Raising Arizona

Combining influences from Tex Avery cartoons to Sam Raimi horror films to 1940s B-movies, Joel and Ethan Coen followed up their stylish film noir debut Blood Simple with Raising Arizona, a frantic screwball comedy.

Hapless liquor store robber H.I. McDunnough (Nicolas Cage) falls in love with Edwina (Holly Hunter), the young policewoman who takes his mug shots. The unlikely pair end up getting married and try to start a family, but they soon learn both pregnancy and adoption are out of the question.

Ed is heartbroken – until she learns that the Arizonas, a wealthy local businessman and his wife, have just been blessed with quintuplets. Ed convinces H.I. that the couple wouldn't miss one of their babies, so the two of them conspire to kidnap one of the little Arizonas and raise it as their own.