On this day in television history - M Squad (1958):

M Squad

Season 1. Episode 36.
Episode entitled: The System.
Released May 30, 1958.
Directed by David Rich.
Written by Keith Hunter and Bernard C. Schoenfeld.
Music by Stanley Wilson.

Cast:

Lee Marvin, Tol Avery, Rose Marie, Ted de Corsia, Paul Newlan, Howard Wendell, Gregg Martell, Dehl Berti, Ann Doran, Paul Maxey, Joe McGuinn, Frank J. Scannell, Bess Flowers, Hans Moebus.

On this day in movie history – Vertigo (1958 movie & books)

Vertigo

directed by Alfred Hitchcock,

written by Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor,

based on the novel D’entre les morts,

translation: From Among the Dead, by Boileau-Narcejac (Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac),

was released in the United States on May 28, 1958.
Music by Bernard Herrmann.

Cast:

James Stewart, Kim Novak, Barbara Bel Geddes, Tom Helmore, Henry Jones, Raymond Bailey, Ellen Corby, Konstantin Shayne, Lee Patrick, David Ahdar, Isabel Analla, Jack Ano, Margaret Bacon, John Benson, Danny Borzage, Margaret Brayton, Paul Bryar, Boyd Cabeen, Steve Conte, Jean Corbett, Bruno Della Santina, Roxann Delman, Harry Denny, Molly Dodd, Bess Flowers, Raoul Freeman, Joe Garcio, Joanne Genthon, Kenneth Gibson, Don Giovanni, Roland Gotti, Victor Gotti, Fred Graham, Robert Haines, Buck Harrington, Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmie Horan, Art Howard, Catherine Howard, June Jocelyn, Perk Lazelle, John Marlin, Miliza Milo, Lyle Moraine, Forbes Murray, Julian Petruzzi, Ezelle Poule, Kathy Reed, William Remick, Jack Richardson, Jeffrey Sayre, Nina Shipman, Dori Simmons, Ed Stevlingson, Sara Taft.

Recommended reading:

D’entre les morts

translation: From Among the Dead

By Boileau-Narcejac (Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac).

Filmed as Vertigo (1958), directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Published by Pushkin Vertigo.

First published 1954.

ISBN-10: 1782279741

ISBN-13: 978-1782279747

Description:

In World War II-era Paris, a troubled-ex policeman is entangled in a web of deceit and lies when he investigates a woman’s strange behavior.

Flavières doesn’t really want to investigate his old’s friend’s wife, but he doesn’t feel he has much of a choice. Madeleine has been behaving strangely, and her husband wants answers – answers that she isn’t willing to give him.

As WWII rages around him, Flavières is drawn into an obsessive cat-and-mouse chase across Paris. Soon his intrigue is replaced by obsession and his dreams by nightmares, as he edges towards discovering a dark, terrible secret.

The most celebrated collaboration of a ground-breaking crime-writing duo, Vertigo is the timeless story of morality and revenge, and the inspiration for Hitchcock’s iconic film.

Vertigo

By Charles Barr.

Published by British Film Institute.

Published 2012.

2nd edition.

ISBN-10: 1844574989

ISBN-13: 9781844574988

Description:

Vertigo (1958) is widely regarded as not only one of Hitchcock's best films, but one of the greatest films of world cinema. Made at the time when the old studio system was breaking up, it functions both as an embodiment of the supremely seductive visual pleasures that 'classical Hollywood' could offer and – with the help of an elaborate plot twist – as a laying bare of their dangerous dark side. The film's core is a study in romantic obsession, as James Stewart's Scottie pursues Madeleine/Judy (Kim Novak) to her death in a remote Californian mission. Novak is ice cool but vulnerable, Stewart – in the darkest role of his career – genial on the surface but damaged within.

Although it can be seen as Hitchcock's most personal film, Charles Barr argues that, like Citizen Kane, Vertigo is at the same time a triumph not so much of individual authorship as of creative collaboration. He highlights the crucial role of screenwriters Alec Coppel and Samuel Taylor and, by a combination of textual and contextual analysis, explores the reasons why Vertigo continues to inspire such fascination.

In his foreword to this special edition, published to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the BFI Film Classics series, Barr looks afresh at Vertigo alongside the recently-rediscovered 'lost' silent The White Shadow (1924), scripted by Hitchcock, which also features the trope of the double, and at the acclaimed contemporary silent film The Artist (2011), which pays explicit homage to Vertigo in its soundtrack.

On this day in television history - M Squad (1958):

M Squad

Season 1. Episode 35.
Episode entitled: The Case of the Double Face.
Released May 23, 1958.
Directed by Sidney Lanfield.
Written by Seeleg Lester and George Waggner.
Music by Stanley Wilson.

Cast:

Lee Marvin, Jim Davis, Kristine Miller, Anthony Eustrel, Paul Newlan, William Flaherty, Douglas Bank, Ralph Sanford, Margaret Irving, Glenn Dixon.

On this day in television history - M Squad (1958):

M Squad

Season 1. Episode 34.

Episode entitled: The $20 Plates.

Released May 16, 1958.

Directed by Allen H. Miner.

Written by Merwin Gerard.

Music by Stanley Wilson.

Cast:

Lee Marvin, Lynette Bernay, Logan Field, Joel Smith, Sara Taft, Paul Newlan, Charles Seel, Theodore Newton, Arthur Kendall, Joseph J. Greene, Jeanne Dante.

On this day in movie history - Violent Road a.k.a. Hell's Highway (1958 movie & novel):

Violent Road

aka Hell's Highway,

directed by Howard W. Koch,

written by Richard H. Landau and Don Martin,

based on the novel Le Salaire de la peur (The Salary of Fear) by Georges Arnaud,

was released in the United States on May 10, 1958.
Music by Leith Stevens.

Cast:

Brian Keith, Dick Foran, Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Merry Anders, Sean Garrison, Joanna Barnes, Perry Lopez, Arthur Batanides, Ed Prentiss, Ann Doran, John Dennis, Susan Adams, Robert Alderette, Peter Brown, John Caler, Bud Cokes, Joe Connors, Charmienne Harker, Dennis Holmes, Pat Lawless, Jack Lomas, Asa Maynor, Gil Perkins, Joel Smith, Venetia Stevenson, John Veitch, Robert B. Williams.

Recommended reading:

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...

On this day in movie history - Thunder Road (1958):

Thunder Road

directed by Arthur Ripley,

written by James Atlee Phillips and Walter Wise,

based on a story by Robert Mitchum,

was released in the United States on May 10, 1958.
Music by Jack Marshall.

Cast:

Robert Mitchum, Gene Barry, Jacques Aubuchon, Keely Smith, Trevor Bardette, Sandra Knight, James Mitchum, Betsy Holt, Francis Koon, Randy Sparks, Mitchell Ryan, Peter Breck, Peter Hornsby, Jerry Hardin, Robert Porterfield, Charles Elledge, Charles Hendrix, Christopher Mitchum, Jack Perry, Dale Van Sickel.