clore

I'm lucky, I've seen every single one of Ladd's starring films. Here in NYC, Ladd actually got one of the first theme weeks ever on Channel 5, then WNEW-TV. They had the Paramounts handled by MCA and from the other stations I got to see the rest of them. I even saw his DUEL OF CHAMPIONS in a theater, but it's not really worth citing. Terrible movie. I do like HELL ON FRISCO BAY, probably my favorite of the Jaguar productions for Warners, the second would be THE IRON MISTRESS. I have several DVD copies of THE PROUD REBEL but none of them look as good as what I saw on Channel 9 about 40 years ago. A shame that the great cinematography by Ted McCord is so compromised by the mediocre prints out there. I'd really love for TCM to play the Raft and Ladd versions of THE GLASS KEY back-to-back.

It would be just like TCM to build a Raft day around *Around the World in 80 Days* *Ocean's 11* *Casino Royale* *The Ladies Man* *Deadhead Miles* *Skidoo* *Five Golden Dragons* *Sextette* Look at what they did for Alan Ladd day a few years back. They aired *Citizen Kane, Joan of Paris* and *Captain Caution*. Collectively, Ladd might have had 15 minutes between the three of them.

I understand that on the set of his last film, George Peppard was especially nasty to Ladd, referring to him as a drunken has-been to his face. It upset Carroll Baker so much that she lashed back at Peppard. Ironically enough, Peppard would end up an alcoholic himself. Ladd actually looks better in his last film than he did in 13 WEST STREET in which he's obviously slurring and so puffy-faced that this Ladd fan can't sit through the film again.

