The Busy Body (film)

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The Busy Body
The busy body film.jpg
Directed by William Castle
Screenplay by Ben Starr
Based onnovel by Donald E. Westlake
Produced byWilliam Castle
Starring Sid Caesar
Robert Ryan
Anne Baxter
Kay Medford
Jan Murray
Richard Pryor
Arlene Golonka
Ben Blue
Dom DeLuise
Bill Dana
Godfrey Cambridge
Marty Ingels
George Jessel
Cinematography Harold E. Stine
Edited byEdwin H. Bryant
Music by Vic Mizzy
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date
  • March 12, 1967 (1967-03-12)
Running time
101 minutes
LanguageEnglish

The Busy Body is a 1967 American comedy film directed and produced by William Castle and based on Donald E. Westlake's novel of the same name. [1] It was Richard Pryor's film debut. [2]

Contents

Plot

George Norton is a low-level bumbler who works for Chicago crime boss Charley Barker. A well-dressed mama's boy, George is in good standing with Barker, even gaining a promotion, until an incident that costs the mob a million dollars.

George is indirectly responsible when Archie, a mob courier, is killed at a barbecue. After the funeral, Barker instructs George to dig up Archie's body because $500,000 was stuffed inside the lining of each side of a blue suit that an unwitting George personally chose for the burial.

George opens the casket to find it empty, then later occupied by a different corpse. He sets out to retrieve the body and the money before Barker gets angry enough to arrange a funeral for HIM.

Cast

See also

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References

  1. "'Warning Shot' and 'The Busy Body'". The New York Times . 8 June 1967. Archived from the original on 24 June 2024. Retrieved 4 December 2020.
  2. quint (6 November 2008). "A Movie A Day: Quint on THE BUSY BODY (1967): You guys are going to learn class or I'm gonna kick your teeth in!". Ain't It Cool News. Archived from the original on 22 September 2021. Retrieved 4 December 2020.