On this day in movie and book history - Dark Passage (1947 and 1946)

Dark Passage

directed and written by Delmer Daves,

based on the novel by David Goodis,

was released in the United States on September 27, 1947.

Music by Franz Waxman.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Bruce Bennett, Agnes Moorehead, Tom D'Andrea, Clifton Young, Douglas Kennedy, Rory Mallinson, Houseley Stevenson, John Arledge, Frank Wilcox.

Recommended reading:

Dark Passage

by David Goodis.

First published 1946.

ISBN 13: 9781598534467

ISBN 10: 1598534467

ASIN: B00TNBOFUI

Description:

The story of a man railroaded for his wife’s murder and forced to assume a different identity after escaping from prison becomes in Goodis’s hands a lyrical evocation of urban fear and loneliness. A fugitive from justice, in the depths of despair, he finds refuge with a beautiful woman as he struggles to unravel a nightmarish plot.

First published as a magazine serial, Dark Passage was filmed in 1947 by Delmer Daves. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, it is regarded as a classic of noir filmmaking.

For the first time, the best work of a distinctive master of American noir is available in authoritative e-book editions from The Library of America. David Goodis experienced a brief celebrity when his novel Dark Passage (1946) became the basis for a popular movie starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall.

Other David Goodis novels available as Library of America E-Book Classics include: Nightfall, The Burglar, The Moon in the Gutter, and Street of No Return.

Born on this day – Lauren Bacall:

Lauren Bacall

Actress

September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014

Credits:

A Little Piece of Sunshine (1990); A Star for Two (1991); All at Sea (2010); All I Want for Christmas (1991); Amália Traída (2004); Applause (1973); Appointment with Death (1988); Birth (2004); Blood Alley (1955); Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1965); Breakdowns of 1949 (1949); Bright Leaf (1950); Chicago Hope (1998); Confidential Agent (1945); Dark Passage (1947); Day and Night (1997); Designing Woman (1957); Diamonds (1999); Dinner at Eight (1989); Dogville (2003); Dr. Kildare (1963); Eve (2008); Family Guy (2014); Ford Star Jubilee (1956); From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (1995); Happy Endings (1975); Harper (1966); HealtH (1980); How to Marry a Millionaire (1953); Innocent Victim (1989); Key Largo (1948); Madeline: Lost in Paris (1999); Manderlay (2005); Misery (1990); Mr. Broadway (1964); Mr. North (1988); Murder on the Orient Express (1974); My Fellow Americans (1996); North West Frontier (1959); Perfect Gentlemen (1978); Presence of Mind (1999); Producers' Showcase (1955); Ready to Wear (1994); Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King (2008); Screen One (1993); Sex and the Single Girl (1964); Shock Treatment (1964); The Big Sleep (1946); The Cobweb (1955); The DuPont Show of the Week (1963); The Fan (1981); The Forger (2012); The Gift of Love (1958); The Limit (2004); The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996); The Portrait (1993); The Real Story of the Three Little Kittens (1990); The Real Story of... (1991); The Rockford Files (1979); The Shootist (1976); The Sopranos (2006); The Venice Project (1999); The Walker (2007); These Foolish Things (2006); To Have and Have Not (1944); Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke (1999); Two Guys from Milwaukee (1946); Woman's World (1954); Written on the Wind (1956); Young Man with a Horn (1950).

On this day in movie and book history - The Big Sleep (1946)

The Big Sleep

directed by Howard Hawks,

written by William Faulkner, Leigh Brackett and Jules Furthman,

based on the novel by Raymond Chandler,

was released in the United States on August 23, 1946.

Music by Max Steiner.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, John Ridgely, Martha Vickers, Sonia Darrin, Dorothy Malone, Regis Toomey, Peggy Knudsen, Charles Waldron, Charles D. Brown, Bob Steele, Elisha Cook, Jr., Louis Jean Heydt, Trevor Bardette, Tommy Rafferty, Ben Welden, Tom Fadden, Theodore von Eltz.

Recommended reading:

The Big Sleep

by Raymond Chandler.

Published by Penguin.

First published 1939.

ISBN-10: 0241970776

ISBN-13: 978-0241970775

Description:

The Big Sleep is a hardboiled crime novel by American-British writer Raymond Chandler, the first to feature the detective, Philip Marlowe.

A dying millionaire hires private eye Philip Marlowe to handle the blackmailer of one of his two troublesome daughters, and Marlowe finds himself involved with more than extortion. Kidnapping, pornography, seduction, and murder are just a few of the complications he gets caught up in.

In 1999, the book was voted 96th of Le Monde's "100 Books of the Century".

