Born on this day – Keenan Wynn:

Keenan Wynn

Actor

July 27, 1916 – October 14, 1986

Credits:

20 Shades of Pink (1976); 77 Sunset Strip (1963); 80 Steps to Jonah (1969); A Hole in the Head (1959); A Piano for Mrs. Cimino (1982); A Time to Love and a Time to Die (1958); A Touch of the Sun (1979); A Woman for All Men (1975); ABC Late Night (1974); AFI Life Achievement Award (1982); Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1958–1961); Alias Smith and Jones (1971–1972); All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953); All-Star Party for 'Dutch' Reagan (1985); American Masters (1995–2002); Angels in the Outfield (1951); Annie Get Your Gun (1950); Annie Get Your Gun Intro with Susan Lucci (2000); Around the World Under the Sea (1966); Assault on the Wayne (1971); Assignment: Munich (1972); B.F.'s Daughter (1948); Baretta (1976); Battle Circus (1953); Bearcats! (1971); Behind the Scenes with Blake Edwards' 'The Great Race' (1965); Ben Casey (1962); Best Friends (1982); Best Sellers or: Peter Sellers and Dr. Strangelove (2004); Between Two Women (1945); Bicentennial Minutes (1975); Bikini Beach (1964); Black Jack (1972); Black Moon Rising (1986); Black Saddle (1959–1960); Bloopermania (1987); Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre (1964); Bonanza (1964); Burke's Law (1963–1964); Bus Stop (1961); Call to Glory (1984–1985); Cancel My Reservation (1972); Cannon (1971 / 1972); Chained (1934); Checkmate (1961); Coach (1978); Code of Vengeance (1985); Code Two (1953); Colorshopping Vol. 2 (2011); Combat! (1962–1966); Compression (2023–2024); Dallas (1979–1980); Damon Runyon Theater (1956); Death Valley Days (1962); Desperate Search (1952); Don't Go Near the Water (1957); Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964); Easy to Wed (1946); Emergency! (1975); Family Feud (1985); Fantasy Island (1981); Fearless Fagan (1952); Finian's Rainbow (1968); Follow the Sun (1962); For Me and My Gal (1942); Ford Star Jubilee (1956); Frame Up (1968); General Electric Theater (1955–1957); George Jessel Show (1958); George Jessel's Here Come the Stars (1968); Gomer Pyle: USMC (1966); Goodyear Theatre (1959); Hard Knocks (1979); Hardcastle and McCormick (1983); Hawaii Five-O (1972); He Is My Brother (1975); Hec Ramsey (1973); Herbie Day at Disneyland (1974); Herbie Rides Again (1974); Here's Hollywood (1962); High Velocity (1976); Highway to Heaven (1985); Hijack! (1973); Hit Lady (1974); Hitler (1962); Holiday for Sinners (1952); Hollywood and the Stars (1963); Hollywood Remembers Lee Marvin (2000); Honeymoon Hotel (1964); Honeymoon Suite (1973); House on Greenapple Road (1970); Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star (1986); Hysterical (1982); Il re di Poggioreale (1961); I'll Bet (1965); Imps* / Segment: Man on the Moon (1983); Insight (1981); It's a Big Country: An American Anthology (1951); It's Your Bet (1970–1971); I've Got a Secret (1955–1961); Jane Wyman Presents the Fireside Theatre (1955); Jeremiah of Jacob's Neck (1976); Joe Butterfly (1957); Johnny Concho (1956); Just Tell Me What You Want (1980); Kind Lady (1951); King of the Roaring 20's: The Story of Arnold Rothstein (1961); Kiss Me Kate (1953); Kolchak: Demon and the Mummy / Segment: Demon in Lace (1975); Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974–1975); Kraft Suspense Theatre (1964); Kraft Theatre / The United States Steel Hour (1955); Lancer (1970); Laserblast (1978); Lost Angel (1943); Love That Brute (1950); Love, American Style (1970); Loving (1970); Mackenna's Gold (1969); Manimal (1983); Mansfield 66/67 (2017); Marriage Is a Private Affair (1944); Matt and Jenny (1979); McMillan & Wife (1973); Medical Center (1970–1975); Men of the Fighting Lady (1954); MGM Parade (1956); Mirrors (1985); Mission to Glory: A True Story (1976); Mobile One (1975); Mod Squad (1971); Mom, the Wolfman and Me (1980); Movies That Shook the World (2005); Movin' On (1975); Musical Merry-Go-Round #1 (1948); My Dear Secretary (1948); Naked City (1961–1962); Naples '44 (2016); Nashville (1975); Neptune's Daughter (1949); Nightmare in the Sun (1965); No Leave, No Love (1946); Northwest Rangers (1942); Off to See the Wizard (1968); Omnibus (1959); Once Upon a Time in the West (1968); One Day at a Time (1981); Operation Mermaid (1963); Orca (1977); Outlaw Motorcycles (1966); Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law (1972); Palmerstown, U.S.A. (1981); Panhandle 38 (1972); Password (1963); Pastor Mike Online (2011); Perry Como's Kraft Music Hall (1956); Phone Call from a Stranger (1952); Piranha (1978); Playhouse 90 (1956–1958); Point Blank (1967); Point Blank the Documentary (2024); Police Surgeon (1973); Police Woman (1978); Popcorn (1974); Pretend It's a City (2021); Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971); Prime Risk (1985); Producers' Showcase (1955); Promise Her Anything (1966); Pursuit (1958); Quincy, M.E. (1983); Rawhide (1962); Rendezvous (1958); Rich Hall's Red Menace (2019); Route 66 (1961); Royal Wedding (1951); Run Like a Thief (1967); Running Wild (1955); Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town (1970); Schlitz Playhouse (1955–1958); Screen Directors Playhouse (1955); Screen Snapshots 1856: The Mocambo Party (1957); Screen Snapshots