Daniel Mainwaring
Writing
Biography
Daniel Mainwaring (aka Geoffrey Homes) (July 22, 1902 – January 31, 1977) was an American novelist and screenwriter. A native of Oakland, California, he began his professional career as a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle and enjoyed a successful career as a mystery novelist (under the name Geoffrey Homes). He worked as a film publicist and eventually abandoned fiction for a successful career as a screenwriter. His first novel (and the only one he ever published under his own name), One Against the Earth, was a proletarian novel about a young man born on a California ranch who becomes a drifter and is eventually unjustly accused of attacking a child, was published in 1932. He made his real mark, however, with a string of hard-boiled mystery novels (mostly with small-town California settings), the first of which was The Man Who Murdered Himself (1936). His final published novel, Build My Gallows High (William Morrow & Co., 1946), is generally regarded as his best—and its adaptation (by "Homes" himself) into the film noir classic Out of the Past assured his place in film history. Mainwaring explained to interviewer Pat McGilligan that he regarded the novel as a departure from his earlier literary efforts: With Build My Gallows High, I wanted to get away from straight mystery novels. Those detective stories are a bore to write. You've got to figure out "whodunit". I'd get to the end and have to say whodunit and be so mixed up I couldn't decide myself. (Wikipedia)
Known For
A small-town doctor learns that the population of his community is being replaced by emotionless alien duplicates.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
Having been cut from his professional football team, down-and-out athlete Terry Brogan is in desperate need of money. Crooked nightclub owner and bookie Jake Wise offers Terry a hefty sum to go to Mexico and find his girlfriend, Jessie Wyler. Terry cannot turn the offer down. When Terry locates Jessie, the two fall in love. Terry reports that he failed to find her, but Jake sends someone else. Terry and Jessie's love must endure unexpected twists.
Against All Odds
The peaceful life of a gas station owner is disrupted when a man from his past arrives in town and forces him to return to the dark world he had tried to escape.
Out of the Past
A detective tries to prevent the assassination of President-elect Abraham Lincoln during a train ride headed for Washington in 1861.
The Tall Target
A newspaper editor takes on the cause of oppressed migrant Mexican fruit pickers.
The Lawless
As the Cavalry tests the viability of bringing camels to US deserts, a surveyor, Arab drivers, and fugitive bank robbers confront Apaches and thirst. Originally filmed in 3-D
Southwest Passage
Remake of "To Have and Have Not" based on Hemingway short story. Plot reset to early days of Cuban revolution. A charter boat skipper gets entangled in gunrunning scheme to get money to pay off debts. Sort of a sea-going film noir with bad girl, smarmy villain, and the "innocent" drawn into wrong side of law by circumstances.
The Gun Runners
The cavalry defend a small town from indians.
The Last Outpost
"Only a fool sticks his neck out for somebody else. Don't get in the habit of it." Outlaw gunslinger Sam Garrett offers that sage wisdom to fellow fugitive Tom Cameron, who's on the run from the "Bluebellies," Texas State Police officers who wield a brutal iron fist of enforcement in the early 1870s. But quick-draw, hard-bitten Garrett soon decides not to take his own advice after young Cameron heads home to surrender - and instead gets framed for a revenge murder by a jealous rival for the affections of his girl.
The Desperado
Roy and Gilbert's fishing trip takes a terrifying turn when the hitchhiker they pick up turns out to be a sociopath on the run from the law. He's killed before, and he lets the two know that as soon as they're no longer useful, he'll kill again. The two friends plot an escape, but the hitchhiker's peculiar physical affliction, an eye that never closes even when he sleeps, makes it impossible for them to tell when they can make a break for it.
The Hitch-Hiker
A Greek Fisherman brings an Atlantean Princess back to her homeland which is the mythical city of Atlantis. He is enslaved for his trouble. The King is being manipulated by an evil sorcerer who is bent on using a natural resource of Atlantis to take over the world. The Atlanteans, or rather the slaves of Atlantis, are forced to mine a crystalline material which absorbs the suns rays. These crystals can then be used for warmth. The misuse of science has created weapons out of the crystals that can fire a heat ray to destroy whatever it touches.
Atlantis: The Lost Continent
An insurance agent's greedy girlfriend with a taste for mink leads him to a life of crime.
Roadblock
A crime-busting lawyer and his initially reluctant attorney father take on the forces that run gambling and prostitution in their small Southern town.
The Phenix City Story
Raoul Leduc is a police inspector trailing a spy who plots to kidnap an important American atomic scientist. Joe Victor a gangster who is hired to carry out the abduction, balks when he learns what is at stake and helps Leduc out instead.
A Bullet for Joey
A woman takes her four beautiful daughters to Alaska during the Gold Rush to find their fortune.
Those Redheads from Seattle
Army Lieutenant Halliday, accused of stealing the Army payroll, pursues the real thief on a frantic chase through Mexico aided by the thief's ex-girlfriend and is in turn being chased by his accuser, Capt. Blake.
The Big Steal
An outlaw must decide whether to stick his neck out for an innocent man.
Cole Younger, Gunfighter
A cowboy whose sister has been murdered by a gang of vicious outlaws seeks his revenge. But a venerable old lawman is about to teach the vigilante a lesson about taking the law into one's own hands.
Convict Stage
A newspaper editor goes on an anti-crime crusade, but gets carried away.
Big Town
Famed Depression-era gangster “Baby Face Nelson” robs and kills while accompanied by his beautiful moll.