How to Beat the High Cost of Living
How to Beat the High Cost of Living

How to Beat the High Cost of Living

Watch TrailerWatch Movie
1980
1h 45m
5.0(29 votes)
Comedy

Overview

In order to beat inflation and subsidize their alimony checks, three suburban housewives plot to steal $1 million from a large plastic ball which is displayed in a local shopping center.

Links & Resources

IMDbView

Social & External

IMDb

Production Companies

American International Pictures
Filmways Pictures

Videos & Trailers

1 video

Cast & Crew

50 members
Acting

Susan Saint James

Jane

Susan Saint James
Acting

Jane Curtin

Elaine

Jane Curtin
Acting

Jessica Lange

Louise

Jessica Lange
Acting

Richard Benjamin

Albert

Richard Benjamin
Acting

Eddie Albert

Max

Eddie Albert
Acting

Cathryn Damon

Natalie

Cathryn Damon
Acting

Dabney Coleman

Jack Heintzel

Dabney Coleman
Acting

Fred Willard

Robert

Fred Willard
Acting

Art Metrano

Gas Station Attendant

Art Metrano
Acting

Ronnie Schell

Bill Pike

Ronnie Schell
Acting

Michael Bell

Tom

Michael Bell
Acting

Sybil Danning

Charlotte

Sybil Danning
Acting

Al Checco

Tim Lundy

Al Checco
Acting

Susan Tolsky

Patty

Susan Tolsky
Acting

Garrett Morris

Power & Light Man

Garrett Morris
Acting

David Lunney

Leon - Stage Manager

No Image
Acting

Michael K. Daly

Sheriff - Antique Store

No Image
Acting

Byron Morrow

Charlie Goldring

Byron Morrow
Acting

James 'Izzy' Whetstine

Eddie - Bartender

No Image
Acting

Jack Krupnick

Man in Chevy

No Image
Acting

James Aday

Richard - Architects' Office

No Image
Acting

Wesley Baldwin

Billy

No Image
Acting

Sarah Leonard

Laurie

No Image
Acting

Allan Warnick

Steve

Allan Warnick
Acting

Robin Hickman

Singing Salesman

No Image
Acting

Daniel Mayes

Shoe Salesman

No Image
Acting

Tom Morrison

Shoe Salesman

No Image
Acting

Jane Van Boskirk

Woman in Vets' Office

No Image
Acting

Jon Dickman

Donald - Garage Sale

No Image
Acting

Bill Ritchie

Festive Young Man - Garage Sale

No Image
Acting

Robert Canaga

Man - Garage Sale

No Image
Acting

Stan Boyd

Card Cronie

No Image
Acting

Jerry Zinnamon

Card Cronie

No Image
Acting

Tom Gressler

Card Cronie

No Image
Acting

Pip Miller

Security Guard #1 (as Philip Miller)

Pip Miller
Crew

Ralph Garrett

Security Guard #2

No Image
Acting

Robert W. Talbot

Security Guard #3

No Image
Acting

Harvey Lewis

Process Server

No Image
Acting

Nanci Westerland

Woman Civilian

No Image
Acting

Joan Schumacher

Woman Civilian on Stage

No Image
Acting

Scott Barkhurst

Man Civilian on Stage

No Image
Acting

Linda Hall

Woman Civilian on Stage

No Image
Art

Craig Jackson

Man Civilian on Stage

No Image
Acting

Larry Woodruff

Man Civilian on Stage

No Image
Acting

Colleen Murff

Lady at Garage Sale

No Image
Directing

Jonathan Schwartz

Shoe Salesman (as Jonathan Schwarz)

Jonathan Schwartz
Acting

Wendy Shawn

Assistant - Pageant

No Image
Acting

Cindy Douglas

High School Student

No Image
Lighting

Chris Strong

Follow spot operator

No Image
Acting

Carmen Zapata

Mama (uncredited)

Carmen Zapata

Similar Movies

Call me Rockefeller
7.0
1990

Call me Rockefeller

In the absence of their parents, the Malinowski kids are robbed. Instead of going to the police though they decide to regain the stolen money themselves.

Movie
Sugar & Spice
6.4
2001

Sugar & Spice

When Jack and Diane find themselves in an unexpected adult situation, the A-Squad comes to their rescue. In order to help their friend Diane, the A-Squad goes where no cheerleader has gone before: taking on a little after-school project known as bank robbery. But the A-Squad does things their way -- with sugar and spice -- forever changing their friendship, their future and the nation's notion of teen spirit.

Movie
The Collector
5.2
2004

The Collector

A romantic comedy set in the world of gambling, debt collecting and professional boxing. Laura is an unlucky gambler with a huge debt, she crosses paths with Claus, a former boxer who now makes a living as a debt collector. Laura is cheating, scamming, and lying and eventually life catches up with her. Claus is trying to regain his self respect and start anew. Together, they make an awkward but very charming couple on the verge of love. It is a story about trust, friendship, new beginnings, getting a second chance and doing the right thing.