Series 27, No. 3: Out of This World Series (1947); Screen Snapshots: Playtime in Hollywood (1956); See Here, Private Hargrove (1944); Sex and the Married Woman (1977); Shack Out on 101 (1955); Since You Went Away (1944); Skirts Ahoy! (1952); Sky Full of Moon (1952); Smith! (1969); Snowball Express (1972); Some of the Best: Twenty-Five Years of Motion Picture Leadership (1949); Somewhere I'll Find You (1942); Son of Flubber (1962); Song of the Thin Man (1947); Special Collector's Edition (2013); St. Elsewhere (1983); Stage to Thunder Rock (1964); Stagecoach (1966); Studio 57 (1956); Studio One (1955–1956); Summer Fun (1966); Sunburn (1979); Supertrain (1979); Tales from the Darkside (1984); Target Risk (1975); Target: The Corruptors (1962); Taxi (1983); Tennessee Champ (1954); Terror in the Sky (1971); Texas Carnival (1951); That Kind of Woman (1959); That Midnight Kiss (1949); That Regis Philbin Show (1965); That's Entertainment, Part II (1976); The 30th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards (1978); The 32nd Annual Academy Awards (1960); The 36th Primetime Emmy Awards (1984); The Absent Minded Professor (1961); The Age of Believing: The Disney Live Action Classics (2008); The Alcoa Hour (1956); The Americanization of Emily (1964); The Animals (1970); The Aquanauts (1960); The Bastard (1978); The Belle of New York (1952); The Ben Hecht Show (1959); The Best of Broadway (1955); The Best of Hollywood (2017); The Billion Dollar Threat (1979); The Bionic Woman (1978); The Bob Newhart Show (1975); The Capture of Grizzly Adams (1982); The Clock (1945); The Clonus Horror (1979); The Cockeyed Miracle (1946); The Cop and the Kid (1976); The Crowded Sky (1960); The Dark (1979); The Deep Six (1958); The Devil's Rain (1975); The Dick Cavett Show (1971–1972); The Dick Powell Theatre (1962–1963); The Doctors and the Nurses (1963); The DuPont Show with June Allyson (1960); The Ed Sullivan Show (1954); The Eleventh Hour (1963); The Fall Guy (1986); The Ford Television Theatre (1957); The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957); The Girl with Something Extra (1974); The Glass Slipper (1955); The Glove (1979); The Goonies (1985); The Great Man (1956); The Great Race (1965); The Greatest American Hero (1982); The Hucksters (1947); The Internecine Project (1974); The Islanders (1960); The Joke and the Valley (1961); The Joseph Cotten Show: On Trial (1956); The Killer Inside Me (1976); The Last Precinct (1986); The Last Unicorn (1982); The Legend of Earl Durand (1974); The Life and Times of Grizzly Adams (1978); The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case (1976); The Littlest Hobo (1963 / 1980); The Long, Long Trailer (1954); The Longest Hunt (1968); The Love Boat (1982); The Lucifer Complex (1978); The Magic Pear Tree (1968); The Magical World of Disney (1978–1981); The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit (1956); The Man Who Wouldn't Die (1975); The Man with Icy Eyes (1971); The Manipulator (1971); The Marauders (1955); The Masterpiece That Almost Wasn't (2008); The Mechanic (1972); The Merv Griffin Show (1965–1971); The Mississippi (1983); The Monitors (1969); The Monkey Mission (1981); The Naked Hills (1956); The Name of the Game (1969–1970); The Name's the Same (1955); The New Breed (1961); The New Perry Mason (1973); The New Steve Allen Show (1962); The Night of the Grizzly (1966); The Patsy (1964); The Perfect Furlough (1958); The Power and the Glory (1961); The Quest (1976); The Quest: The Longest Drive (1976); The Red Rowe Show (1960); The Red Skelton Hour (1962); The Return of the Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair (1983); The Road West (1967); The Roaring 20's (1961); The Rock (1967); The Rookies (1976); The Scarface Mob (1959); The Shaggy D.A. (1976); The Steve Allen Plymouth Show (1958–1960); The Steve Allen Show (1969); The Steve Lawrence-Eydie Gorme Show (1958); The Tennessee Ernie Ford Show (1958–1960); The Three Musketeers (1948); The Thrill of Brazil (1946); The Tonight Show Starring Jack Paar (1961); The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (1962–1964); The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1964); The Treasure Seekers (1980); The Twilight Zone (1960); The Untouchables (1959–1961); The War Against Mrs. Hadley (1942); The War Wagon (1967); The Wide World of Mystery (1973); The Wild Wild West (1966); The Winston Affair (1964); The Young Lawyers (1969); Then Came Bronson (1969); They Are Eating the Guests! Interview Mit Regisseur Joe Dante (2015); This Is Your Life (1953); Three Little Words (1950); To Tell the Truth (1958); Touch of Evil (1958); Transcending Time: Symbols and Strangelove (2016); Troubleshooters (1959–1960); Twenty Years After (1944); Valentine's Day (1965); VD Attack Plan (1973); Viva Max (1969); Wagon Train (1958); Warning Shot (1966); Wavelength (1983); Week-End at the Waldorf (1945); Welcome to Hard Times (1967); Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse (1959 / 1960); What About Linda? (1961); What Next, Corporal Hargrove? (1945); What's My Line? (1958–1959); What's My Line? At 25 (1975); When the West Was Fun: A Western Reunion (1979); Without Love (1945); You Don't Say (1963–1964); Ziegfeld Follies (1945); Zoo Ship (1985).

Recommended reading - The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (1996):

The Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (1996).

Hardboiled writing from Dashiell Hammett, Donald E. Westlake, Mickey Spillane, John D. MacDonald, Jim Thompson and many more…

Edited by Maxim Jakubowski.

Mammoth Books.

ISBN-10: 0786703008

ISBN-13: 978-0786703005

Back cover description:

Fast action and wild, wild pleasure: a massive collection of seven decades of pure, unadulterated pulp fiction.

The paper may have yellowed and crumbled away but the stories and a thousand thrills still hit the spot. Join the shady operators, voluptuous molls, ruthless big shots, crooked and sometimes honest cops on a rollercoaster ride through the mean streets of popular literature in the company of such superlative writers as: Dashiell Hammett, Donald E. Westlake, Ross Macdonald, Charles Willeford, David Goodis, Frederic Brown, Robert Bloch, Karlan Ellison, John D. MacDonald, Jim Thompson, William P. McGivern, Lawrence Block, Bill Pronzini, Mickey Spillane.

And twenty other leading lights of the hardboiled school of writing, as the action moves back from the silver screen to the pages where it all began, Just watch out for open windows and flying bullets!

Contents:

Acknowledgements; Introduction; Too Many Have Lived, by Dashiell Hammett; Flight to Nowhere, by Charles Williams; Black, by Paul Cain; Finders Killers! by John D. MacDonald; Murder’s Mandate, by W. T. Ballard; Cigarette Girl, by James M. Cain; The Getaway, by Gil Brewer; Preview of Murder, by Robert Leslie Bellem; Forever After, by Jim Thompson; The Bloody Tide, by Day Keene; Death Comes Gift-Wrapped, by William P. McGivern; The Girl Behind the Hedge, by Mickey Spillane; Enter Scarface, by Armitage Trail; A Candle for the Bag Lady, by Lawrence Block; Black Pudding, by David Goodis; A Matter of Principal, by Max Allan Collins; Citizen’s Arrest, by Charles Willeford; Sleeping Dog, by Ross Macdonald; The Wench is Dead, by Fredric Brown; So Dark for April, by Howard Browne; We Are All Dead, by Bruno Fischer; Death is a Vampire, by Robert Bloch; Divide and Conquer, by Jack Ritchie; A Real Nice Guy, by William F. Nolan; Stacked Deck, by Bill Pronzini; So Young, So Fair, So Dead, by John Lutz; Effective Medicine, by B. Traven; Killing Bernstein, by Harlan Ellison; The Second Coming, by Joe Gores; Hibiscus and Homicide, by William Campbell Gault; Hell on Wheels, by Thomas S. Roche; Ordo, by Donald E. Westlake.

