Breakdown | |
---|---|
![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Edmond Angelo |
Written by | Robert Abel |
Based on | the play The Samson Slasher by Robert Abel |
Produced by | Edmond Angelo |
Starring | Ann Richards William Bishop Anne Gwynne |
Cinematography | Paul Ivano |
Edited by | Robert M. Leeds |
Music by | Paul Dunlap |
Production company | Pegasus Productions |
Distributed by | Realart Pictures Inc. |
Release date |
|
Running time | 76 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Breakdown is a 1952 American crime film noir directed by Edmond Angelo starring Ann Richards, William Bishop and Anne Gwynne. It was the last film of Richards before she retired. [1]
The film was also known as Decision.
Framed for murder, heavyweight boxer Terry Williams (Bishop) is sent to prison, but is released after a few years on good behavior. He becomes a championship contender and then, on the eve of the big fight, finds the man who can prove that he was framed for the crime for which he served time.
Pegasus Productions was a company headed by Max Gifford which announced they were going to make three films. One of these was The Slasher based on a play by Robert Abel. Abel had been a prize fighter for four years. [2] He had written a play The Big Shot which was produced on stage in Los Angeles in January 1951, directed by Edmund Angelo. [3] [4]
Abel then wrote The Slasher and Angelo signed to direct. His wife Ann Richards played the female lead. [5] It was Richards' first film in three years. [6] She had retired to have children but came out of retirement to help her husband. [7] The film was then known as Decisions. [8]
Filming started 1 December 1951 at Republic Studios. Shooting went for eleven days. [9]
Pegagus' second production was to be You're Not So Dangerous and was to star Richards as a social worker confused for a gangster's moll. [10] However it appears to have not been made.
Variety called Breakdown a "so-so secondary action-meller of only spotty entertainment values." [11]
George Raft was an American film actor and dancer identified with portrayals of gangsters in crime melodramas of the 1930s and 1940s. A stylish leading man in dozens of movies, Raft is remembered for his gangster roles in Quick Millions (1931) with Spencer Tracy, Scarface (1932) with Paul Muni, Each Dawn I Die (1939) with James Cagney, Invisible Stripes (1939) with Humphrey Bogart, and Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot (1959) with Marilyn Monroe and Jack Lemmon; and as a dancer in Bolero (1934) with Carole Lombard and a truck driver in They Drive by Night (1940) with Ann Sheridan, Ida Lupino and Bogart.
Joseph M. Newman was an American film director most famous for his 1955 film This Island Earth. His credits include episodes of The Twilight Zone and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour.
Jon Hall was an American film actor known for playing a variety of adventurous roles, as in 1937's The Hurricane, and later when contracted to Universal Pictures, including Invisible Agent and The Invisible Man's Revenge and six films he made with Maria Montez. He was also known to 1950s fans as the creator and star of the Ramar of the Jungle television series which ran from 1952 to 1954. Hall directed and starred in two 1960s sci-fi films in his later years, The Beach Girls and the Monster (1965) and The Navy vs. the Night Monsters (1966).
Jeff Richards was an American minor league baseball player with the Portland Beavers, who later became an actor. He was sometimes credited as Dick Taylor and Richard Taylor.
Shirley Ann Richards was an Australian actress and author who achieved notability in a series of 1930s Australian films for Ken G. Hall before moving to the United States, where she continued her career as a film actress, mainly as a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starlet. Her best known performances were in It Isn't Done (1937), Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938), An American Romance (1944), and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). In the 1930s, she was the only Australian actor under a long-term contract to a film studio, Cinesound Productions. She subsequently became a lecturer and poet.
Cecil Lauriston Kellaway was a South African character actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor twice, for The Luck of the Irish (1948) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967).
Rumba is a 1935 American musical drama film starring George Raft as a Cuban dancer and Carole Lombard as a Manhattan socialite. The movie was directed by Marion Gering and is considered an unsuccessful follow-up to Raft and Lombard's smash hit Bolero the previous year.
Nob Hill is a 1945 Technicolor film about a Barbary Coast, San Francisco, United States saloon keeper, starring George Raft and Joan Bennett. Part musical and part drama, the movie was directed by Henry Hathaway. It remains one of Raft's lesser known movies even though it was a big success, in part because it was a musical.
Seton Ingersoll Miller was an American screenwriter and producer. During his career, he worked with film directors such as Howard Hawks and Michael Curtiz. Miller received two Oscar nominations and won once for Best Screenplay for the 1941 fantasy romantic comedy film, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, along with Sidney Buchman.
Alan Marshal was an Australian-born actor who performed on stage in the United States and in Hollywood films. He was sometimes billed as Alan Marshall or Alan Willey.
The Burning Hills is a 1956 American CinemaScope Western directed by Stuart Heisler and starring Tab Hunter and Natalie Wood, based on a 1956 novel by Louis L'Amour.
Arson, Inc. is a 1949 American film noir directed by William Berke. It is also known as Firebug Squad and Three Alarm Fire.
Valentino is a 1951 American biographical film directed by Lewis Allen and starring Eleanor Parker.
Suicide Battalion is a 1958 World War II film directed by Edward L. Cahn and starring Mike Connors and John Ashley, who made the film while on leave from the United States Army. In 1968, it was remade for television by Larry Buchanan as Hell Raiders, which was the film's original working title.
Little Big Horn is a 1951 American Western film written and directed by Charles Marquis Warren starring Lloyd Bridges, John Ireland and Marie Windsor.
Comet over Broadway is a 1938 American drama film starring Kay Francis, Ian Hunter and Donald Crisp. It was produced and released by Warner Brothers. John Farrow stepped in as director when Busby Berkeley became ill, but Farrow was uncredited on the film.
Men in Exile is a 1937 American drama film directed by John Farrow. A "B" movie from Warner Bros, it was the first feature Farrow directed. It is essentially a remake of their 1931 melodrama Safe in Hell, albeit with the lead switched from female to male, with some plot changes as a result.
Motorcycle Gang is a 1957 film which is a semi-remake of Dragstrip Girl. It was released by American International Pictures as a double feature with Sorority Girl.
Loan Shark is a 1952 American crime film noir directed by Seymour Friedman and starring George Raft, Dorothy Hart and Paul Stewart.
For Men Only is a 1952 American film noir directed by Paul Henreid about hazing on college campuses. Henreid also starred in the film alongside Margaret Field and Kathleen Hughes. The film was distributed by the independent Lippert Pictures. It was the film debut of Russell Johnson. It was also known by the alternative title of The Tall Lie.