Movie
Observe and Report
5.4
2009

Observe and Report

Mall security guard Ronnie Barnhardt is called into action to stop a flasher from turning shopper's paradise into his personal peep show. But when Barnhardt can't bring the culprit to justice, a surly police detective is recruited to close the case.

Movie
Eight Crazy Nights
5.2
2002

Eight Crazy Nights

Davey Stone, a 33-year old party animal, finds himself in trouble with the law after his wild ways go too far.

Movie
Withnail & I
7.3
1987

Withnail & I

Two out-of-work actors -- the anxious, luckless Marwood and his acerbic, alcoholic friend, Withnail -- spend their days drifting between their squalid flat, the unemployment office and the pub. When they take a holiday "by mistake" at the country house of Withnail's flamboyantly gay uncle, Monty, they encounter the unpleasant side of the English countryside: tedium, terrifying locals and torrential rain.

Movie
Barfly
6.9
1987

Barfly

Downtrodden writer Henry and distressed goddess Wanda aren't exactly husband and wife: they're wedded to their bar stools. But, they like each other's company—and Barfly captures their giddy, gin-soaked attempts to make a go of life on the skids.

Movie
Don't Let Your Meat Loaf
1995

Don't Let Your Meat Loaf

Three unemployed actors try to make money be doing stand up comedy.

Movie
It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World
7.0
1963

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

A group of strangers come across a man dying after a car crash who proceeds to tell them about the $350,000 he buried in California. What follows is the madcap adventures of those strangers as each attempts to claim the prize for himself.

Movie
Secondhand Lions
7.2
2003

Secondhand Lions

The comedic adventures of an introverted boy left on the doorstep of a pair of reluctant, eccentric great-uncles, whose exotic remembrances stir the boy's spirit and re-ignite the men's lives.

Movie
Deal
5.3
2008

Deal

As an ex-gambler teaches a hot-shot college kid some things about playing cards, he finds himself pulled into the world series of poker, where his protégé is his toughest competition.

Movie
Nuns on the Run
5.8
1990

Nuns on the Run

Brian and Charlie work for a gangster. When the boss learns they want to "leave" he sets them up to be killed, after they help rob the local Triads of their drug dealing profits. Brian and Charlie decides to steal the money for themselves, but when their escape doesn't go to plan, they have to seek refuge in a Nuns' teacher training school.

Movie
The Miser
6.3
1980

The Miser

The children of Harpagon, Cléante and his sister Elise, are each in love but they still haven’t spoken to their father yet. Harpagon is a miser who wants to choose the right man and the right woman for his children. Based on Molière’s play.

Movie
Smokey and the Bandit
7.0
1977

Smokey and the Bandit

A race car driver tries to transport an illegal beer shipment from Texas to Atlanta in under 28 hours, picking up a reluctant bride-to-be on the way.

Movie
The Barbarian Invasions
7.1
2003

The Barbarian Invasions

In this belated sequel to 'The Decline of the American Empire', middle-aged Montreal college professor, Remy, learns that he is dying of liver cancer. His ex-wife, Louise, asks their estranged son, Sebastian, a successful businessman living in London, to come home. Sebastian makes the impossible happen, using his contacts and disrupting the Canadian healthcare system in every way possible to help his father fight his terminal illness to the bitter end, while reuniting some of Remy's old friends, including Pierre, Alain, Dominique, Diane, and Claude, who return to see their friend before he passes on.

Movie
BASEketball
6.1
1998

BASEketball

Two losers from Milwaukee, Coop and Remer, invent a new game combining basketball with the rules of baseball. When the game becomes a huge success, they, along with a billionaire's help, form the Professional Baseketball League where everyone gets the same pay and no team can change cities. When a rival owner wants to institute major rule changes, Coop and Remer's team is the only one standing in the way.

Movie
Poolhall Junkies
6.3
2002

Poolhall Junkies

A retired pool hustler is forced to pick up the stick again when his brother starts a game he can't finish.

Movie
Stealing Harvard
4.8
2002

Stealing Harvard

John and his girlfriend have vowed to marry once they save $30,000 for their dream house. But the minute they achieve their financial goal, John finds out his niece has been accepted at Harvard, and he's reminded of his promise to pay for her tuition (nearly $30,000). John's friend Duff convinces him to turn to petty crime to make the payment … but Duff's hare-brained schemes spin quickly out of control.

Movie
Greedy
6.1
1994

Greedy

Meet the McTeagues. They've come to stake a claim in their wealthy uncle's will… only he's not dead yet!

Movie
In Her Shoes
6.2
2005

In Her Shoes

Irresponsible party girl Maggie is kicked out of her father's and stepmother's home—where she lives for free—and is taken in by her hard-working sister, Philadelphia lawyer Rose. After Maggie's disruptive ways ruin her sister's love life, Rose turns her out as well. But when their grandmother, who they never knew existed, comes into their lives, the sisters face some complicated truths about themselves and their family.

Movie

Recommended Movies

Doctor Zhivago
7.5
1965

Doctor Zhivago

The life of a Russian physician and poet who, although married to another, falls in love with a political activist's wife and experiences hardship during World War I and then the October Revolution.

Movie
Hustlers
6.5
2019

Hustlers

A crew of savvy former strip club employees band together to turn the tables on their Wall Street clients.

Movie
KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park
5.2
1978

KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park

The tale of rock band KISS and their efforts to thwart a diabolical plan by mad scientist Abner Devereaux. Devereaux has found a way to clone humans into robots in his laboratory at an amusement park. It just so happens that he plans to use the KISS concert as a platform to unleash his plan on the world. KISS must use their special powers to stop him.

Movie
Titanic
7.9
1997

Titanic

101-year-old Rose DeWitt Bukater tells the story of her life aboard the Titanic, 84 years later. A young Rose boards the ship with her mother and fiancé. Meanwhile, Jack Dawson and Fabrizio De Rossi win third-class tickets aboard the ship. Rose tells the whole story from Titanic's departure through to its death—on its first and last voyage—on April 15, 1912.

Movie
Oppenheimer
8.0
2023

Oppenheimer

The story of J. Robert Oppenheimer's role in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II.

Movie
Joker
8.1
2019

Joker

During the 1980s, a failed stand-up comedian is driven insane and turns to a life of crime and chaos in Gotham City while becoming an infamous psychopathic crime figure.

Movie
PK
7.7
2014

PK

A stranger in the city asks questions no one has asked before. Known only by his initials, the man's innocent questions and childlike curiosity take him on a journey of love, laughter and letting go.

Movie
Eden Lake
6.8
2008

Eden Lake

When a young couple goes to a remote wooded lake for a romantic getaway, their quiet weekend is shattered by an aggressive group of local kids. Rowdiness quickly turns to rage as the teens terrorize the couple in unimaginable ways, and a weekend outing becomes a bloody battle for survival.

Movie
Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood
7.4
2019

Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood

Los Angeles, 1969. TV star Rick Dalton, a struggling actor specializing in westerns, and stuntman Cliff Booth, his best friend, try to survive in a constantly changing movie industry. Dalton is the neighbor of the young and promising actress and model Sharon Tate, who has just married the prestigious Polish director Roman Polanski…

Movie
Inside Out
7.9
2015

Inside Out

When 11-year-old Riley moves to a new city, her Emotions team up to help her through the transition. Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness work together, but when Joy and Sadness get lost, they must journey through unfamiliar places to get back home.

Movie
Shutter Island
8.2
2010

Shutter Island

World War II soldier-turned-U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels investigates the disappearance of a patient from a hospital for the criminally insane, but his efforts are compromised by troubling visions and a mysterious doctor.

Movie
Ex Machina
7.6
2015

Ex Machina

Caleb, a coder at the world's largest internet company, wins a competition to spend a week at a private mountain retreat belonging to Nathan, the reclusive CEO of the company. But when Caleb arrives at the remote location he finds that he will have to participate in a strange and fascinating experiment in which he must interact with the world's first true artificial intelligence, housed in the body of a beautiful robot girl.

Movie
Extraction
7.3
2020

Extraction

A hardened gun-for-hire's latest mission becomes a soul-searching race to survive when he's sent into Bangladesh to rescue a drug lord's kidnapped son.

Movie
Soul
8.1
2020

Soul

Joe Gardner is a middle school teacher with a love for jazz music. After a successful audition at the Half Note Club, he suddenly gets into an accident that separates his soul from his body and is transported to the You Seminar, a center in which souls develop and gain passions before being transported to a newborn child. Joe must enlist help from the other souls-in-training, like 22, a soul who has spent eons in the You Seminar, in order to get back to Earth.

Movie
Call Me by Your Name
8.1
2017

Call Me by Your Name

In the summer of 1983, a 17-year-old Elio spends his days in his family's villa in Italy. One day Oliver, a graduate student, arrives to assist Elio's father, a professor of Greco-Roman culture. Soon, Elio and Oliver discover a summer that will alter their lives forever.

Movie
Gifted
8.0
2017

Gifted

Frank, a single man raising his child prodigy niece Mary, is drawn into a custody battle with his mother.

Movie
Tenet
7.2
2020

Tenet

Armed with only one word - Tenet - and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time.

Movie
Interstellar
8.5
2014

Interstellar

The adventures of a group of explorers who make use of a newly discovered wormhole to surpass the limitations on human space travel and conquer the vast distances involved in an interstellar voyage.

Movie
The Truman Show
8.1
1998

The Truman Show

An insurance salesman begins to suspect that his whole life is actually some sort of reality TV show.

Movie
All Quiet on the Western Front
7.7
2022

All Quiet on the Western Front

Paul Baumer and his friends Albert and Muller, egged on by romantic dreams of heroism, voluntarily enlist in the German army. Full of excitement and patriotic fervour, the boys enthusiastically march into a war they believe in. But once on the Western Front, they discover the soul-destroying horror of World War I.

Movie