Stop, You're Killing Me | |
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Directed by | Roy Del Ruth |
Written by | Damon Runyon (play) Howard Lindsay (play) James O'Hanlon |
Starring | Broderick Crawford |
Cinematography | Ted D. McCord |
Edited by | Owen Marks |
Music by | David Buttolph Ray Heindorf Howard Jackson |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release dates |
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Running time | 86 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Stop, You're Killing Me is a 1952 American black comedy film directed by Roy Del Ruth and starring Broderick Crawford, Claire Trevor and Virginia Gibson. [1]
The film is set shortly after the Repeal of Prohibition in the United States (1933). A former rum-runner attempts to operate a legitimate brewery, but is soon bankrupt due to poor sales. He has to deal with several personal and professional problems at the same time, including his daughter's engagement to a police officer.
When the Eighteenth Amendment of the Constitution is repealed, former prohibition baron Remy Marko ventures into the legal production and marketing of beer. The poor quality of his product leads him to bankruptcy.
His daughter Mary intends to marry policeman Chance Whitelaw, heir to a wealthy family. Remy and his wife Nora organize a lavish reception at a fancy hotel in Saratoga, but the party is disrupted by the murder of four gangsters at the hands of a mobster who works for Remy's creditors. Remy must juggle his family, his daughter's future marriage, his bankrupt business and the police investigation in order to save his new image.
The script is based on the 1935 play A Slight Case of Murder by Damon Runyon and Howard Lindsay. Warner Bros. had previously adapted Runyon and Lindsay's play into a 1938 film under the play's title starring Edward G. Robinson and directed by Lloyd Bacon.
The film was in production from mid-June to late August 1952.
Alfred Damon Runyon was an American journalist and short-story writer.
William Broderick Crawford was an American actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Willie Stark in the film All the King's Men (1949), which earned him an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. Often cast in tough-guy or slob roles, he later achieved recognition for his starring role as Dan Mathews in the crime television series Highway Patrol (1955–1959).
The year 1952 in film involved some significant events.
Claire Trevor was an American actress. She appeared in 65 feature films from 1933 to 1982, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Key Largo (1948), and received nominations for her roles in The High and the Mighty (1954) and Dead End (1937). Trevor received top billing, ahead of John Wayne, for Stagecoach (1939).
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Key Largo is a 1948 American film noir crime drama directed by John Huston and starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson and Lauren Bacall. The supporting cast features Lionel Barrymore and Claire Trevor. The film was adapted by Richard Brooks and Huston from Maxwell Anderson's 1939 play of the same name. Key Largo was the fourth and final film pairing of actors Bogart and Bacall, after To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946), and Dark Passage (1947). Claire Trevor won the 1948 Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her portrayal of alcoholic former nightclub singer Gaye Dawn.
Black Angel is a 1946 American film noir starring Dan Duryea, June Vincent and Peter Lorre. Directed by Roy William Neill, it was his final feature film. Produced by Universal Pictures, it is set in Los Angeles and broadly adapted from Cornell Woolrich's 1943 novel The Black Angel.
Virginia Gibson was an American dancer, singer and actress of film, television and musical theater.
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Scandal Sheet is a 1952 American film noir directed by Phil Karlson. The film is based on the 1944 novel The Dark Page by Samuel Fuller, who himself was a newspaper reporter before his career in film. The drama features Broderick Crawford, Donna Reed and John Derek.
A Slight Case of Murder is a 1938 American black comedy film directed by Lloyd Bacon and starring Edward G. Robinson. The film is based on the 1935 play by Damon Runyon and Howard Lindsay.
Street of Chance is a 1942 American film noir mystery film directed by Jack Hively and starring Burgess Meredith as a man who finds he has been suffering from amnesia and Claire Trevor as a woman who protects him from the police, who suspect him of murder. He is suspected of the murder of the wealthy Harry Diedrich. The only eyewitness to the murder was Harry's mute grandmother, and she can only communicate with others through sign language.
Mildred Pierce is a 1945 American melodrama/film noir directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford, Jack Carson, and Zachary Scott, also featuring Eve Arden, Ann Blyth, and Bruce Bennett. Based on the 1941 novel by James M. Cain, this was Crawford's first starring role for Warner Bros., after leaving Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, and she won the Academy Award for Best Actress. In 1996, Mildred Pierce was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" and selected for preservation in the United States Library of Congress National Film Registry.
Belinda Montgomery is a Canadian-American actress. She initially attracted notice for playing Cinderella in the 1969 television film Hey, Cinderella! She appeared in films including The Todd Killings (1971), The Other Side of the Mountain (1975) and its sequel The Other Side of the Mountain Part 2 (1978), Stone Cold Dead (1979), and Silent Madness (1984). She starred as Dr. Elizabeth Merrill in the science-fiction series Man from Atlantis (1977–78), and as Katherine Howser, Doogie's mother, in the medical comedy-drama series, Doogie Howser, M.D. (1989-1993).
Lone Star is a 1952 American Western film starring Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Broderick Crawford, Ed Begley, and Lionel Barrymore as President Andrew Jackson. The film also marks the first (uncredited) screen appearance by then-13-year-old George Hamilton, playing beside Barrymore in the role of Jackson's servant.
The 6th Target is the sixth book in the Women's Murder Club series featuring Lindsay Boxer by author James Patterson with Maxine Paetro. It was released on May 8, 2007.
"Villains" is the eighth episode of the third season of the NBC superhero drama series Heroes and forty-second episode overall. Instead of the usual title screen with the show's name it uses a similar screen, replacing the word "Heroes" with the episode's name.
Claire Carleton was an American actress whose career spanned four decades from the 1930s through the 1960s. She appeared in over 100 films, the majority of them features, and on numerous television shows, including several recurring roles. In addition to her screen acting, she had a successful stage career.
Buy Me That Town is a 1941 American comedy film directed by Eugene Forde and written by Murray Boltinoff, Harry A. Gourfair, Gordon Kahn and Martin Rackin. The film stars Lloyd Nolan, Constance Moore, Albert Dekker, Sheldon Leonard, Barbara Jo Allen, Edward Brophy and Warren Hymer. The film was released on October 3, 1941, by Paramount Pictures.
Virginia Nelson, professionally known as Ginny Gibson, was a prolific New York recording vocalist. Gibson recorded jingles and popular songs. Her married surname, beginning around 1946, was Nelson. In 1958, she married Richard Dennis Criger (1925–2001). She divorced Criger in 1976. Gibson also recorded under the alias "Ginny Blue."