A Cool Million

"A Cool Million" presents “the dismantling of Lemuel Pitkin,” piece by piece. Young Pitkin is a typical “schlemiel,” stumbling around the country from one unfortunate situation to the next; in the course of the story, he gets robbed, cheated, unjustly arrested, frequently beaten, and exploited. In a parallel plot, Betty Prail, Pitkin’s love interest, is raped, abused, and sold into prostitution. During his sundry adventures throughout the United States, Pitkin manages to lose an eye, his teeth, a thumb, his scalp, and one leg. Nevertheless—in the face of brutal Irish cops, greedy Jewish lawyers, heartless con men, Italian slavers, and Chinese pimps—our hero retains his optimism, naïveté, and gullibility to the bitter end.

Pitkin’s troubles don’t end with his demise, however. Even after his death, he is exploited—as a martyr—by the National Revolutionary Party, a political organization led by Nathan “Shagpoke” Whipple, a manipulative, opportunistic ex-president of the United States. Pitkin’s birthday becomes a national holiday and American youths march down New York’s Fifth Avenue, singing songs in his honor. Whipple uses the occasion to speak out against ignoble aliens and call for a rejection of “sophistry, Marxism, and International Capitalism.” The scenario ends with a series of roaring “hails” from the celebratory crowd: to Lemuel Pitkin, the all-American boy.