Highly Dangerous is a 1950 British spy film starring Margaret Lockwood and Dane Clark . It was directed by Roy Ward Baker , based on a screenplay and novel The Dark Frontier written by Eric Ambler .
14-496: It was released in the USA by Lippert Pictures as Time Running Out . Frances Gray is as a British entomologist trying to stop a biological attack with the help of an American journalist. Margaret Lockwood had not made a film in 18 months following Madness of the Heart , and had been focusing on stage work. Earl St John wanted a comeback vehicle and commissioned Eric Ambler to write
28-726: A Brooklynese wiseguy and/or the hero's assistant. He was a fixture in Twentieth Century Fox features of the late 1930s and early 1940s; Vernon is seen as an eccentric dancer in Fox's Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938), where he appears as himself. Vernon freelanced at other studios after leaving Fox. He became the sidekick to cowboy star Don "Red" Barry at Republic Pictures , and when Barry began producing his own features in 1949, he remembered Vernon and brought him back as his sidekick. In 1948 Columbia Pictures producer Jules White paired Vernon with Eddie Quillan , another comedian with
42-405: A Hollywood leading man to play opposite Lockwood. Wendell Corey was originally sought before the role was given to Dane Clark, who had recently left Warner Bros. "He was just delivering a stock leading man movie performance which was virtually nothing," said Baker. "He wasn’t very efficient. I think he fell in love with London. He also fell deeply in love with Jean Simmons which was unrequited. He
56-1173: A Horse) (1945) was an outdoor adventure filmed in then-novel Cinecolor . Reception was encouraging enough for the ambitious Lippert to expand his operations. In 1946 he joined forces with independent producer Edward Finney to create Screen Guild Productions . Lippert's timing was excellent. By 1946 most of the Hollywood studios had abandoned low-budget productions and were making fewer films, leaving scores of actors and technicians underemployed. Lippert came to their rescue, offering them jobs at comparatively low salaries. Thus many of Lippert's features boasted familiar, famous-name casts: Veronica Lake , Zachary Scott , Buster Keaton , George Reeves , Ralph Byrd , Adele Jergens , Jean Parker , Vincent Price , Stuart Erwin , Don "Red" Barry , Robert Alda , Wally Vernon , Anne Gwynne , Jean Porter , Tom Neal , Russell Hayden , and other "star" names with marquee value. Lippert also called upon certain character actors to play incidental roles in his films: Reed Hadley , Margia Dean , Mara Lynn, Jack Reitzen, Michael Whalen , and Phil Arnold among them. The most prolific
70-636: A deal with 20th Century-Fox to produce films under the name Regal Pictures , often westerns or horror pictures , for it to distribute. Wally Vernon Walter J. Vernon (May 27, 1905 – March 7, 1970) was an American comic and character actor and dancer. Vernon was born in New York City in 1905. He was in show business from the age of three, appearing in vaudeville and stock theater ; he made his first Hollywood appearance in 1937's Mountain Music . He made more than 75 films, almost always playing
84-459: A film specifically as a vehicle for Lockwood. Ambler had recently specialised in melodramas, but Highly Dangerous was a comedy thriller in the vein of Lockwood's earlier hits, The Lady Vanishes and Night Train to Munich . It was directed by Roy Ward Baker, who had served with Ambler during the war. "One thing about Eric is that he presents you with a script that is beautifully finished in every detail", said Baker. He added " Eric had invented
98-453: A language for the people the other side of the curtain which wasn’t Russian or anything else and the poor actors had to learn this stuff. He was playing a game with that." "I think Margaret Lockwood wanted to play a modern woman", recalled Baker. "It was actually Eric Ambler's first or second book, although the book had a different title and its main character was a man; Eric changed it to a woman to make it more interesting". The studio wanted
112-537: A logical way, sticking to the topography of Trieste I’d done myself an injury because the audience doesn't give a damn." Filming started at Pinewood Studios in June 1950. Baker later said that " Highly Dangerous wasn't a very successful picture.... It was a good idea although I don't think I did it very well." Lippert Pictures Lippert Pictures was an American film production and distribution company controlled by Robert L. Lippert. Robert L. Lippert (1909–1976)
126-499: A vaudeville background. White emphasized physical comedy in films, and Vernon and Quillan indulged in pratfalling, head-banging, kick-in-the-pants slapstick. The Vernon & Quillan comedies were favorites of White, who kept making them through 1956. In 1961, he appeared as a bartender in the TV Western series Bat Masterson (S3E18 "The Prescott Campaign"). On March 7, 1970, Vernon died in an ambulance shortly after being struck by
140-562: The Laurel and Hardy version (retitling it March of the Wooden Soldiers ) and reissued it in 1950. In the early 1950s, Lippert struck an American distribution deal for Exclusive Films of Britain. The success of this company, subsequently renamed Hammer Films, boosted Lippert's fortunes until the British outfit left him to begin signing deals with American major studios . In 1956 Lippert signed
154-475: The historical tale The Baron of Arizona , and the military drama The Steel Helmet won special praise. Producers Boris Morros and William LeBaron teamed to produce a new version of Victor Herbert 's Babes in Toyland , planning to release it through Screen Guild. Along with the screen rights, they inherited the 1934 movie version starring Laurel and Hardy . The remake was never filmed, so Lippert took over
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#1732863250227168-426: Was Sid Melton , almost always playing wisecracking cab drivers, sad-sack soldiers, or streetwise characters. Melton was even given a leading role, in the comedy feature Stop That Cab (1951). In February 1949 Lippert reorganized Screen Guild and renamed it Lippert Pictures. The studio received surprisingly good notices for a series of dramatic features written by Samuel Fuller ; the western I Shot Jesse James ,
182-576: Was a pillock, I’m afraid. Marius Goring played the Belgravian heavy; he was very heavy, I'm afraid. I couldn't control him at all. It was a satisfactory run of the mill picture." There was location work done in Trieste . "I found it very difficult to make anything of that location," said Baker. "I was a bit disappointed and to tell the truth I didn't do it very well. The reason I say that is that many years later... I realised I’d been trying to piece it together in
196-487: Was a successful exhibitor, owning a chain of movie theaters in California and Oregon. He was frustrated that the Hollywood studios concentrated on making big, expensive pictures that commanded premium rental fees. He felt there was a market for smaller, cheaper feature films intended for neighborhood theaters in smaller situations. He called his new production company Action Pictures, and his first film, Wildfire (The Story of
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