Million Dollar Mystery 1987

Sidney Preston, a disgruntled White House aide, slips away with the government’s $4 million and kicks off a tense, comic chase that threads through a quiet stretch of Arizona. He pulls into a roadside diner to try the local charm and to enjoy their world-famous chili, all while playfully flirting with the waitress. As the story unfolds, two clumsy government spies, Fred and Bob, close in on him, adding a sense of farce to the high-stakes escape.

Sidney’s run comes to an abrupt end when he suffers a fatal heart attack. In a final, unsettling moment, he asks for a kiss from the waitress and then, with a conspiratorial grin, reveals the location of the first million dollars, claiming it lies “in the city of the bridge.”

The diners’ onlookers become a motley ensemble of misfits who drift together in search of the money. The group includes the Stuart Briggs family—Stuart, Barbara, and Howie; the nerdy newlyweds Rollie and Lollie; an aspiring singer Crush and his trio of blonde backup dancers—Faith, Hope, and Charity; cook Tugger and his sister Dotty. As the chase shifts from clue to clue, the cast grows with surprising arrivals: professional wrestlers Bad Boris and Awful Abdul, cops Officer Quinn and Gretchen, and the wildly unhinged ranger Slaughter Buzzárd.

The plot thickens when Rollie flips on the diner’s TV to catch the headlines about Sidney Preston and the buried money. The broadcast hints at Sidney’s roots in El Puente, Arizona, turning the diner crowd into a moving, makeshift search party. From that moment, the group races across town, driven by a mix of greed, curiosity, and a shared desire to never let a government windfall slip away again. The first stash is found under the famed bridge in El Puente, but misfortune strikes when Slaughter Buzzárd accidentally drops it into a canyon, starting a fresh scramble for the next clue.

Chasing the trail, they locate the second million aboard Sidney’s houseboat, only to lose it when it’s shredded in Sidney’s colossal paper shredder—a literal, oversized obstacle that leaves everyone staring at a pile of confetti and aborted plans. Their pursuit continues, slipping from one improbable lead to another, until a final stash appears and then vanishes again as it slips from a greedy aeronaut’s hands. With every turn, the crowd fluctuates between hopeful excitement and comic despair, and the movie marches toward an open-ended finish.

As the end credits roll, a playful note lands on the screen: there’s still one million dollars somewhere in the United States, and the game isn’t over. In a cheeky postscript, Bob addresses the audience directly, hinting that if fans follow the clues tucked into specially marked Glad-Lock bags, they too might get a shot at winning $1 million.