No sign of him according to a list that I saved and have updated regularly from someone's post a while back. May 1994: Greta Garbo June 1994: Glenn Ford July 1994: Greer Garson Aug.1994: Edward G. Robinson Sept.1994: Barbara Stanwyck Oct.1994: Angela Lansbury Nov.1994 John Garfield Dec.1994: Best of ‘94 Jan.1995: Esther Williams Feb.1995: Ronald Reagan Mar.1995: TCM Salutes the Oscars Apr.1995: Doris Day May 1995: Myrna Loy June 1995: Errol Flynn July 1995: Gene Kelly Aug.1995: Paul Muni Sept.1995: Jane Powell Oct.1995: Clark Gable Nov.1995: The Barrymores Dec.1995: Best of ‘95 Jan.1996: Deborah Kerr Feb.1996: Robert Young Mar.1996: 31 Days of Oscar April 1996: Irene Dunne May 1996: James Stewart June 1996: Rosalind Russell July 1996: Fred Astaire Aug.1996: Ann Sheridan Sept.1996: Van Johnson Oct.1996: Kathryn Grayson Nov.1996: Robert Mitchum Dec.1996: Best of ‘96 Jan.97: Humphrey Bogart Feb.97: Eleanor Parker Mar.97: 31 Days of Oscar Apr.97: Ava Gardner May 97: George Brent June 97: June Allyson July 97: John and Walter Huston (also Director of the Month) Aug.97: Cary Grant Sept.97: Ida Lupino Oct.97: Walter Pidgeon Nov.97: Katharine Hepburn Dec.97: Best of ‘97 Jan.1998: Lana Turner Feb.1998: Charlton Heston Mar.1998:31 Days of Oscar April 1998: Red Skelton May 1998: Olivia de Havilland June 1998: James Cagney July 1998: Lucille Ball August 1998: Joan Crawford Sept.1998: John Wayne Oct.1998: Cyd Charisse Nov.1998: Claude Rains Dec.1998: Best of ‘98 Jan.1999: Elizabeth Taylor Feb.1999: William Powell March 1999: 31 Days of Oscar April 1999: Dennis Morgan May 1999: Bette Davis June 1999: Mickey Rooney July1999: Natalie Wood August 1999: Peter Sellers Sept.1999: Norma Shearer Oct. 1999: Gregory Peck Nov. 1999: Ginger Rogers Dec. 1999: Burt Lancaster Jan. 2000: Debbie Reynolds Feb. 2000: Robert Ryan March 2000: 31 Days of Oscars April 2000: Spencer Tracy May 2000: Alexis Smith June 2000:Wallace Beery July 2000: Judy Garland August 2000: film debuts Sept 2000: Jane Wyman October 2000: Dick Powell Nov 2000: Frank Sinatra Dec. 2000: Lauren Bacall Jan. 2001: Elvis Presley Feb.2001: Jean Hagen March 2001: 31 Days of Oscar Apr.2001: Knighted Actors May 2001: Jean Harlow June 2001: W.C. Fields July 2001: Ann Sothern Aug.2001: James Garner Sept. 2001: Robert Taylor Oct. 2001: Lana Turner Nov.2001: Glenn Ford Dec.2001: The Marx Brothers Jan. 2002: Marlene Dietrich Feb. 2002: Kirk Douglas March 2002: 31 Days of Oscar April 2002: Barbara Stanwyck May 2002: Edward G. Robinson June 2002: Greta Garbo July 2002: Sidney Poitier Aug. 2002: Joan Crawford Sept. 2002: Van Heflin Oct. 2002: Final films Nov. 2002: Shelly Winters Dec. 2002: Montgomery Clift Jan. 2003: Doris Day Feb. 2003: John Garfield Mar. 2003: 31 Days of Oscar Apr. 2003: Harold Lloyd May 2003: Olivia de Havilland June 2003: TV Actors in Films July 2003: Lee Marvin Aug. 2003: 1st Summer Under the Stars Sept. 2003: James Mason Oct. 2003: Boris Karloff Nov. 2003: Shirley MacLaine Dec. 2003: David Niven Jan. 2004: Katherine Hepburn Feb.2004: 31 Days of Oscar Mar.2004: Charles Chaplin Apr. 2004: Judy Garland May 2004: Greer Garson June 2004: Cary Grant July 2004: Stars That Died Before Their Time Aug.2004: 2nd Summer Under the Stars Sept.2004: Myrna Loy Oct. 2004: Peter Lorre Nov.2004: Clark Gable Dec. 2004: James Stewart Jan.2005: Canadian Actors Feb. 2005: 31 Days of Oscar Mar. 2005: Claudette Colbert Apr. 2005: Errol Flynn May 2005: Orson Welles June 2005: Ingrid Bergman July 2005: Audrey Hepburn Aug. 2005: 3rd Summer Under the Stars Sept.2005: Greta Garbo Oct.2005: Robert Mitchum Nov.2005: Joan Fontaine Dec. 2005: Bing Crosby Jan. 2006: Robert Montgomery Feb.2006: 31 Days of Oscar Mar.2006: Nelson Eddy & Jeanette MacDonald Apr.2006: Deborah Kerr May 2006: Bette Davis June 2006: Anthony Quinn July 2006: Elizabeth Taylor Aug.2006: 4th Summer Under the Stars Sept.2006: William Holden Oct.2006: Child Stars Nov.2006: Lucille Ball Dec. 2006: Gary Cooper Jan.2007: Jean Arthur Feb.2007: 31 Days of Oscar Mar.2007: Gene Kelly Apr.2007: Rita Hayworth May 2007: John Wayne and Katherine Hepburn June 2007: Ida Lupino July 2007: Randolph Scott Aug.2007: 5th Summer Under the Stars Sept.2007: A Star is Born (starmaking/breakthrough performances) Oct.2007: Henry Fonda Nov.2007: Guest Programmer Month Dec.2007: Irene Dunne Jan.2008: James Cagney Feb.2008: 31 Days of Oscar Mar.2008: Acting Dynasties Apr.2008: Hedy Lamarr May 2008: Frank Sinatra June 2008: Sophia Loren July 2008: Rosalind Russell Aug.2008: 6th annual Summer Under the Stars Sept.2008: Kay Francis Oct.2008: Carole Lombard Nov.2008: Charles Laughton Dec. 2008: Joseph Cotten Jan. 2009: Jack Lemmon Feb. 2009: 31 Days of Oscar Mar. 2009: Ronald Reagan April 2009: Funny Ladies and 15th Anniversary May 2009: Sean Connery June 2009: Great Directors July 2009: Stewart Granger August 2009: Summer Under the Stars Sept. 2009: Claude Rains Oct. 2009: Leslie Caron Nov. 2009: Grace Kelly Dec. 2009: Humphrey Bogart Jan. 2010: “The Method” Feb. 2010: 31 Days of Oscar March 2010: Ginger Rogers April 2010: Robert Taylor May 2010: Donna Reed June 2010: Natalie Wood July 2010: Gregory Peck August 2010: SUTS Sept. 2010: Vivien Leigh Oct. 2010: Fredric March Nov. 2010: Ava Gardner Dec. 2010: Mickey Rooney Jan. 2011: Peter Sellers Feb. 2011: 31 Days of Oscar March 2011: Jean Harlow April 2011: Ray Milland May 2011: Esther Williams June 2011: Jean Simmons July 2011: Singing cowboys August 2011 SUTS Sept. 2011 Kirk Douglas Oct. 2011 Nicholas Ray Nov 2011 Battle of the Blondes/Shipboard Sagas Dec. 2011 William Powell/Christmas movies Jan, 2012 Angela Lansbury/Jack Cardiff Feb. 2012: 31 Days of Oscar March 2012: Karl Malden/British New Wave

In UNDERWORLD USA, Richard Rust runs down a little girl on a bike. I don't recall any scene involving a store though.

For what it's worth, I doubt that the author is being deliberately misleading. A little more exposition would have been preferable, but I think the point is that Garfield did have the stage to return to even if Hollywood turned its back to him. It may not have been as lucrative, but it would have given him employment. Someone like Larry Parks who had no previous Broadway experience and nowhere near the recognizability couldn't fall back on that although he did land on Broadway toward the end of the 50s.

Mine is one that was directed by a man who passed away earlier this week, Robert Fuest. The film is THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES, one which not only had a sense of the period in which it was set, but also of the time in which it was released. Just the right amount of pop-art stylishness, a goofy sense of humor about itself and an ad campaign that spoofed a recent boxoffice blockbuster.

> {quote:title=misswonderly wrote:}{quote} > > ( By the way, Alan Ladd, as anyone who knows even a little about this actor is aware, had personal problems and a huge drinking problem, but I didn't want to bring that into the discussion. I think he might have had that "melancholy" persona anyway.) > Poor Ladd, one never knows what demons drive the other guy, but he had an incident in his life that probably figures strongly. Before he hit stardom, he was one more struggling actor, only he had a family which included his mother and some siblings as I recall, all dependent on him. This was in the era when you could feed a family a meal for fifty cents. Ladd's mother was pestering him for a quarter and he at first kept refusing her as things were that tight. She became such an annoyance that he yielded. she went out and bought rat poison with that money and committed suicide. Contrast that to the question of his own death 25 years later - was it intentional? Is searching for a mother figure part of the reason that he fell for the slightly older former actress Sue Carol who served as his agent and basically made most of his decisions for him?

Nice job Slaytonf. Thank you.

There's a story of how when Warren Beatty was at some screening of BONNIE AND CLYDE, he thought that the sound was off, and that his gunshots should have had more "ooomph" and that he modeled the sounds as Stevens did in SHANE. He ran to the projection booth and said something about the sound being amiss and the man said "I fixed it. I haven't heard a film so poorly mixed since SHANE." Maybe that man is still working. I'm half-kidding here, but it seems that so much of the time these days, I'm sitting with my fingers on the remote to turn up the dialogue or turn down the music. I'm certain that I heard the "Goodbye Shane" or "Bye Shane" the last time that I watched the film on TCM. I have that in my log as being April 2009.

Now, you claim that my quote above from IMDB is untrue by virtue of the fact that he was offered HIGH SIERRA, THE MALTESE FALCON, and ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT and turned them down, that he was his own worst enemy. Well, maybe he was and maybe they were mistakes. From his perspective they were not. I reject the IMDb info because it's indefinite. It refers to how Raft was affected by his associations "later in his career. We're talking a 50 year career here and in the first 20 years of it he was getting starring roles for the most part at various studios. On a relative scale, it is early in his overall career. As far as which side (studio or Raft) was right as to the movies offered, it doesn't matter from either side's perspective - you're the one claiming that they didn't offer him "Raft and Raft only" vehicles and that he was broadsided by studio execs. So, who offered HIGH SIERRA, THE MALTESE FALCON and ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT? Was it the person in charge of the studio commisary? History does not bear out your conjecture. That they have become cult classics adds to the attraction of labeling them as GEORGE RAFT mistakes even though they were tailor made for BOGART and would not have worked well with RAFT in the lead. Hold on, they were offered to Raft first, you admit that, but now you're saying they were tailor made for Bogart? That seems rather inconsistent. Seems to me that Bogie was getting the leftovers. We'll get to that part about not working well with Raft in the lead later. You then bring up DOUBLE INDEMNITY claiming it to be another GEORGE RAFT "mistake" even though the fact is that RAFT and ROBINSON hated each others guts. Do you really think that ROBINSON, more in favor with WARNERS, would have accepted RAFT as the male lead over him? I don't believe it. First, and I pointed it out already, DOUBLE INDEMNITY was a Paramount film, not Warners. Secondly, you're presuming that Robinson was already cast - not so, Wilder hadn't signed up anyone at the point in which he approached Raft. If Raft had signed, maybe Robinson wouldn't have done the film - but that would have been his mistake. Besides, the point is what Raft did to sabotage his own career, not what others would have accepted or not. He refused a male lead because it didn't fit in with his own sterling image of himself. Now, as the story goes, JACK WARNER wanted RAFT for the lead in CASABLANCA, RAFT wanted CASABLANCA, but HAL WALLIS nixed him. Then, WARNERS threw RAFT BACKGROUND TO DANGER, A lesser vehicle, to placate him before ending his contract. Yea, they didn't sabatoge his career. Sure they didn't. So, you're saying that Raft deserved a reward for having turned down everything offered to him over a two year period. You're presuming that his status to the public remained high despite not being seen and while being eclipsed by Bogart in the very same films he could have appeared in. Films offered to him by the same execs you claim deliberately tried to sabotage his career. Just what did Raft do to deserve such a plum property as CASABLANCA - and yet another one that is now part of the Bogart mystique and so we don't really know if it would have been of equivalent stature had Raft been the lead anyway. You yourself cited the other Bogart pick-ups "would not have worked as well with Raft in the lead," yet you're not presuming so here obviously. Again, you're being inconsistent. Bogart evolved into what he became by working, Raft evolved into what he became by not working. By the way, BACKGROUND TO DANGER might have been a better movie. But Raft insisted on changing the character of the Ambler story from a regular guy, to a secret agent. They even called in John Huston to help on a rewrite. Raft had more ideas, such as having FDR congratulate him at the end for successfully completing the mission. Huston was pitching in for free, but decided that there was nothing to do to improve such a watered-down script if Raft was going to have his way. Still, to try to salvage what looked to be a bad situation, Wallis ordered Raoul Walsh to take the directorial reins from Jo Graham who had done two films for the studio. Raft had worked well with Walsh three times previously and was one of the top men on the Warner lot.

the scene where Bogie and Demarest pose as Nazi engineers for the underground meeting. OMG, I never laugh so hard as I do at those! That wasn't in the script. Demarest suggested it to liven up the scene but Vincent Sherman supposedly had doubts about whether Bogart was up to a double-talk routine that Demarest had done in vaudeville decades earlier. To the surprise of the director, Bogie picked up on it immediately in the first rehearsal and was enthusiastic about adding such a scene to the film.

It strikes me as a movie that not only was cast poorly, but then when they were done with it, they didn't know how to promote it. Did you see the awful trailer that TCM was running, most of which was devoted to LeRoy sitting in his office? When it came to showing actual footage, more time was spent on the less ethnic Ray Danton and Madlyn Rhue when it came to speaking, there were no dialogue tracks for the two leads. Even Rhue only gets to say "Oh Jerry," it's the dulcet tones of Danton that are dominantly heard. Other than LeRoy that is. http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/video/204105/Majority-of-One-A-Original-Trailer-.html

I thought it was Maynard Holmes when I first saw it, but he also reminds me of Grady Sutton.

Don't forget Judith Anderson, Wallace Ford, Ludwig Stossel and Martin Kosleck.

If Warners had a problem with his image or associations, why then did they keep offering scripts to him? We're not talking about "B" pics, these were "A" films. Look at his record at WB: THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT: August 1940 MANPOWER: August 1941 BACKGROUND TO DANGER: July 1943 A two-year gap between the last two, you can't blame them for wanting to get out of a deal made with someone who obviously didn't want to work there. *"His career was marked by numerous tough-guy roles, often a gangster or convict. The believability with which he played these, together with his lifelong associations with such real-life gangsters as Owney Madden and Bugsey Siegel, added to persistent rumors that he was also a gangster. The slightly shady reputation may have helped his popularity early on, but it made him somewhat undesirable to movie executives later in his career." from IMDB* The IMDb is like Wikipedia, anything can get placed there. The history proves otherwise as Warner execs offered him HIGH SIERRA, THE MALTESE FALCON and ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT. Here's an example of what can happen at the IMDb, these two items are right in sequence on his bio page: His parents Conrad and Eva Ranft had ten children, nine of them boys, with George the eldest. According to both the 1900 and 1910 Censuses for New York City, Raft only had one sibling named Eva "Katie" Ranft, born on April 18, 1896 in Manhattan. *Maybe there were those at the studio that resented RAFT'S higher berth and felt that BOGART deserved the push by virtue of his being at the studio since 1936. In any event it's no coincidence that his "supporting" player soon left him in the dust. In any event, it would have been nice to have seen a film built around RAFT AND ONLY RAFT, without any assistance from BOGART.* Had he starred in the same three films that I cited above, he would have had films "built around Raft and only Raft." *Are you saying that people in Hollywood weren't blacklisted because of their suspected outside activities? I am not familiar with RAFT's level of formal education, but as you point out above, he was in good company with CAGNEY, ROBINSON, and MUNI who all refused films at some point in their careers, yet their careers were not damaged to the extent that RAFT'S was.* They were all at the studio longer, so they also had built up a measure of good will. Also, all were gone from Warners at about the same time as Raft. Cagney had a series of flops and it took a return to Warners in 1949 to restore his career - temporarily. Robinson went on to character parts at a variety of studios as did Muni, albeit less frequently. Raft was hardly finished after Warners, he went on to a series of releases at Universal, Fox, RKO and UA. How undesirable could he have been to be employed at so many companies? He made 13 films from 1944-49, tying Robinson. Cagney made only four films over the same period and Muni only made three films. Raft had the chance to play the male lead in DOUBLE INDEMNITY at his old stomping grounds of Paramount after he left Warners. But when he couldn't get Billy Wilder to revise the ending to have him be an FBI agent on Stanwyck's trail, he refused the part. Time and again, Raft was his own worst enemy. Studio execs didn't have to sabotage his career, he was doing a good job of that on his own.

He said he could never get over William Demarest doing his own pratfalls. The one he takes on the porch in THE MIRACLE OF MORGAN'S CREEK always wows me. I'm with you, I love ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT and think it's a fine example of the backlot standing in perfectly for the NYC locations. I've lived here for all of my sixty years and it still practically fools me. The first time that I saw it in 1967, I had just come home from a revival house seeing THE MALTESE FALCON and CASABLANCA on the big screen. You would think that under those conditions, it wouldn't hold up, but it succeeds on its own level.

I've seen it on TV a couple of times here in NYC. Once in the 70s on WNEW, the next time a decade later on the PBS station when they had dozens of MCA-owned Paramount films running in blocks on Saturday nights. It was up on YouTube as recently as a year ago, albeit with Portuguese subtitles.

Don't get me wrong, I like Raft, but I'm not so fond of anyone that I can't see the ups and downs of anyone's given career. I think that he's fine in THE BOWERY, BOLERO, THE GLASS KEY, SOULS AT SEA (my favorite Raft performance), SPAWN OF THE NORTH, EACH DAWN I DIE, INVISIBLE STRIPES, THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT, MANPOWER, BROADWAY. It's after his WB period that suddenly he seemed to turn into the monotone, mono-expressioned performer that most associate with him. Even there, I do enjoy NOB HILL, JOHNNY ALLEGRO and I have a soft spot for LOAN SHARK which was the first film that I ever saw him in. As with Randolph Scott, he made the mistake of too many late 40's films for Edwin L. Marin, a director who was pretty much a by-the-numbers guy regardless of genre and who didn't bring anything extra to the table. Scott and Raft are both in Marin's CHRISTMAS EVE and while the story is OK, it's just so flatly presented that everyone seems to be marking time. I wouldn't mind seeing him get a SUTS day, but only if it's going to set free some of the not-so-usual-suspects. Yes, I agree, the Paramounts deserve to be uncovered as do a couple from Universal.

