The Big Money is a 1958 British comedy film directed by John Paddy Carstairs and starring Ian Carmichael, Belinda Lee and Kathleen Harrison.

Ian Carmichael had played a support role in the film of Simon and Laura (1955) for Rank and starred in a significant hit, Private's Progress, for the Boulting Brothers.

Carmichael said the movie would be "a sad disappointment, and, after working in such close accord with John and Roy for twelve weeks, a frustrating and nail biting experience.

[4] Carmichael says when he read the script he felt the premise was "a good one and the early sequences gave it a promising start" but that "very soon it descended into the broadest comedy cliches."

"[8] The Rank Organisation had employed Bryan Forbes as an in-house script doctor and staff writer and he was sent the screenplay.

The executive producer found out about this and pulled Forbes off the film – Carmichael says the movie was shot as per the original script.

[11] The film's release was cancelled in July 1956 because Rank Organisation head Sir John Davis thought it was "terrible".

"[4] In 1958 producer Hugh Stewart was working on a Norman Wisdom movie that involved scenes at Ascot.

The director, John Paddy Carstairs, remembered there were Ascot sequences in The Big Money and suggested Stewart look at it.