On this day in movie and book history - The Big Heat (1953)

The Big Heat

directed by Fritz Lang,

written by Sydney Boehm, and 

based on the novel by William P. McGivern,

and the serial that ran in the Saturday Evening Post,

was released in the United States on October 14, 1953.

Music by Henry Vars.

Cast:

Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando, Alexander Scourby, Lee Marvin, Jeanette Nolan, Peter Whitney, Willis Bouchey, Robert Burton, Adam Williams, Howard Wendell, Dorothy Green.

Recommended reading:

 

The Big Heat

by William P. McGivern.

First published 1953.
Published by Ibooks.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0743452704
ISBN-13: 978-0743452700

Description:
A tough suspense novel of hero cops, cool killers and hot broads...
“A powerful story, powerfully told.” – New York Times.

MURDER WAS IN THE AIR. A COP HAD KILLED HIMSELF, AND EVERY CROOK IN TOWN KNEW THAT WOULD BE SURE TO BRING ON THE BIG HEAT. It started almost innocently when a cop committed suicide – worry over ill health, said his wife. Detective Dave Bannion wasn’t so sure, but when he started digging, he was told to lay off – fast! Instead, he turned in his badge and started stalking the city streets and bars in search of the truth where he uncovers a red-hot story of murder and corruption that would blow Philadelphia’s underworld sky high. Bannion was big, strong, and angry enough to kill, but he was only one honest man in a city full of mobsters and crooked cops. The big heat was on.

On this day in movie history - Odds Against Tomorrow (1959)

Odds Against Tomorrow

directed by Robert Wise,

written by Abraham Polonsky and Nelson Gidding,

based on the novel by William P. McGivern,

was released in the United States on October 13, 1959.

Music by John Lewis.

Cast:

Harry Belafonte, Robert Ryan, Shelley Winters, Ed Begley, Gloria Grahame, Will Kuluva, Kim Hamilton, Mae Barnes, Richard Bright, Carmen De Lavallade, Lew Gallo, Lois Thorne, Wayne Rogers, Zohra Lampert, Allen Nourse.

On this day in movie history - Human Desire (1954)

Human Desire

directed by Fritz Lang,

written by Alfred Hayes,

based on the novel La Bête humaine by Émile Zola,

was released in the United States on August 6, 1954.

Cast:

Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Broderick Crawford, Edgar Buchanan, Kathleen Case, Peggy Maley, Diane DeLaire, Grandon Rhodes, Benjie Bancroft, Paul Brinegar, Minta Durfee, Jean Engstrom, Victor Hugo Greene, Don C. Harvey, Carl Lee, John Maxwell, John Pickard, Dan Riss, Scott Seaton, Allen D. Sewall, Dan Seymour, Olan Soule, Hal Taggart, John Zaremba.

On this day in movie and book history - In a Lonely Place (1950)

In a Lonely Place

directed by Nicholas Ray,

written by Andrew P. Solt and Edmund H. North,

based on the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes,

was released in the United States on May 17, 1950.

Music by George Antheil.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith, Martha Stewart, Jeff Donnell, Robert Warwick, Morris Ankrum, William Ching, Steven Geray, Hadda Brooks, Jack Reynolds.

Recommended reading:

In a Lonely Place

by Dorothy B. Hughes.

Filmed as In a Lonely Place (1950), directed by Nicholas Ray.

Published by NYRB Classics.

First published 1947.
Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1681371472
ISBN-13: 978-1681371474
 
Description:

Los Angeles in the late 1940s is a city of promise and prosperity, but not for former fighter pilot Dix Steele. To his mind nothing has come close to matching “that feeling of power and exhilaration and freedom that came with loneness in the sky.” He prowls the foggy city night – bus stops and stretches of darkened beaches and movie houses just emptying out – seeking solitary young women. His funds are running out and his frustrations are growing. Where is the good life he was promised? Why does he always get a raw deal? Then he hooks up with his old Air Corps buddy Brub, now working for the LAPD, who just happens to be on the trail of the strangler who’s been terrorizing the women of the city for months...

Written with controlled elegance, Dorothy B. Hughes’s tense novel is at once an early indictment of a truly toxic masculinity and a twisty page-turner with a surprisingly feminist resolution. A classic of golden age noir, In a Lonely Place also inspired Nicholas Ray’s 1950 film of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart.