Frank Lovejoy

Todd Wiener writes:
In 1947, novelist and B-movie screenwriter Jo Pagano published his third novel titled The Condemned. The novel was based upon the 1933 kidnapping and murder of Brooke Hart in San Jose, California, and the subsequent lynching of two suspects by a hysterical mob fueled by a frenzied media. Considered the only public lynching covered with such media scrutiny, The New York Times stated the event “was an outburst characterized by hysteria and ribaldry.” Pagano would adapt his novel into the screenplay The Sound of Fury (Fritz Lang’s film Fury (1936) is based on the same shocking event).Read More »

Gambler John Merrick (Frank Lovejoy) is the head of a bookie syndicate and the newspaper is crusading against him and the rackets, primarily because Merrick is in love with Felice Stuart (Joan Weldon), daughter of the newspaper publisher who can not break up the romance through persuasion. A senate committee investigating crime gets involved, the racketeers, other than Merrick who is a “nice guy”, strike back and kill a reporter, and Merrick’s own son, Jerry Merrick (Robert Arthur), commits suicide. Merrick, to his own disadvantage, helps bring down the syndicate. Since it is in black-and-white-, deals with crime and was an American-made film, some will call it “film noir” since that seems to be the current guidelines for putting a film in that, at one time limited-and-defined genre. It ain’t, and neither are most of the others currently so classified.Read More »

An ex-pilot and current baseballer is recalled into the U.S. Air Force and assumes an increasingly important role in Cold War deterrence.Read More »

An associate burns down a wax museum with the owner inside, but he survives only to become vengeful and murderous.Read More »

The Hitch-Hiker is the most well-known movie in Kino on Video’s “Ida Lupino–Queen of the B’s” video series. In the past, The Hitch-Hiker has been available in poor video transfers from small video companies. Now thanks to this pristine print, this taut, suspense-filled film noir can be better appreciated. The only film noir directed by a woman, The Hitch-Hiker tells the story of two buddies (Edmund O’Brien and Frank Lovejoy) on a fishing trip. Unbeknownst to them, however, the police are pursing a psychotic killer who hitches rides and then kills the occupants of the cars. (This character is based upon drifter William Edward Cook and the news coverage that followed his 1950 murder spree in the Southwest.) Emmet Meyers (played by William Talman) becomes a forerunner of the killer in Henry–Portrait of a Serial Killer. Without any remorse, he kills and then moves on to the next victim. O’Brien and Lovejoy make the mistake of stopping to pick up a hitchhiker and soon find themselves looking into the barrel of a .38 caliber revolver.Read More »

Plot: Congresswoman Agatha Reed returns to her alma mater for homecoming, although she’s more interested in renewing her romance with an old flame who’s now the college president. Their attempts at rekindling any sparks are thwarted by the arrival of another rival for her affections and the showing of her controversial film which could put her former beau’s job in jeopardy. Written by Daniel Bubbeo Read More »