On this day in movie history - Detective Story (movie & play):

Detective Story

directed by William Wyler,

written by Robert Wyler and Philip Yordan,

based on the play by Sidney Kingsley,

was released in the United States on October 24, 1951.
Music composed by Miklós Rózsa and Victor Young.

Cast:

Kirk Douglas, Eleanor Parker, William Bendix, Cathy O'Donnell, George Macready, Horace McMahon, Gladys George, Joseph Wiseman, Lee Grant, Gerald Mohr, Frank Faylen, Craig Hill, Michael Strong, Luis Van Rooten, Bert Freed, Warner Anderson, Grandon Rhodes, William 'Bill' Phillips, Russell Evans, Charles Campbell, Edmund Cobb, Ann Codee, Catherine Doucet, Pat Flaherty, Harper Goff, Howard Joslin, Donald Kerr, George Magrill, Mike Mahoney, James Maloney, Lee Miller, Ralph Montgomery, Burt Mustin, Jack Perry, Robert S. Scott, Jack Shea, Kay Wiley.

Recommended reading:

Detective Story

A play in three acts

By Sidney Kingsley.

First published 1949.

Published by Legare Street Press.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1022892851

ISBN-13: 978-1022892859

Description:

Sidney Kingsley's classic play, first performed on Broadway in 1949, is a gripping and intense drama that explores the seedy underbelly of crime and punishment in New York City. The play's intricate plot, complex characters, and dark themes make it a timeless classic of American theater.

The scene is the squad room and office in a New York police station. The playwright presents a fascinatingly realistic picture of routine cases brought into a metropolitan police station in the course of a day. Out of the welter of human misery, vice and stupidity there emerges the tragic and moving case of a decent young fellow who has stolen money from his employer. Though a woman who is in love with him comes to his help and the employer is offered everything that has been taken from him, the case has fallen into the hands of McLeod, a hardworking detective whose experience in police work has developed in him a mania for punishing all law breakers, whom he regards as incorrigibles. Nothing will satisfy him but brutal punishment. He is at work at the same time on a case involving an abortionist whose attorney, failing to move him by other means, forces McLeod's wife to confess to her husband that she had herself some years before made use of the services of the abortionist in question. Since McLeod worships his wife and finds in her the only happiness of his existence, his world collapses about him. The climax comes when McLeod gets involved with another prisoner who attempts to escape from the squad room with the aid of a revolver taken from one of the detectives. McLeod is shot and killed. This climax is a fitting end to McLeod's career. To the last, he had been bent upon doing what he considered his duty in seeing that criminals obeyed the letter of the law at no matter what cost."

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.

Born on this day – Gladys George:

Gladys George

Actress

September 13, 1904 – December 8, 1954

On this day in movie history - He Ran All the Way (1951):

He Ran All the Way

directed by John Berry,

written by Hugo Butler and Dalton Trumbo,

based on the novel by Sam Ross,

was released in the United States on July 13, 1951.
Music by Franz Waxman.

Cast:

John Garfield, Shelley Winters, Wallace Ford, Selena Royle, Gladys George, Norman Lloyd, Robert Hyatt, Clancy Cooper, Vici Raaf, Keith Hetherington, Robert Karnes.

On this day in movie history - The Roaring Twenties (1939):

The Roaring Twenties

directed by Raoul Walsh,

written by Jerry Wald, Richard Macaulay, Robert Rossen, Earl Baldwin, Frank Donoghue and John Wexley,

based on the short story The World Moves On by Mark Hellinger,

was released in the United States on October 28, 1939.

Narrated by John Deering.

Music by Ray Heindorf and Heinz Roemheld.

Cast:

James Cagney, Priscilla Lane, Humphrey Bogart, Gladys George, Jeffrey Lynn, Frank McHugh, George Meeker, Paul Kelly, Elisabeth Risdon, Edward Keane, Joseph Sawyer, Abner Biberman, John Hamilton, Robert Elliott, Eddie Chandler, Vera Lewis, John Deering, Elliott Sullivan, Patrick H. O’Malley Jr., Bert Hanlon, Joseph Crehan, Murray Alper, Dick Wessel, George Humbert, Ben Welden, Clay Clement, Don Thaddeus Kerr, Ray Cook, Norman Willis, Arthur Loft, Al Hill, Raymond Bailey, Lew Harvey, Joe Devlin, Jeffrey Sayre, Paul Phillips, Bert Hanlon, Jack Norton, Alan Bridge, Fred Graham, James Blaine, Henry C. Bradley, Lottie Williams, John Harron, Lee Phelps, Nat Carr, Wade Boteler, Creighton Hale, Ann Codee, Eddie Acuff, Milton Kibbee, John Ridgely, Frank Mayo, Bess Flowers, Frank Wilcox, Oscar O’Shea, Robert Armstrong, James Flavin, Emory Parnell.