Watched this today on TCM and immediately realized Alan Ladd was doing the opening narration. Must have done it as a favor for Frank Tuttle, who made Ladd a star in This Gun for Hire.
shareAlso, according to IMDB Richard Anderson trivia, Ladd was Anderson's father-in-law in 1956.
shareWhile Ladd doesn't receive on screen credit as producer, the film was produced by his company Jaguar Productions/Ladd Productions and distributed by Warner Brothers.
I just saw this for the first time, on TCM. I can't say it's a good film, but it is entertaining. Very interesting cast (Natalie Wood, at seventeen, was positively adorable), though admittedly this film is not O'Brien's and Donlevy's finest hour. The psychological aspects, while intriguing (especially for the time), aren't developed well.
Interesting as a curio from the mid-fifties.
Alan Ladd had a great voice, while he was struggling to get movie roles before he hit it big with This Gun For Hire (a great movie, highly recommended) he did a lot of radio plays, which were very popular in the 1940's and 50's.
shareInteresting. I wasn't aware of Ladd doing a lot of radio work. It does make sense, as I agree he had an excellent voice.
Many don't realize that he was a major leading man star for about a ten year period (roughly the mid 1940s to the mid 1950s). Even later, when his career was on the decline he still had some interesting roles in a few interesting films.
I'm wondering if he considered acting in "A Cry in the Night". He might have been effective playing either one of the police detectives.
I'm a big Alan Ladd fan. His last major role was Shane, which was filmed between July > October 1951 but not released until 1953. He had the same problem a lot of actors of that time did, when the studio system started to fall apart after the 1948 ruling against them owning theaters, they had to find work where they could. A lot of them went to Europe and appeared in low-budget stuff, Ladd was no different. He did some good stuff afterwards, I especially like The Proud Rebel that he made with his talented son David. Unfortunately, he was a very insecure and unhappy man (his childhood reads like a horror story) you can see the physical decline in his later movies.
Yeah, he would have been good in the Edmond O'Brien part, I like O'Brien usually but he really overacts in this.
Much of the film was shall we say a bit over the top but in a sense one can argue that's what makes it at least somewhat entertaining. The mother dominated, mentally challenged Harold Loftus was certainly not your typical movie villain. Then there was "mother" who, to put it mildly was rather odd. And what about that off the wall sequence with the prostitute in the police station? It serves no purpose as far as advancing the plot. I guess it's an attempt at inserting some "color" into the proceedings;in my opinion it ends up being unintentionally funny.
According to Wickepedia the delay in releasing "Shane" was due to the time it took to edit the film and negotiate for a possible sale by Paramount to RKO Radio Pictures/Howard Hughes. George Stevens (the director) was known for shooting a lot of film which would necessitate a drawn out editing process.