somehow Larson drove his ice cream truck all the way from Ohio, also that maybe he was living in the truck, as it contained several fake IDs, license plates for various states, and the VHS tapes of the game show that he watched. None of this makes any sense, because Larson spent the last of his money on the PLANE ticket from Ohio to Los Angeles, and the bus ride out to the studio in Hollywood. Something in his hard-luck story of not being able to buy a birthday gift for his daughter made him sympathetic, and it won over the show's executive producer, but again, this was all maybe kind of an act, because he knew that if he could get on the show and spin the wheel, he'd win every time.
Look, I've been close to being a contestant on two different shows, both "Jeopardy!" and "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire", I can always pass the first part of the test easy-peasy, that's the knowledge-based part. What I lack is apparently the charisma to be a contestant, they want to see big smiles, jumping up and down, that sort of thing. That's not how I roll. Also they want you to be positive, the audience wants to hear upbeat stories about contestant's accomplishments, and well, let's just say that sometimes I've tried out on days where I wasn't very upbeat. I also don't like pretending to be someone I'm not, so it's difficult for me to be all sunshine and rainbows when trying out for a quiz show is a serious business to me. But this means that I don't really understand why Larson's sad-sack routine had any effect on the producer of "Press Your Luck", to the point where he'd select Larson for the show without properly vetting him, giving him a break because it seemed like life wasn't really going his way.
But was that the case? Was Larson appearing like a loser with no money all part of the act? Or was that who he really was? It kind of doesn't matter, as long as appearing that way got him cast directly on the show, like before he could be checked out. That decision ended up costing CBS a lot of money, after it was determined that Larson wasn't cheating, he was just smarter than the producers of the show. He got his check, but he also got a lifetime ban from re-appearing on the show, and the producers decided to NEVER air his episode again - also they were forced to add more complex patterns to the spinning part of the game, and a future limit of $75,000 on any contestant's winnings. This seems a bit weird, like if the producers of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" wouldn't allow anyone to win more than $250,000 or something.
The film shows a clip of the real Michael Larson during the end credits, but it doesn't get into what happened to him after the show - he had to pay about $35,000 in taxes on his winnings, so there went a chunk of the money. He also bought a bunch of gifts for his daughter, to make up for missing her birthday, and then he invested some of the money in a Ponzi real estate scheme. Yeah, that tracks. He stored about $50,000 in his girlfriend's house, and the place got robbed one night while they attended a Christmas party. Larson was convinced that his girlfriend was involved in the theft, which led to her kicking him to the curb. Larson then got a job as a manager at a Wal-Mart, but never gave up on his schemes, 1995 he was charged with taking money from 14,000 investors in a multi-level marketing scam, at which time he fled Ohio for Florida, and died there from throat cancer in 1999.
The story behind making the movie is almost as twisty as that, the first plan to adapt his story into a movie took place in the year 2000, with Bill Murray attached to star. Howard Franklin was supposed to direct it, but it really took 24 more years for the film to be made, by another director. I can't imagine all the weird twists and turns in-between, which are not mentioned on the film's Wikipedia page. I guess everyone always had something better to do than this.
NITPICK POINT #2 - the way the production segments are portrayed here, it seems like the game show was aired live, and that would be ridiculous. Most game shows are taped and broadcast later, like they record five episodes of "Jeopardy" during a taping day and that's a week of shows, then they air about two months later, I think. This is done just in case there's some accidental nudity or something, like that one time a woman's blouse fell off while she was running to "come on down". But here Larson swears out loud and the sound editor claims that he will NOT be able to edit that out. Why not? The show's being recorded for a future broadcast, there should be NO reason why they can't bleep out a curse word.
Directed by Samir Oliveros
Also starring Paul Walter Hauser (last seen in "The Naked Gun"), Walton Goggins (last seen in "Fatman"), Shamier Anderson (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 4"), David Strathairn (last seen in "At Close Range"), Brian Geraghty (last seen in "10 Years"), Patti Harrison (last seen in "The Electric State"), Ricky Russert (last seen in "Queen Bees"), David Rysdahl (last seen in "Oppenheimer"), Shaunette Renee Wilson (last seen in "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"), James Wolk (last seen in "The Boys in the Boat"), Damian Young (last seen in "The Object of My Affection"), Haley Bennett (last seen in "Borderlands"), Johnny Knoxville (last seen in "Walking Tall"), Lilli Kay (last seen in "Rustin"), Tatiana Ronderos (last seen in "Mile 22"), Stefano Meier, Carlota Castro, Carlos Manuel Vesga, Genesis Rodriguez (last seen in "Man on a Ledge"), Paulina Diazgranados, Evan Sudarsky, Marcela Vargas, Johan Ortega, Manolo Bellon, Tyler Youngblood, and the voice of Chris Nichter
RATING: 6 out of 10 parting gifts
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