On this day in movie and book history - The Shootist (1976)

The Shootist

directed by Don Siegel,

written by Miles Hood Swarthout and Scott Hale,

based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout,

was released in the United States on July 21, 1976.

Music by Elmer Bernstein.

Cast:

John Wayne, Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, James Stewart, Richard Boone, Hugh O’Brian, Bill McKinney, Harry Morgan, John Carradine, Sheree North, Rick Lenz, Scatman Crothers, Gregg Palmer, Alfred Dennis, Dick Winslow, Melody Thomas Scott, Kathleen O’Malley, Jack Berle, Johnny Crawford, Chuck Dawson, George Dunn, Duke Fishman, Christopher George, Jonathan Goldsmith, Leo Gordon, Charles G. Martin, Jim Michael, Ernesto Molinari, Ricky Nelson, James Nolan, Nick Raymond, Henry Slate, Bob Steele, Ralph Volkie, John Zimeas.

Recommended reading:

The Shootist

by Glendon Swarthout.

Introduction by Miles Swarthout.

Filmed as The Shootist (1976), directed by Don Siegel.

Published by Bison Books.
First published 1975.

ISBN-10: 0803238231
ISBN-13: 9780803238237

Description:

"Such style...such a strong central idea...the showdown is an unremitting as the build-up." – Sunday Times of London.

"This is an extremely well-written Western and gives the reader vivid insight into the workings of the mind of a wanderer and gunman." – Baton Rouge, Louisiana Sunday Advocate.

"The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout is the taleof the Old West's version of the modern 'hit man'. It is a splendid story, well-told and with a really satisfying ending." – Charleston, South Carolina Evening Post.

The Shootist is John Bernard Books, a man of principle and the only surviving gunfighter in a vanishing American West. He rides into El Paso in the year 1901, on the day Queen Victoria died, there to be told by a doctor that he must soon confront the greatest shootist of all: Death. In such a showdown, against such an antagonist, he cannot win. Most men may end their days in bed or take their own lives, but a man-killer has a 3rd option, one which Books decides to exercise. He may choose his own executioner.

As word spreads that the famous assassin has reached the end of his rope, an assortment of vultures gathers to feast upon his corpse--among them a gambler, a rustler, an undertaker, an old love, a reporter, even a boy. Books outwits them, however, by selecting the where, when, who, and why of his death, and writing in fire from a pair of Remingtons the last courageous act of his own legend. The climatic gunfight itself is an incredible performance by an incredible man, and by his creator, Glendon Swarthout.

 

The Shootist will rank with such classics as Shane and The Ox-Bow Incident, but it is much more than a Western. When, in the final afternoon of his life, J. B. Books crosses a street and enters a saloon to make something of his death, we cross, we enter, with him. He is us.

From a corner of the south window Gillom Rogers spied on the new lodger. The man unpacked his valise and put things in a drawer of the chiffonier, then hung his Price Albert coat in the closet. When he turned from the closet he was in shirt and vest. The boy's eyes rounded. Sewn to each side of the vest was a holster, reversed, and in each holster was a pistol, butt forward. As he watched, sucking in his breath, the man took the weapons out, revolved the cylinders, filled a chamber in one he had evidently fired, and replaced them before hanging the vest, too, in the closet. The pistols were a pair of nickel-plated, short-barreled, unsighted, single-action .44 Remingtons, obviously manufactured to order. The handle of one was black gutta-percha, the other pearl.

Gillom slipped away to take the horse to the livery, letting the breath of revelation out of his lungs. He was seventeen, and spent much of his time in saloons. He was not yet served, but he enjoyed himself and picked up a great deal of miscellaneous information, some of it true, some of it of doubtful authenticity. But the man in corner room was no stranger to him now. He had heard enough scalp-itch, blood-freeze tales to know that only one man carried a similar pair of guns in a similar manner...

On this day in movie history - Pulp Cinema (2001)

Pulp Cinema

compilation of classic noir trailers,

produced by David Kalat,

edited by Brian Edwards,

was released in the United States on July 17, 2001.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Ida Lupino, Vincent Price, Kirk Douglas, Burt Lancaster, Robert Mitchum, Gloria Grahame, Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland, Jack Palance, Glenn Ford, Orson Welles.

On this day in movie history - Key Largo (1948)

Key Largo

directed by John Huston,

written by Richard Brooks and John Huston,

based on the play by Maxwell Anderson,

was released in the United States on July 16, 1948.

Music by Max Steiner.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, Thomas Gomez, Harry Lewis, John Rodney, Marc Lawrence, Dan Seymour, Monte Blue, William Haade, Jay Silverheels, Rodd Redwing.