On this day in movie history - Phantom Lady (1944 movie & novel):

Phantom Lady

directed by Robert Siodmak,

written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld,

based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich,

was released in the United States on January 28, 1944.
Music by Hans J. Salter.

Cast:

Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Aurora Miranda, Thomas Gomez, Fay Helm, Elisha Cook, Jr., Andrew Tombes, Regis Toomey, Joseph Crehan, Doris Lloyd, Virginia Brissac, Milburn Stone.

Recommended reading:

Phantom Lady

By Cornell Woolrich.

Published by Renaissance Literary & Talent.
First published 1942.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 1950369781
ISBN-13: 978-1950369782

Description:

Phantom lady, I was with you for six hours last night, but I can't remember what you look like, or what you wore—except for that large orange hat. We sat shoulder to shoulder at a little bar in the east Fifties. We ate dinner together, saw a Broadway show together, shared a cab together.

The bartender, the waiter, the usher, the cab driver—none of them remembers you. The police say I was home strangling my wife at the moment I met you.

You are the only one who can prove my story—but I don't know your name, or where you live. And I can't search for you from a jail cell....

After spending a night on the town with a mysterious woman, a man arrives home to find his wife strangled to death. Now, the only way to prove his innocence and confirm his alibi is to track down the "Phantom Lady" he was with all night.

“Cornell Woolrich deserves to be discovered and rediscovered by each generation." – Ray Bradbury.

Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich (4 December 1903 – 25 September 1968) is one of America's best crime and noir writers, and sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms William Irish or George Hopley. He invented and mastered the genre of "Pulp-Fiction" and wrote hundreds of short stories, novellas and full-length novels. One of his most famous stories is It Had to be Murder which was adapted into the classic Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window in 1954. Check out the countless other Woolrich Novels, Novellas and Short Stories, also available as EBooks, from the Estate of Cornell Woolrich and Renaissance Literary & Talent!

On this day in movie history - The Devil Thumbs a Ride (1947 movie & novel):

The Devil Thumbs a Ride

directed and written by Felix E. Feist,

based on the novel by Robert C. Du Soe,

was released in the United States on February 20, 1947.
Music by Paul Sawtell and Roy Webb.

Cast:

Lawrence Tierney, Ted North, Nan Leslie, Betty Lawford, Andrew Tombes, Harry Shannon, Glen Vernon, Marian Carr, William Gould, Josephine Whittell, Phil Warren, Robert Malcolm, Arthur Q. Bryan, Roger Creed, Harry Depp, George Dockstader, Dick Edwards, Sarah Edwards, Dick Elliott, Carl Faulkner, Lee Frederick, Raoul Freeman, Dorothy Granger, Chuck Hamilton, William Joy, Perc Launders, Bert LeBaron, Lee Phelps, Tom Pilkington, Victor Potel, Harry Raven, John Roy, Dick Rush, Cy Slocum, Tex Swan, Minerva Urecal.

Recommended reading:

The Devil Thumbs a Ride

By Robert C. Du Soe.

First published 1938.

Published by Avon Books

ASIN: B00730V9GY

Description:

Screenwriter Du Soe's only novel, about an innocuous fellar name of Steve who gets in a car with the simple, corpulent Furgison. The pair pick up a couple of girls, and only after the bodies pile up does Furgison start to wonder who it is he's riding along with.