Did Regina figure out that the stamps were really valuable before or after she gave them to her nephew? It's not really clear but I think it must have been after because why on earth would you give $250,000 worth of stamps to a little boy.
"All I need are some tasty waves, a cool buzz, and I'm fine." -Jeff Spicoli
The little french boy (friend's son, not Regina's nephew) was an avid collector of stamps: it was established early in the movie (clever move) when regina left the taxi and the boy asked for stamps if she went back to the USA.
I'm almost sure that the last time anyone get throught the little bag with 'toothbrush, comb' and so on, the envelope was neat and clean.
The stamps were removed when Scobie died - when the boy was in the Hotel. After that, nobody touched the bag until the very end.
I'm not sure if Regina gave the stamps to the boy as she always do with any stamp and she had to 'do something' with the boy waiting to the mother, or if the boy simply served himself when wandering around in the hotel.
For sure Regina had no idea that those stamps had any value - is Regina has clue of this, the film will have no need to go any further.
Regina had given the stamps to Jean-Louis on the day she went to the stamp market - earlier in the day, as the dialogue indicates:REGINA: Sylvie! What are you doing here?
SYLVIE: I'm waiting for Jean-Louis.
REGINA: Oh. What's he up to?
SYLVIE: He was so excited when he got the stamps you gave him this morning; he said he'd never seen any like them.
When the envelope is first displayed in the scene with Regina and Inspector Grandpierre, the audience only sees the back of it; director Stanley Donen didn't want to tip off the audience too early in the film - although Grandpierre pointedly observes the envelope is "stamped." The stamps are visible, albeit briefly, in the scene where Tex and Gideon search Regina's room, and again (and more plainly) when Regina and Adam look through the contents of the airline bag a final time. The following day she passes them on to Jean-Louis, apparently before going to her job at EURESCO.
The stamps were still on the envelope after Scobie and Gideon were killed; it's before Tex is killed that we see the stamps have been removed.
But what about right after that when she says "They're worth a fortune!"? She knew all along and hid it well. She's the best "spy" out of them all. We never even find her real name.
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She only realized the value of the stamps at that moment--it took being in the park next to the stamp market to connect the appointment book to the missing money.
shareA great film, nonetheless I couldn't understand, why nobody noticed (including the police), that there were very strange stamps on the envelope, from different countries, even with Cyrillic letters. Even if you're no stamp collector, they should look strange.
shareTrue. Also it's never explained how or why the man who was killed got the "world's most expensive stamps". And why would he put them on an envelope instead of somewhere safe It's been pointed out that stamps on an envelope decreases the value.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of Hollywood... (;-p)
Best way to hide them might very well be ON the envelope. Had they been IN the envelope or in the wallet they might have drawn much more attention. These three stamps were all his earthly possessions and he was on the run from his enemies.
shareIt was a clever way of hiding the money. He must have realized that there were people trying to find him.
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💕 JimHutton (1934-79) and ElleryQueen 👍
I'm surprised that Cruikshank didn't catch on. The guy worked in the treasury department. Once he examined the contents of the bag carefully, he should have known right away that the stamps are likely worth a fortune.
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💕 JimHutton (1934-79) and ElleryQueen 👍
You are darn right!!! It made little sense and very conspicuous.
Everyone knows the current stamps...much less foreign stamps.
Particularly the rarest French one which did not even look like a stamp.
They should have picked different stamps, e.g, a block of misprinted stamps.
I think it's the same thing that shows up a lot in hidden object games: when you have to find an object, and it is being depicted in its actual use, there is a tendency for your eyes to slide right over it. Stamps inside the envelope would have been recognized immediately as something important, but on an envelope, they are just background details.
shareYes, but Cruikshank worked in a job where finding the money (the stamps) should have been obvious to him. He should have known that valuable stamps exist and he could have had these stamps checked right away.
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Jim Hutton (1934-79) & Ellery Queen 🎇
Only a blithering moron would pose the OP's question.
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