On this day in movie history - In a Lonely Place (1950 movie & novel):

In a Lonely Place

directed by Nicholas Ray,

written by Andrew P. Solt and Edmund H. North,

based on the novel by Dorothy B. Hughes,

was released in the United States on May 17, 1950.
Music by George Antheil.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Gloria Grahame, Frank Lovejoy, Carl Benton Reid, Art Smith, Martha Stewart, Jeff Donnell, Robert Warwick, Morris Ankrum, William Ching, Steven Geray, Hadda Brooks, Jack Reynolds.

Recommended reading:

In a Lonely Place

By Dorothy B. Hughes.

Filmed as In a Lonely Place (1950), directed by Nicholas Ray.

Published by NYRB Classics.

First published 1947.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1681371472

ISBN-13: 978-1681371474

Description:

Los Angeles in the late 1940s is a city of promise and prosperity, but not for former fighter pilot Dix Steele. To his mind nothing has come close to matching “that feeling of power and exhilaration and freedom that came with loneness in the sky.” He prowls the foggy city night – bus stops and stretches of darkened beaches and movie houses just emptying out – seeking solitary young women. His funds are running out and his frustrations are growing. Where is the good life he was promised? Why does he always get a raw deal? Then he hooks up with his old Air Corps buddy Brub, now working for the LAPD, who just happens to be on the trail of the strangler who’s been terrorizing the women of the city for months...

Written with controlled elegance, Dorothy B. Hughes’s tense novel is at once an early indictment of a truly toxic masculinity and a twisty page-turner with a surprisingly feminist resolution. A classic of golden age noir, In a Lonely Place also inspired Nicholas Ray’s 1950 film of the same name, starring Humphrey Bogart.

On this day in movie history - Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid (1982):

Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid

directed by Carl Reiner,

written by Carl Reiner, George Gipe and Steve Martin,

was released in the United States on May 4, 1982.
Music by Miklós Rózsa and Steve Goodman.

Cast:

Steve Martin, Rachel Ward, Alan Ladd, Carl Reiner, Barbara Stanwyck, Ray Milland, Ava Gardner, Burt Lancaster, Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Veronica Lake, Bette Davis, Lana Turner, Edward Arnold, Kirk Douglas, Fred MacMurray, James Cagney, Joan Crawford, Reni Santoni, Charles Laughton, Vincent Price, George Gaynes, Francis X. McCarthy, Adrian Ricard, Charlie Picerni, Gene LeBell, George Sawaya, Britt Nilsson, Jean Beaudine, John Easton Stuart, Ronald Spivey, Bob Hevelone, Dieter Curt, Phillip Kearns, Kent Deigaard, Eugene Brezany, Brad Baird, William Conrad, Charles McGraw, Jeff Corey, John Miljan, Brian Donlevy, Norma Varden, Edmond O'Brien, Wally Brown, David LeBell, Cheryl Smith.

On this day in movie history - The Harder They Fall (1956 movie & novel):

The Harder They Fall

directed by Mark Robson,

written by Philip Yordan,

based on the novel by Budd Schulberg,

was released in the United States on March 31, 1956.
Music by Hugo Friedhofer.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Rod Steiger, Jan Sterling, Mike Lane, Max Baer, Jersey Joe Walcott, Edward Andrews, Harold J. Stone, Carlos Montalbán, Luís Agrandi, Nehemiah Persoff, Felice Orlandi, Herbie Faye, Rusty Lane, Jack Albertson.

Recommended reading:

The Harder They Fall

By Budd Schulberg.

First published 1947.

Published by Ivan R. Dee.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1566631076

ISBN-13: 978-1566631075

Description:

Brilliant, witty, and amusing...the best book on fighting that I have read. – Gene Tunney.

The book will stand not only as the novel about boxing but also as a book that indirectly tells more about civilization than do most books about civilization itself. – Arthur Miller.

The quintessential novel of boxing and corruption. – USA Today.

Budd Schulberg's celebrated novel of the prize ring has lost none of its power since its first publication almost fifty years ago. Crowded with unforgettable characters, it is a relentless expose of the fight racket. A modern Samson in the form of a simple Argentine peasant is ballyhooed by an unscrupulous fight promoter and his press agent - and then betrayed and destroyed by connivers. Mr. Schulberg creates a wonderfully authentic atmosphere for this book that many critics hailed as even better than What Makes Sammy Run? The wrongs of the boxing business that the book illuminates are still with us.