On this day in movie history - Crime Wave (1953):

Crime Wave

aka The City Is Dark,

directed by Andre DeToth,

was released in the United States on January 12, 1954.
Based on the short story Criminal's Mark,

by John Hawkins and Ward Hawkins,

originally published in The Saturday Evening Post (1950).

Music by David Buttolph.

Cast:

Sterling Hayden, Gene Nelson, Phyllis Kirk, Ted de Corsia, Charles Bronson, Jay Novello, Ned Young, James Bell, Dub Taylor, Gayle Kellogg, Mack Chandler, Timothy Carey, Sandy Sanders, Richard Benjamin, James Hayward, Lyle Latell.

On this day in movie history - Crime of Passion (1957):

Crime of Passion

directed by Gerd Oswald,

written by Jo Eisinger,

was released in the United States on January 9, 1957.
Music by Paul Dunlap.

Cast:

Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr, Fay Wray, Virginia Grey, Royal Dano, Robert Griffin, Dennis Cross, Jay Adler, Stuart Whitman, Malcolm Atterbury, Robert Quarry, Gail Bonney, Joe Conley.

On this day in movie history - Kubrick by Kubrick (2020):

Kubrick by Kubrick

a documentary directed and written by Gregory Monro,

was released at the Chicago International Film Festival in the United States on October 20, 2020.
Music by Vincent Théard.

Cast:

Stanley Kubrick, Michel Ciment, Malcolm McDowell, Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Sterling Hayden, Arthur C. Clarke, Marisa Berenson, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio, Peter Sellers, Garrett Brown, Ken Adam, Leonard Rosenman, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Christiane Kubrick, Roger Ebert, Dann Gire, Maurice Beaupère, J.-H. Bigay, Kirk Douglas, Pierre Fruchon, Sue Lyon, James Mason, Agop Terzan.

On this day in movie history - Naked Alibi (1954):

Naked Alibi

directed by Jerry Hopper,

written by Lawrence Roman,

based on the story Cry Copper by J. Robert Bren and Gladys Atwater,

was released in the United States on September 2, 1954.
Music by Hans J. Salter and Frank Skinner.

Cast:

Sterling Hayden, Gloria Grahame, Gene Barry, Marcia Henderson, Max Showalter, Billy Chapin, Chuck Connors, Don Haggerty, Stuart Randall, Don Garrett, Richard Beach, Tol Avery, Paul Levitt, Fay Roope, Joseph Mell, John Alvin, Dee Carroll, Cheryll Clarke, Dick Crockett, Dean Cromer, John Daheim, Alan DeWitt, Herbert Ellis, Michael Fox, Phil Garris, Sol Gorss, Jo Ann Greer, Brett Halsey, Beverly Ruth Jordan, Byron Keith, Kenner G. Kemp, Mike Mahoney, Frank Marlowe, Barbara Marshall, Forbes Murray, Paul Newlan, William H. O'Brien, Kathleen O'Malley, Alan Paige, Eddie Parker, Byron Poindexter, Ray Quinn, Carlos Rivero, Robert Stevenson, Jack Stoney, Max Trumpower, Frank Wilcox, Lewis Wilson, Bud Wolfe.

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.