AustLit

An episode of the BBC's Sunday Night Theatre, based on the 1893 story of the same name by Mark Twain, in which two eccentric brothers make a penniless sailor the focus of their bet involving a million pound note.

As with all episodes for the first three years of Sunday Night Theatre, this episode was aired live, and no recording of it was ever made. Little is known, therefore, of the cast and crew members who were involved.

Of Rienits's authorship, however, Bill Strutton, writing from England on the forthcoming release of the 1954 Gregory Peck film The Million Pound Note, says:

'The famous Mark Twain story was first turned into comedy script form in this country [England] by Australia's Rex Rienits, who wrote it for television.

'Though the Rienits adaptation is not the one used in the film, it seems likely that its appearance as a highly successful TV comedy jogged filmdom's elbow with the reminder that Twain's richly witty story was a natural for the screen.'

Source:

Strutton, Bill. 'Wed in Film and Fact', Australian Women's Weekly, 18 November 1953, p.45.