Red Light

Red Light (1949)

THERE'S TROUBLE AHEAD!

Nick Cherney, in prison for embezzling from Torno Freight Co., sees a chance to get back at Johnny Torno through his young priest brother Jess. He pays fellow prisoner Rocky, who gets out a week before Nick, to murder Jess... who, dying, tells revenge-minded Johnny that he'd written a clue "in the Bible." Frustrated, Johnny obsessively searches for the missing Gideon Bible from Jess's hotel room.

Date of release
1949-09-30
TMDB
6.0 / 10 (25)
Runtime
1h 23m
Genres
Thriller, Crime
Director
Roy Del Ruth

Casting

Interesting facts

Red Light is a 1949 American film noir crime film starring George Raft and Virginia Mayo, and directed and produced by Roy Del Ruth. Based on the story "This Guy Gideon" by Don "Red" Barry, it features strong religious overtones.

Production

The film is based on a story by writer Donald Barry called Mr Gideon. Roy Del Ruth and his associate Joe Kaufman brought the film rights in May 1946 from Barry and producer Lou Rock.

Del Ruth set up his production company at Monogram Pictures, who were trying to expand into more prestigious films. He made It Happened on Fifth Avenue for them, one of Monogram's most expensive pictures to date. He was meant to follow it with Mr Gideon but the project was delayed.

The story was retitled Red Light after a survey. Del Ruth started doing background filming in San Francisco in June 1947, followed by delay.

Monogram formed a subsidiary, Allied Artists, to distribute their more prestigious movies. Del Ruth made The Babe Ruth Story for Allied Artists, which announced it would finance Red Light. Del Ruth wanted Edward G. Robinson, William Bendix and Charles Bickford for the main roles. He thought the budget would be around $1.25 to $1.5 million.

In January 1949 it was announced that Monogram and United Artists had signed a deal whereby United Artists would distribute Red Light and another movie Gun Crazy. The films would be financed by Pioneer Pictures, a new company which Monogram co-owned with Eastern investors. George Raft was announced as star. Virginia Mayo was borrowed from producer Samuel Goldwyn to play the female lead.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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