Born on this day – Elisha Cook Jr.:

Elisha Cook Jr.

Actor

December 26, 1903 – May 18, 1995

On this day in movie history - The Maltese Falcon (movie & novel):

The Maltese Falcon

directed and written by John Huston,

based on the novel by Dashiell Hammett,

was released in the United States on October 18, 1941.
Music by Adolph Deutsch.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George, Peter Lorre, Barton MacLane, Lee Patrick, Sydney Greenstreet, Ward Bond, Jerome Cowan, Elisha Cook Jr., James Burke, Murray Alper, John Hamilton, Walter Huston.

Recommended reading:

The Maltese Falcon

By Dashiell Hammett.

Introduction by Richard Russo.

First published 1930.

Published by Vintage Crime / Black Lizard.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 0679722645

ISBN-13: 978-0679722649

Description:

“Hammett … wrote scenes that seemed never to have been written before.” – Raymond Chandler.

Detective Sam Spade is a private eye with his own solitary code of ethics. When his partner is killed during a stakeout, he is drawn into the hunt for a fantastic treasure with a dubious provenance – a golden bird encrusted with jewels. Also on the trail are a perfumed grifter named Joel Cairo, an oversized adventurer named Gutman, and Spade’s new client Brigid O’Shaughnessy, a beautiful and treacherous woman whose loyalties shift at the drop of a dime.

These are the ingredients of Dashiell Hammett’s coolly glittering gem of detective fiction, a novel that has haunted generations of readers.

“Hammett’s prose [is] clean and entirely unique. His characters [are] as sharply and economically defined as any in American fiction.” – The New York Times.

On this day in movie history - The Killing (1956 movie & novel):

The Killing

directed and written by Stanley Kubrick,

dialogue written by Jim Thompson,

based on the novel Clean Break, by Lionel White,

was released in the United States on May 20, 1956.
Music by Gerald Fried.

Cast:

Sterling Hayden, Coleen Gray, Vince Edwards, Jay C. Flippen, Ted de Corsia, Marie Windsor, Elisha Cook Jr., Joe Sawyer, James Edwards, Timothy Carey, Kola Kwariani, Jay Adler, Tito Vuolo, Dorothy Adams, Herbert Ellis, James Griffith, Cecil Elliott, Joe Turkel, Steve Mitchell, Mary Carroll, William Benedict, Charles Cane, Robert B. Williams, Tom Coleman, Rodney Dangerfield, Franklyn Farnum, John George, Art Gilmore, Sol Gorss, Harry Hines, Kenner G. Kemp, Carl M. Leviness, Hal J. Moore, Harvey Parry, Richard Reeves, Frank Richards, Arthur Tovey.

Recommended reading:

Clean Break

By Lionel White.

Filmed as The Killing (1956), directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Published by Chosho Publishing.

First published 1955.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1958425516

ISBN-13: 978-1958425510

Description:

Johnny Clay, an ex-con determined to strike it rich, has worked out a fool-proof scheme to knock off a racetrack payroll. The two million bucks should be enough to last him a lifetime or two. But a two-faced dame has another idea: Let Johnny do the work, then she'll grab the swag for herself and her boyfriend.

Johnny Clay’s plan to rob the Long Island race track was daring and highly original. Johnny, an ex-convict, had spent his prison years thinking through every possible hitch to his scheme until he was sure it could go off like clockwork.

His four confederates were not known to the police for they were not professional criminals. They had been picked because they were ordinary nondescript men, all with money problems and a touch of larceny in their hearts. Mike Henty was a bartender at the track and George Peatty a cashier, both essential inside men. Martin Unger, a court stenographer, had put up the initial cash and Randy Kennan, a cop, was to get the money away from the track after Johnny had done the actual robbing.

There were in addition three others who were to do a specific jobs for a cash payment. To one of these men fell the assignment of shooting the favorite in the famous Canarsie Stakes. Once this was accomplished, the robbery was set into motion.

The crime in this story is a grand coup, fantastic yet completely possible if everything clicked. So too has Lionel White achieved a grand coup in the telling of the story as he concentrates first on one character then on another, picking up the individual threads and building them into a brilliantly integrated climax. Clean Break is a masterpiece of originality, a highly plotted and ingeniously executed story of suspense.

On this day in movie history - Born to Kill (1947 movie & novel):

Born to Kill

aka Lady of Deceit and Deadlier Than the Male,

directed by Robert Wise,

written by Eve Greene and Richard Macaulay,

based on the novel Deadlier Than the Male by James Gunn,

was released in the United States on May 3, 1947.
Music by Paul Sawtell.

Cast:

Claire Trevor, Lawrence Tierney, Walter Slezak, Phillip Terry, Audrey Long, Elisha Cook Jr., Isabel Jewell, Esther Howard, Kathryn Card, Tony Barrett, Grandon Rhodes, Demetrius Alexis, Symona Boniface, Ruth Brennan, George Bruggeman, James Carlisle, Ellen Corby, Sayre Dearing, Joe Dixon, Neal Dodd, Jean Fenwick, George Ford, Lee Frederick, Ben Frommer, Harry Harvey, Martha Hyer, Perc Launders, Sam Lufkin, Wilbur Mack, Beatrice Maude, Russell Meeker, Al Murphy, Tommy Noonan, Netta Packer, Jason Robards Sr., Romeo (the dog), Paul Russell, Scott Seaton, Sammy Shack, Stanley Stone, Phil Warren, Napoleon Whiting.

Recommended reading:

Deadlier Than the Male

By James Gunn.

Introduced by Curtis Evans.

Filmed as Born to Kill, aka Lady of Deceit and Deadlier Than the Male (1947), directed by Robert Wise.

Published by Stark House Press.

Film Noir Classics, 7.

First published 1942.

Paperback.

ISBN-13: 979-8886010824

ASIN: B0CW22PDN7

Description:

“Deadlier Than the Male is truly one of the strangest of all American crime novels. In fact it’s one of the strangest of all American novels… It is in no way a pleasant read but it is fascinating in a bizarre, morbid and very unsettling way. Gunn’s style is as extreme and as offbeat as his plotting. This is psychological noir at its darkest.” – Vintage Pop Fictions.

DEADLIER THAN THE MALE.

Helen is in Reno for her second divorce and staying with Mrs. Krantz and her daughter Rachel at their boarding house. Mrs. Krantz’s drinking companion, Laura Pollicker, lives next door. That night she is murdered, and Helen discovers the body—and wastes no time in returning to the San Francisco house she shares with his sister Georgia. How could she know that the very man who meets and marries her sister only days later is the same man who had slit Mrs. Pollicker’s throat.

Sam Wild is a powerful man, tall, muscular, with very little control over his emotions. His friend Mart watches out for him, but Sam sometimes just can’t help himself—he has to kill. Now he’s got a rich wife with an attractive sister, and he’s just biding his time until he can take over Georgia’s money and get rid of her, too. But that’s when Helen steps in with some plans of her own.