On this day in movie history - Night and the City (1950 movie & novel):

Night and the City

directed by Jules Dassin,

written by Austin Dempster, William E. Watts and Jo Eisinger,

based on the novel by Gerald Kersh,

was released in the United States on June 9, 1950.
Music by Benjamin Frankel and Franz Waxman.

Cast:

Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Googie Withers, Hugh Marlowe, Francis L. Sullivan, Herbert Lom, Aubrey Dexter, Maureen Delany, Stanislaus Zbyszko, Mike Mazurki, Ada Reeve, Charles Farrell, Ken Richmond, Edward Chapman, James Hayter, Gibb McLaughlin, Dirk Bogarde.

Recommended reading:

Night And The City

By Gerald Kersh.

Published by London Books.

First published 1938.

ISBN-10: 0995721734

ISBN-13: 9780995721739

Description:

Harry Fabian is a cockney wide boy trying to make it big in the Soho underworld of the 1930s. He is a Flash Harry in an expensive suit, a chancer operating in a cosmopolitan corner of the city where villains, spivs, prostitutes and strong-arm men thrive. But his ambition and reckless nature are pushing him towards more and more extreme acts - and a day of reckoning. Night And The City is a classic work of social-realist fiction that captures the vibrant yet seedy underbelly of London between the world wars. Its author Gerald Kersh was high-profile, prolific and hugely popular at his peak, but would later drift into hardship and obscurity. His writing is now being rediscovered. A maverick character in his own right, Kersh's life was as colourful as those of his most flamboyant creations. As well as a highly respected novel, Night And The City was twice filmed - in 1950 and 1992 - and it is the first of these adaptations that is today regarded as one of the best of the British film-noir genre. Directed by Jules Dassin and starring Richard Widmark and Googie Withers, it was shot in a post-war landscape heavy with menace and charm - just like the book on which it was based.

On this day in movie history - Rififi (1955 movie & book):

Rififi

French title: Du rififi chez les hommes,

directed by Jules Dassin,

written by Auguste Le Breton, Jules Dassin and René Wheeler,

based on the novel by Auguste Le Breton,

was released in France on April 13, 1955.
Music by Georges Auric.

Cast:

Jean Servais, Carl Möhner, Robert Manuel, Janine Darcey, Pierre Grasset, Robert Hossein, Marcel Lupovici, Dominique Maurin, Magali Noël, Marie Sabouret, Claude Sylvain, Jules Dassin, Armandel, Alain Bouvette, Alice Garan, André Dalibert, Jacques David, Émile Genevois, Marcelle Hainia, Marcel Lesieur, Daniel Mendaille, Huguette Montréal, Lita Recio, Fernand Sardou, Jean Bellanger, Jacques Besnard, Teddy Bilis, Jenny Doria, René Hell, Gilbert Moreau, Maryse Paillet, Marcel Rouzé, Roger Rudel.

Recommended reading:

Rififi

By Alastair Phillips.

Ciné-File French Film Guides.

Published by I.B.Tauris.

Published 2009.

Paperback.

ISBN-10: 1848850557

ISBN-13: 978-1848850552

Description:

Du rififi chez les hommes (1955), directed by the exiled American film director Jules Dassin, recounts the nail-biting tale of a Parisian gangster heist gone wrong. Famed for its extended dialogue free robbery sequence, it is both a classic French film noir and one of the greatest, most influential crime films. In this lively companion to the film, Alastair Phillips reveals Dassin’s role as a director of socially conscious Hollywood film noir and argues that his seminal contribution to the regeneration of the thriller in post war France therefore uniquely complicated relations between French genre cinema and American mass culture.

Phillips also examines the film's innovative narrative construction and use of sound, its performance style and mise-en-scène, and discusses the film's legacy, showing how even today, the term ""Rififi"" remains a byword for both criminal glamor and the enduring virtues of French popular classical filmmaking.

On this day in movie history - The Naked City (1948):

The Naked City

aka Naked City,

directed by Jules Dassin,

written by Albert Maltz and Malvin Wald,

based on a story by Malvin Wald,

was released in the United States on March 4, 1948.

Narrated by Mark Hellinger.

Music by Miklós Rózsa and Frank Skinner.

There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them.

– Narrator.

Cast:

Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor, Frank Conroy, Ted de Corsia, House Jameson, Anne Sargent, Adelaide Klein, Grover Burgess, Tom Pedi, Enid Markey, Walter Burke, Virginia Mullen, Mark Hellinger.

On this day in movie history - Thieves’ Highway (1949):

Thieves’ Highway

directed by Jules Dassin,

written by A. I. Bezzerides,

based on the novel Thieves’ Market by A. I. Bezzerides,

was released in the United States on September 20, 1949.
Music by Alfred Newman and Cyril J. Mockridge.

Cast:

Richard Conte, Valentina Cortese, Lee J. Cobb, Barbara Lawrence, Jack Oakie, Millard Mitchell, Joseph Pevney, Morris Carnovsky, Tamara Shayne, Kasia Orzazewski, Norbert Schiller, Hope Emerson, Walter Baldwin, Robert Bice, Howland Chamberlain, David Clarke, Roy Damron, Jules Dassin, Al Eben, Robert Foulk, Joe Haworth, Percy Helton, Ted Jordan, Frank Kreig, Saul Martell, Edwin Max, John Merton, Ann Morrison, James Nolan, David Opatoshu, Frank Richards, Maurice Samuels, Mario Siletti, Irene Tedrow, George Tyne, Dick Wessel, Harry Wilson.