Steve Kroft, on writing:

It's not an easy process.

People think that you're a good writer, that you just sit down and do it.

It takes a lot of work and it takes a lot of time to do it and to make it good.

- Steve Kroft.

On this day in movie history - Fat City (1972):

Fat City,

directed by John Huston,

written by Leonard Gardner,

based on the novel by Leonard Gardner,

was released in the United States on July 26, 1972.
Music by Kenneth Hall.

Cast:
Stacy Keach, Jeff Bridges, Susan Tyrrell, Candy Clark, Nicholas Colasanto, Art Aragon, Curtis Cokes, Sixto Rodriguez, Billy Walker, Wayne Mahan, Ruben Navarro, Álvaro López, Carl D. Parker, Bill Riddle, Al Silvani.

On this day in movie history - The Underworld Story (1950):

The Underworld Story,

directed by Cy Endfield,

written by Henry Blankfort and Cy Endfield,

based on a story by Craig Rice,

was released in the United States on July 26, 1950.
Music by David Rose.

Cast:
Dan Duryea, Herbert Marshall, Gale Storm, Howard Da Silva, Michael O’Shea, Mary Anderson, Gar Moore, Melville Cooper, Frieda Inescort, Art Baker, Harry Shannon, Alan Hale Jr., Stephen Dunne, Roland Winters, Sue England, Lewis L. Russell, Frances Chaney, Stanley Blystone, Jack Mower, Edward Van Sloan.

On this day in movie history - They Drive by Night (1940):

They Drive by Night,

directed by Raoul Walsh,

written by Jerry Wald and Richard Macaulay,

based on the novel Long Haul by A. I. Bezzerides,

was released in the United States on July 26, 1940.

Music by Adolph Deutsch.

Cast:
George Raft, Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Gale Page, Alan Hale, Roscoe Karns, John Litel, George Tobias, Henry O'Neill, Charles Halton, Paul Hurst, John Ridgely, George Lloyd, Joyce Compton, Charles Wilson, Pedro Regas, Norman Willis, Joe Devlin, William Haade, Vera Lewis, John Hamilton, Eddie Acuff, Howard Hickman, Lillian Yarbo.

Born on this day – Leon Vitali:

Leon Vitali

Actor

Casting director

July 26, 1948 – August 19, 2022

Credits:

Arena: Making 'The Shining' (1980); Barry Lyndon (1975); Comedy Playhouse (1975); Crime of Passion (1973); Crown Court (1972–1973); Director's Commentary: Terror of Frankenstein (2015); Dixon of Dock Green (1975); Edge of Outside (2006); Eyes Wide Shut (1999); Filmworker (2017); Follyfoot (1973); Full Metal Jacket (1987); Hadleigh (1971); Hamlet (1985); Haunted, Horrifying Sounds from Beyond the Grave (2018); I Am What You Imagine (2023); In the Bedroom (2001); Inter Rail (1981); ITV Saturday Night Theatre (1973); Justice (1971); Kubrick Remembered (2014); Kubrick's Universe: The Stanley Kubrick Podcast (2018–2022); Little Children (2006); Long Voyage Out of War (1971); Love Story (1973); Mackan (1977); Mafia Junction (1973); Notorious Woman (1974); Please Sir! (1971); Prometheus: The Life of Balzac (1975); Public Eye (1971); Romeo & Juliet (2013); Room 237 (2012); Secrets of 'The Shining': Live from the First Annual Stanley Film Festival (2013); Shooting 'Full Metal Jacket' (1986); Softly Softly: Task Force (1970); Stanley and Us (1999); Stanley Kubrick: A Life in Pictures (2001); Stanley Kubrick's Boxes (2008); TCM Remembers 2022 (2022); Terror of Frankenstein (1977); The Burning Cold (2022); The Fenn Street Gang (1971–1972); The Roads to Freedom (1970); The Shining (1980); Up the Workers (1973–1976); Van der Valk (1973); Z Cars (1971).