Kathleen Ryan

PLOT SUMMARY :
Italian-American laborer Geremio works as a bricklayer on dangerous construction jobs, with his friends Luigi, Julio, Giovanni and DeLucey. When his best girl Kathleen refuses to marry him because he has no ambition beyond his work, Geremio asks Luigi to send to Italy for the young Annuziata to be his bride. Annunziata’s one condition before coming is that Geremio must have a house of his own, but Geremio can’t wait and lies to her in a letter. Their meeting and wedding is a joyous success. She forgives him and they start to save for a house from his meagre salary while living in a tenement and raising children; but economic events cripple their plans, and worse, tempt him to betray his fellow workers.Read More »

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 »