IT ALL CAME TRUE and ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT were throw away films that, in my opinion, didn't do anything to further Bogart's career. Your opinion has nothing to do with it, nor does mine. They were financially successful films and the bottom line is what they look at. Raft was also not only refusing WB films, but exercising that part of his contract that allowed him to make THE HOUSE ACROSS THE BAY and BROADWAY away from the studio. Neither was especially successful, but to his home base, it smacked of disloyalty. I would agree that THE MALTESE FALCON was a mistake, in retrospect, but from RAFT'S point of view HUSTON *was* a rookie so RAFT had a legitimate reason for making the decision he did. If BOGART wasn't dying to be in ANY picture he might have felt the same way, but his desperation paid off. It isn't as if Huston had never been near a film set before, he had been writing for a decade and even did some scenes for his friend William Wyler on JEZABEL. Bogart had already refused films, he didn't want to do BADMEN OF MISSOURI after Lupino had him knocked out of OUT OF THE FOG and Raft nixed him on MANPOWER. But Bogie knew Huston from HIGH SIERRA and felt quite comfortable with him. Speaking of HIGH SIERRA: In my opinion, it is highly overrated as a gangster film and a BOGART film. Frankly, it was an IDA LUPINO film all the way, which, I guess, is why she was the star of the picture. Again, current opinions don't matter, then-contemporary boxoffice does. Bogart was the male lead, he has far more screen time than Lupino and between the two of them, who got more out of it, Lupino or Bogart? He was supposed to get top billing, Warners reneged at the last minute owing to some bad publicity with the pre-war Communist investigations. By the time he was exonerated, the prints had gone out. Talk about politics affecting one's status. But even after turning the film down, after seeing it become a hit, Raft still went on refusing the scripts being offered. Raft was in good company though, after he turned it down, so did Paul Muni - because he wasn't offered it first. Cagney and then Robinson also turned it down because they didn't want to play gangsters. Look at it from RAFT'S point of view. RAFT was a major A list player at PARAMOUNT. WARNERS did nothing to build up his career by crafting the kind of A list films around RAFT the way they did for CAGNEY, ROBINSON, BOGART, and GARFIELD. You're overlooking that Bogart supported Raft in in two films, INVISIBLE STRIPES and THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT. These were films built around Raft. There probably woudn't be a Bogart as we know him now if Raft hadn't refused those many films. Bogart had been at the studio since 1936, Raft signed in 1939 and immediately he was given a higher berth on the totem pole. He was given the chance to appear in relatively prestigious projects at the studio and he refused. These weren't Bryan Foy "B" films at WB, they were Hal Wallis films. I still say it was politics, WARNERS didn't want someone with RAFT'S reputation as an underworld crony to be one of their major stars. They used him, abused him, and dumped him. Are you trying to say that Raft's reputation was a secret prior to his signing with Warners? They gave him his chances, but the barely educated, sixth-grade dropout Raft, couldn't tell when he was better off.

This was not the old Fawcett character, but a new one who had the power - are you ready for this? - to separate his arms, head, and legs from his torso by yelling "Split!" Whew, I'm glad that they stopped right there when it came to projectile extremities.

Maybe the only business mistake RAFT made was not asking his old friends to make Jack Warner an "offer he couldn't refuse" in order to get some of the juicy parts that were given to BOGART and CAGNEY. Not so at all. Raft turned down IT ALL CAME TRUE, HIGH SIERRA, THE MALTESE FALCON and ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT. All of which were done by Bogart and for this, his reward was CASABLANCA which Raft was begging to do. Hal Wallis wrote Jack Warner and nixed Raft, saying "he hasn't done a picture around here since I was a small boy." Raft also refused what became the Garfield role in THE SEA WOLF. It was Raft's own stupidity that set Bogart up as a star. A few years earlier, Bogart was supporting Raft in INVISIBLE STRIPES and THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT.

But it just makes the intros look so super planned, and not live or timely. What do you think? It doesn't make one bit of difference to me. Personally, I find the whole "let's pretend we're watching the movie together" thing ridiculous. As long as they present relevant and accurate info, I don't care about the set or the presentation.

Raft was out of Warners after BACKGROUND TO DANGER in 1943. According to Jack Warner, the actor had been such a royal pain that Warner proposed settling Raft's contract for the sum of 50,000 dollars. Raft agreed and wrote out a check for the amount which Warner had cashed immediately. It seems that Raft was such a poor businessman that he didn't realize that Warner was prepared to give him the 50,000. RED LIGHT was produiced by Roy Del Ruth, a former WB director for UA release. The original story was written by cowboy star Donald Barry.

It certainly helped improve their competitive position in being able to entice some affiliates to their side. Their coverage of the Olympics in particular, something which they turned into a profit center by emphasizing new technology to showcase events in prime time. As far as regular prime time scheduling was concerned, it wasn't until the Fred Silverman era and their first sweeps win that really caught CBS and NBC napping. There was a CBS exec named Lee Currlin who went as far as declaring that the sweeps rating methodology needed to be reconsidered when ABC claimed its first win. I had a letter printed in the NY Times back then in which I commented that CBS never had a problem with the procedures before while it was constantly ranked number one.