General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Money from Home

Money from Home is a 1953 American comedy film directed by George Marshall and starring the comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, produced by Hal B. Wallis for release through Paramount Pictures. It was the first Martin and Lewis film photographed in Technicolor and their only feature in 3-D, adapted by screenwriters Hal Kanter and James Allardice from a story by Damon Runyon about a gambler who enlists his veterinarian cousin to fix a horse race.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Director / producer	George Marshall; produced by Hal B. Wallis (Wallis-Hazen, Inc.)¹
Source	Damon Runyon story; screenplay by Hal Kanter and James Allardice⁴
Stars	Dean Martin (Honey Talk Nelson), Jerry Lewis (Virgil Yokum), Marjie Millar (Phyllis Leigh), Pat Crowley (Dr. Autumn Claypool), Richard Haydn (Bertie Searles)¹
Technical firsts	First Martin and Lewis film in Technicolor and their only 3-D feature, shot with the 735-pound Technicolor Dynoptic rig²^•³^•⁵
Production dates	Principal filming March 9 to May 1, 1953, on a $1.4 million production⁵^•⁶
U.S. release	Wide national opening in 2-D and 3-D on February 3, 1954; rentals of $2.8 million, the 22nd highest-grossing film of the year⁵
Ratings	64% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer (25 reviews); 6.1/10 on IMDb from about 1,000 users⁷^•¹
Restoration	4K 3-D Blu-ray from Kino Lorber, restored by the 3-D Film Archive from the original Dynoptic Technicolor camera negatives, released July 21, 2026⁸

Spoilers

Plot and cast

Honey Talk Nelson (Dean Martin) owes a large gambling debt to the bookie Jumbo Schneider (Sheldon Leonard) and promises the mob he will fix a race. He enlists his cousin Virgil Yokum (Jerry Lewis), a veterinarian, to help with a horse called "My Sheba" before a big race. Complications arise when Nelson meets Phyllis Leigh (Marjie Millar), the owner of the horse to be fixed, and Virgil falls for Dr. Autumn Claypool (Pat Crowley), the lady veterinarian; the pair resolve to help the horse win honestly and worry about Jumbo later.⁹ Lewis's Virgil poses as a British jockey for the scheme, a performance the Times-Picayune critic Kermit Tarleton called "terrific."

The supporting cast includes Richard Haydn as Bertie Searles, Robert Strauss as the Seldom Seen Kid, Gerald Mohr as the villain Marshall Preston, and Romo Vincent as the Poojah, alongside Jack Kruschen and Sheldon Leonard.¹^•¹⁰ Lewis's routines include the team's take on Cyrano de Bergerac.⁸

Long-gestating property

The film's origin predates its production by two decades. After the success of Little Miss Marker, adapted from a Runyon short story, Paramount bought the rights to Runyon's then-upcoming book Money from Home on August 1, 1934, three months before the book's publication, and announced an adaptation for Bing Crosby that was dropped because his schedule was full. A 1935 version with Jack Oakie was also prepared, and the property then sat dormant until 1952.⁵

In June 1952, Hal Wallis acquired the rights for $30,415 for his next Martin and Lewis picture. James B. Allardice and Hal Kanter adapted the story, keeping Runyonesque narration in first-person singular at the film's opening while reshaping the plot, including turning Phyllis Leigh's counterpart into the horse's owner and pairing Virgil Yokum with a female veterinarian.⁵

Production in 3-D Technicolor

The success of Bwana Devil in late 1952 had launched Hollywood's 3-D boom, and Wallis wanted his top box-office stars in a 3-D film quickly. After early discussions about the Natural Vision and Stereo-Cine processes and tests in February and early March 1953, the film was shot with Technicolor's new proprietary Dynoptic 3-D rig, which paired two three-strip Technicolor Model D cameras in a horizontal configuration. The rig weighed 735 pounds and ran six strips of black-and-white film per take, recording separate red, green, and blue records for the left- and right-eye images.⁵

Principal photography began on March 9, 1953, with three 3-D rigs on the set on the first day, after which only the Dynoptic rig was used for most filming. Filming was completed on May 1, 1953, on a production budget of $1.4 million.⁶^•⁵ The racetrack sequences were filmed at the Devonshire Stables and Racetrack at Northridge Farms in the San Fernando Valley, dressed as a Maryland steeplechase ground.⁵ During production, Jerry Lewis received an onscreen credit for "Special Material in Song Numbers Staged by Jerry Lewis", the only credited such work he received during the Martin and Lewis partnership, under an agreement dated April 23, 1953.⁵

Release and reception

The film's 3-D presentation was undercut before release. At a November 6, 1953 trade screening in Los Angeles, the 3-D was projected out of sync, and trade reviewers including The Hollywood Reporter and Variety panned the process while responding positively to the film itself. Most exhibitors consequently opted to play the film flat. Paramount originally planned a 3-D release window from February 3, 1954, with 2-D bookings from March 4, but dropped the requirement on January 25 and opened the film nationwide in both formats on February 3.⁵

The format imbalance was decisive: the film played 3-D at only 356 theaters, drawing $358,000 in rentals from those playdates, while its roughly 17,000 2-D bookings brought in most of the $2.8 million total, making it the 22nd highest-grossing film of 1954 against an average U.S. ticket price of 49 cents.⁵ It was one of five 3-D films Paramount produced in 1953, alongside Sangaree, Those Redheads From Seattle, Flight to Tangier, and Cease Fire.¹¹

Reviews were mixed. The Los Angeles Times praised Martin's "excellent performance" as the Runyonesque character, while the New York Daily News judged the film "neither first class Runyon nor top-notch Martin and Lewis comedy," and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called it the team's best effort to date.⁷ On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 64% Tomatometer from 25 reviews and a 42% audience score.⁷

Restoration and home video

The film's stereoscopic version survived, one of 48 of the 50 domestic Golden Age 3-D features that exist in complete stereoscopic form.¹² The 3-D Film Archive, founded by Bob Furmanek, restored it in 4K in collaboration with Paramount Pictures, scanning 72 reels of the original Technicolor red/green/blue 35mm camera negatives, 54,000 feet of film in total. Furmanek calls it the Archive's most challenging restoration to date and its "crown jewel," with the work taking about two and a half years against a typical three to five months for a vintage 3-D feature.¹³^•⁵

The restored film opened in 3-D in New York only in 1993 at the Film Forum; it was not screened there in 3-D during its original release.⁵ A 4K restoration premiere was held at the Wexner Center for the Arts on February 27, 2026, and Kino Lorber released the film on Blu-ray 3D on July 21, 2026, its first 3-D home-video release, presented in stereoscopic and anaglyphic 3-D as well as standard 2-D, with commentary tracks and a documentary short about the restoration.³^•⁸

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Comedy and romantic films (individual works) › Comedies of the 1950s

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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