On this day in movie history - Phantom Lady (1944 movie & novel):

Phantom Lady

directed by Robert Siodmak,

written by Bernard C. Schoenfeld,

based on the novel by Cornell Woolrich,

was released in the United States on January 28, 1944.
Music by Hans J. Salter.

Cast:

Franchot Tone, Ella Raines, Alan Curtis, Aurora Miranda, Thomas Gomez, Fay Helm, Elisha Cook, Jr., Andrew Tombes, Regis Toomey, Joseph Crehan, Doris Lloyd, Virginia Brissac, Milburn Stone.

Recommended reading:

Phantom Lady

By Cornell Woolrich.

Published by Renaissance Literary & Talent.
First published 1942.
Paperback.
ISBN-10: 1950369781
ISBN-13: 978-1950369782

Description:

Phantom lady, I was with you for six hours last night, but I can't remember what you look like, or what you wore—except for that large orange hat. We sat shoulder to shoulder at a little bar in the east Fifties. We ate dinner together, saw a Broadway show together, shared a cab together.

The bartender, the waiter, the usher, the cab driver—none of them remembers you. The police say I was home strangling my wife at the moment I met you.

You are the only one who can prove my story—but I don't know your name, or where you live. And I can't search for you from a jail cell....

After spending a night on the town with a mysterious woman, a man arrives home to find his wife strangled to death. Now, the only way to prove his innocence and confirm his alibi is to track down the "Phantom Lady" he was with all night.

“Cornell Woolrich deserves to be discovered and rediscovered by each generation." – Ray Bradbury.

Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich (4 December 1903 – 25 September 1968) is one of America's best crime and noir writers, and sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms William Irish or George Hopley. He invented and mastered the genre of "Pulp-Fiction" and wrote hundreds of short stories, novellas and full-length novels. One of his most famous stories is It Had to be Murder which was adapted into the classic Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window in 1954. Check out the countless other Woolrich Novels, Novellas and Short Stories, also available as EBooks, from the Estate of Cornell Woolrich and Renaissance Literary & Talent!

On this day in movie history - Force of Evil (1948 movie & novel):

Force of Evil

directed by Abraham Polonsky,

written by Abraham Polonsky and Ira Wolfert,

based on the novel Tucker's People by Ira Wolfert,

was released in the United States on December 25, 1948.
Music by David Raksin.

Cast:

John Garfield, Beatrice Pearson, Thomas Gomez, Marie Windsor, Howland Chamberlain, Roy Roberts, Paul Fix, Stanley Prager, Barry Kelley, Beau Bridges, Paul McVey.

Recommended reading:

Tucker’s People

By Ira Wolfert.

aka The Underworld.

Filmed as Force of Evil (1948), directed by Abraham Polonsky.

Published by Black Curtain Press.

First published 1943.

Hardcover.

ISBN-10: 1515426157

ISBN-13: 978-1515426158

Description:

When Tucker's People was published in 1943 it was praised by the New York Times for its "blowtorch intensity." The idea for Tucker's People stemmed from Ira Wolfert's coverage as a reporter of the trial of James "Jimmy" Hines, a Tammany Hall district leader who was prosecuted by Thomas E. Dewey for letting Dutch Schultz take over the numbers game in New York. It is "a penetrating, sympathetic novel of frustration and insecurity, a story of little people, many of them decent people, battling against forces they are too feeble to resist and too simple to understand," according to the Saturday Review of Literature.

On this day in movie history - Pittsburgh (1942):

Pittsburgh

directed by Lewis Seiler,

written by Kenneth Gamet, Tom Reed, John Twist, Robert Fellows and Winston Miller,

based on a story by George Owen and Tom Reed,

was released in the United States on December 11, 1942.
Music by Hans J. Salter and Frank Skinner.

Cast:

Marlene Dietrich, Randolph Scott, John Wayne, Frank Craven, Louise Allbritton, Shemp Howard, Thomas Gomez, Ludwig Stössel, Samuel S. Hinds, Paul Fix, William Haade, Charles Coleman, Nestor Paiva, John Alban, Charles Arnt, Lois Austin, Don Barclay, Robert Barron, Brandon Beach, Brooks Benedict, Edward Biby, Ted Billings, Wade Boteler, Chet Brandenburg, Tex Brodus, James Carlisle, Hobart Cavanaugh, Jack Chefe, James Conaty, Harry Cording, Victor Cox, Hal Craig, Oliver Cross, Grace Cunard, Sayre Dearing, Jack Deery, William Desmond, Helen Dickson, John Dilson, Jimmy Dime, Ed Emerson, Bess Flowers, Douglas Fowley, Joe Garcio, Jack Gardner, Jack Gargan, Kenneth Gibson, Gus Glassmire, George Golden, Dick Gordon, William Gould, Bobbie Hale, Eddie Hall, Chuck Hamilton, Sam Harris, Winifred Harris, Carol Henry, Edward Keane, Joe Kirk, Ethan Laidlaw, Nolan Leary, Kay Linaker, Frank Marlowe, Alphonse Martell, Johnny Marvin, Larry McGrath, Mira McKinney, Paul McVey, Robert Milasch, Irving Mitchell, Sandra Morgan, Frances Morris, Edmund Mortimer, Charles Morton, Broderick O'Farrell, Monty O'Grady, Bob Perry, Lorin Raker, Bob Reeves, Cyril Ring, Robert Robinson, William Ruhl, Virginia Sale, Paul Scott, Harry Seymour, John Sheehan, Charles Sherlock, Jack C. Smith, Tom Steele, Sammy Stein, Brick Sullivan, Charles Sullivan, Ben Taggart, Dale Van Sickel, Frankie Van, Ray Walker, Glen Walters, Anthony Warde, Phil Warren.

On this day in movie history - Key Largo (1948):

Key Largo

directed by John Huston,

written by Richard Brooks and John Huston,

based on the play by Maxwell Anderson,

was released in the United States on July 16, 1948.
Music by Max Steiner.

Cast:

Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, Lionel Barrymore, Claire Trevor, Thomas Gomez, Harry Lewis, John Rodney, Marc Lawrence, Dan Seymour, Monte Blue, William Haade, Jay Silverheels, Rodd Redwing.

On this day in movie history - Las Vegas Shakedown (1955):

Las Vegas Shakedown

directed by Sidney Salkow,

written by Steve Fisher,

was released in the United States on May 15, 1955.
Music by Edward J. Kay.

Cast:

Dennis O’Keefe, Coleen Gray, Charles Winninger, Thomas Gomez, Dorothy Patrick, Mary Beth Hughes, Elizabeth Patterson, James Millican, Robert Armstrong, Joe Downing, Lewis Martin, Mara McAfee, Charles Fredericks, Regina Gleason, Murray Alper, James Alexander, Frank Hanley, Allen Mathews, Sid Fields, Rory Mallinson, Matty Malneck, Eve Marley, Beverly Richards, Charles Sherlock, Paul Sorensen.