Johnny Stool Pigeon | |
---|---|
Directed by | William Castle |
Screenplay by | Robert L. Richards |
Story by | Henry Jordan |
Produced by | Aaron Rosenberg |
Starring | Howard Duff Shelley Winters Dan Duryea |
Cinematography | Maury Gertsman |
Edited by | Ted J. Kent |
Music by | Milton Schwarzwald |
Color process | Black and white |
Production company | Universal International Pictures |
Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 75 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Johnny Stool Pigeon is a 1949 American film noir crime film directed by William Castle and starring Howard Duff, Shelley Winters and Dan Duryea. [1]
A narcotics agent convinces a convict he helped send to Alcatraz to go undercover with him to help expose a heroin drug smuggling ring. The unlikely pair travels from San Francisco to Vancouver and finally to a dude ranch in Tucson which is run by mob bosses. They end up getting help breaking the case from the gang leader's girlfriend (Winters), who falls for the narcotics agent during the sting.
The film was known as Contraband and Partners in Crime. [2]
It was William Castle's first movie at Universal. He called it "a pedestrian thriller" with its claim to fame being its cast. [3]
When the film was released, the film critic for The New York Times , gave the film a tepid review, writing, "Despite a serious attempt at authenticity it is merely a brisk cops-and-smugglers melodrama, which follows an obvious pattern and is fairly strong on suspense and short on originality and impressive histrionics ... Howard Duff, who has had plenty of experience as a gumshoe both on the radio and in films, is appropriately self-effacing, hard and handsome as the intrepid agent. Dan Duryea adds a surprising twist to his usual characterizations of tough hombres as the convict who turns on his own kind, and Shelley Winters gives a credible performance as the blonde moll who also gives the law a much-needed assist. But aside from a few variations their crime and punishment adventures are cast in a familiar mold." [4]
Scarlet Street is a 1945 American film noir directed by Fritz Lang. The screenplay concerns two criminals who take advantage of a middle-aged painter in order to steal his artwork. The film is based on the French novel La Chienne by Georges de La Fouchardière, which had been previously dramatized on stage by André Mouëzy-Éon, and cinematically as La Chienne (1931) by director Jean Renoir.
Shelley Winters was an American film actress whose career spanned seven decades. She won Academy Awards for The Diary of Anne Frank (1959) and A Patch of Blue (1965), and received nominations for A Place in the Sun (1951) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972). She also appeared in A Double Life (1947), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Lolita (1962), Alfie (1966), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), and Pete's Dragon (1977). She also acted on television, including a tenure on the sitcom Roseanne, and wrote three autobiographies.
Charles Drake was an American actor.
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Dan Duryea was an American actor in film, stage, and television. Known for portraying a vast range of character roles as a villain, he nonetheless had a long career in a wide variety of leading and secondary roles.
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Howard Green Duff was an American actor.
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Black Bart is a 1948 American Western Technicolor film directed by George Sherman and starring Yvonne De Carlo, and Dan Duryea as the real-life stagecoach bandit Charles E. Boles, known as Black Bart. The movie was produced by Leonard Goldstein with a screenplay written by Luci Ward, Jack Natteford and William Bowers. The film, also known under the alternate title Black Bart, Highwayman, was released by Universal Pictures on March 3, 1948.
Robert L. Richards was a film screenwriter. He attended Horace Mann School and graduated from Harvard in 1932. He worked for Time magazine and the March of Time radio program and newsreel for 7 years.
One Way Street is a 1950 American film noir crime film directed by Hugo Fregonese and starring James Mason, Märta Torén and Dan Duryea. The film takes place mainly in Mexico.
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Indochina through Turkey to France and then to the United States and Canada. The operation started in the 1930s, reached its peak in the 1960s, and was dismantled in the 1970s. It was responsible for providing the vast majority of the heroin used in the United States at the time. The operation was headed by Corsicans Antoine Guérini and Paul Carbone. It also involved Auguste Ricord, Paul Mondoloni and Salvatore Greco.
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Cairo Road is a 1950 British crime film directed by David MacDonald and starring Eric Portman, Laurence Harvey, Maria Mauban, Harold Lang and John Gregson.
Never the Twain Shall Meet is a 1931 American drama film produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and starring Leslie Howard and Conchita Montenegro. It is based on the novel of the same title by Peter B. Kyne. The film was directed by W. S. Van Dyke and was filmed in Tahiti like Van Dyke's two previous south sea adventures The Pagan and White Shadows in the South Seas. The film is a remake of a 1925 silent film of the same name.
Illegal Entry is a 1949 American film noir crime film directed by Frederick De Cordova and starring Howard Duff, Märta Torén and George Brent. The film and its treatment of illegal entry and unlawful residence in the United States is introduced by Watson B. Miller, the commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service under President Harry S. Truman.
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