Recommended reading - The Drowning Pool (1950):

The Drowning Pool

By Ross Macdonald.

Crime fiction.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0679768068

ISBN-13: 978-0679768067

Published 1950.

Description:

When a millionaire matriarch is found floating face-down in the family pool, the prime suspects are her good-for-nothing son and his seductive teenage daughter. In The Drowning Pool, Lew Archer takes this case in the L.A. suburbs and encounters a moral wasteland of corporate greed and family hatred – and sufficient motive for a dozen murders.

Recommended reading - The Wages of Fear (1950):

The Wages of Fear

Original title: Le Salaire de la peur.

By Georges Arnaud.

Originally published in 1950.

This English language translation edition was published in 1968.

Paperback.

Avon edition.

ASIN: B000VDT4KS

Description:

Las Piedras, beaching port. There are hundreds of them, coming from who knows where, to forget the impasse of their existence in the tropics. For a handful of dollars, these low-rankers are ready to do anything. Ready to face kilometers of impassable track, behind the wheel of a dilapidated truck, to transport nitroglycerin. At the slightest deviation, at the slightest shock, it is death. An epic of pure anguish...

Book cover artwork from other editions:

On this day in movie history - The Second Woman (1950):

The Second Woman

directed by James V. Kern,

written by Mort Briskin and Robert Smith,

was released in the United States on July 7, 1950.
Music by Joseph Nussbaum.

Cast:

Robert Young, Betsy Drake, John Sutton, Florence Bates, Morris Carnovsky, Henry O'Neill, Jean Rogers, Raymond Largay, Shirley Ballard, Vici Raaf, Jason Robards, Sr., Steven Geray, Jimmie Dodd, Smokey Whitfield, Cliff Clark.

On this day in movie history - Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950):

Where the Sidewalk Ends

directed by Otto Preminger,

written by Ben Hecht,

based on a story by Victor Trivas, Frank P. Rosenberg and Robert E. Kent,

and the novel Night Cry by William L. Stuart,

was released in the United States on July 7, 1950.
Music by Cyril Mockridge.

Cast:

Dana Andrews, Gene Tierney, Gary Merrill, Bert Freed, Tom Tully, Karl Malden, Ruth Donnelly, Craig Stevens, Fred Aldrich, Don Appell, Tony Barr, David Bauer, Eddie Borden, Neville Brand.

Recommended reading: The Great Escape, by Paul Brickhill (1950):

The Great Escape

By Paul Brickhill.

Filmed as The Great Escape (1963), directed by John Sturges.

Published by W. W. Norton & Company.

Published 1950.

ISBN-10: 0393325792

ISBN-13: 9780393325799

Description:

"One of the great true stories of the war, and one of the greatest escape narratives of all time." – San Francisco Chronicle.

"Absorbing... spine-tingling... puts the average war book so far in the shadow it's not even funny." – Dallas Times Herald.

"For sheer suspense, puts the fictioneers to shame." – Boston Globe.

"A tense, thrilling, fabulous tale." – Philadelphia Inquirer.

They were American and British air force officers in a German prison camp. With only their bare hands and the crudest of homemade tools, they sank shafts, forged passports, faked weapons, and tailored German uniforms and civilian clothes. They developed a fantastic security system to protect themselves from German surveillance.

It was a split-second operation as delicate and as deadly as a time bomb. It demanded the concentrated devotion and vigilance of more than six hundred men – every one of them, every minute, every hour, every day and night for more than a year.

Made into the classic 1963 war film of the same name starring Steve McQueen, James Garner, and Richard Attenborough.

16 pages of photographs.

On this day in movie history - Destination Murder (1950):

Destination Murder

directed by Edward L. Cahn,

written by Don Martin,

was released in the United States on June 9, 1950.
Music by Irving Gertz.

Cast:

Joyce Mackenzie, Stanley Clements, Hurd Hatfield, Albert Dekker, Myrna Dell, James Flavin, John Dehner, Richard Emory, Norma Vance, Suzette Harbin, Buddy Swan, Bert Wenland, Franklyn Farnum, Steve Gibson’s Redcaps, Leon Alton, Kenneth Gibson, Steve Gibson, James Gonzalez, Robert Locke Lorraine, Harold Miller, Suzanne Ridgway, Steven Ritch, John Roche, Jeffrey Sayre.

On this day in movie history - Night and the City (1950):

Night and the City

directed by Jules Dassin,

written by Austin Dempster, William E. Watts and Jo Eisinger,

based on the novel by Gerald Kersh,

was released in the United States on June 9, 1950.
Music by Benjamin Frankel and Franz Waxman.

Cast:

Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Hugh Marlowe, Francis L. Sullivan, Herbert Lom, Aubrey Dexter, Maureen Delany, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Mike Mazurki, Ada Reeve, Charles Farrell, Ken Richmond, Edward Chapman, James Hayter, Gibb McLaughlin, Dirk Bogarde.

On this day in movie history - Armored Car Robbery (1950):

Armored Car Robbery

directed by Richard Fleischer,

written by Gerald Drayson Adams and Earl Felton,

based on a story by Robert Leeds and Robert Angus,

was released in the United States on June 7, 1950.

Music by Roy Webb and Paul Sawtell.

Cast:

Charles McGraw, Adele Jergens, William Talman, Douglas Fowley, Steve Brodie, Don McGuire, Don Haggerty, James Flavin, Gene Evans.