Harry Segall
Writing
Biography
Harry Segall (April 10, 1892 – November 25, 1975) was an American playwright, screenwriter and television writer. Segall was born in Chicago. Harry Segall's writing career spans from 1933 to 1959. Segall's plays, including Lost Horizons, appeared on Broadway in the mid-1930s. In 1933, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer brought Segall to Hollywood as a contract writer. In 1936, he moved to RKO Pictures, where he wrote and co-wrote screenplays for films such as The Outcasts of Poker Flat, based on a story by Bret Harte, and Blind Alibi, starring Richard Dix. During this time, Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios also produced his screenplays. In 1941, Segall won an Academy Award for Best Original Story for the film Here Comes Mr. Jordan, starring Robert Montgomery and Evelyn Keyes, based on Segall's play Heaven Can Wait. The play was later revived under Wonderful Journey, but the revival lasted only nine performances. A Technicolor sequel to Here Comes Mr. Jordan, Down to Earth, was released in 1947, starring Rita Hayworth and Larry Parks. A 1978 film version of Heaven Can Wait starred Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. The play was then filmed again as Down to Earth, a 2001 vehicle for Chris Rock, with Segall credited as the writer of the original story. With the advent of television, Segall turned his writing talents to this medium, writing plots for TV series and Playhouse 90. He retired from screenwriting in 1959 and died November 25, 1975, in Woodland Hills, California. Segall was interred in Roosevelt Cemetery in Gardena, California. Description above from the Wikipedia article Harry Segall, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Known For
Kira, a Greek muse incarnated on Earth to inspire people, helps Dan McGuire and an artist named Sonny Malone to meet. She inspires them to build a huge disco roller rink called Xanadu.
Xanadu
Joe Pendleton is a quarterback preparing to lead his team to the superbowl when he is almost killed in an accident. An overanxious angel plucks him to heaven only to discover that he wasn't ready to die, and that his body has been cremated. A new body must be found, and that of a recently-murdered millionaire is chosen. His wife and accountant—the murderers—are confused by this development, as he buys the L.A. Rams in order to once again quarterback them into the Superbowl.
Heaven Can Wait
Research chemist Barnaby Fulton works on a fountain of youth pill for a chemical company. One of the labs chimps gets loose in the laboratory and mixes chemicals, but then pours the mix into the water cooler. When trying one of his own samples, washed down with water from the cooler, Fulton begins to act just like a twenty-year-old and believes his potion is working. Soon his wife and boss are also behaving like children.
Monkey Business
Boxer Joe Pendleton, flying to his next fight, crashes...because a Heavenly Messenger, new on the job, snatched Joe's spirit prematurely from his body. Before the matter can be rectified, Joe's body is cremated; so the celestial Mr. Jordan grants him the use of the body of wealthy Bruce Farnsworth, who's just been murdered by his wife. Joe tries to remake Farnsworth's unworthy life in his own clean-cut image, but then falls in love; and what about that murderous wife?
Here Comes Mr. Jordan
The Devil arranges for a deceased gangster to return to Earth as a well-respected judge to make up for his previous life.
Angel on My Shoulder
England, 1926. An American journalist looks for mystery writer Agatha Christie when she suddenly disappears without explanation, leaving no trace.
Agatha
A movie actor playing a detective gets carried away with his role and starts trying to solve real-life crimes.
Super-Sleuth
The day after Carol returns from a European trip, she wakes up to find her dead father's creditors hauling everything away. Her aunt wants her to marry a millionaire, but Carol insists on getting a job.
She's Got Everything
Steady, dependable Coast Guard Lieutenant Raymond "Ray" Dower and reckless aviator Thomas "Speed" Bradshaw are the closest of friends. Ray saves the life of Captain Tobias Bliss, tramp steamer skipper, in a daring rescue at sea. Speed flies the injured man back to the base hospital, where the two officers later visit him. There Ray meets Nancy Bliss, Bliss' grand-daughter, and falls in love with her. Speed meets her at a dance and urges Ray to propose before some other guy does. Ray is assigned to flood rescue duty, and Speed and Nancy start going out together and discover they are in love.
Coast Guard
Upset at a new Broadway musical mocking The Nine Muses, Greek goddess Terpsichore comes down to earth to land a part in the show and change it.
Down to Earth
Socially prominent Michael Ashburn, chief assistant for a London loan broker makes a large loan during a closing time to a man for a pair of earrings. He is unaware that the collateral can not be removed from the ears in which they reside, so then Julie becomes part of the collateral.
Blond Cheat
Wrestling trainer puts himself in charge of a singer's love life when the singer is jilted by a rich girl.
Fight for Your Lady
The Two Yanks in Trinidad are gangsters Tim Reardon (Pat O'Brien) and Vince Barrows (Brian Donlevy), who split up over a disagreement and join the army, Tim to escape Vince's wrath and Vince to get his lunch-hooks on Tim. Both of our heroes run afoul of Army discipline and protocol in general, and tough top sergeant Valentine (Donald MacBride).
Two Yanks in Trinidad
A bookish husband tries to win back the affections of his horse-breeding wife.
The Bride Wore Boots
Two small-town sisters who've come to New York City for very different reasons find themselves competing for the affections of a brash magazine photographer. Comedy.
The Powers Girl
A Paris sculptor (Richard Dix) fakes blindness in Los Angeles to recover his blackmailed sister's love letters.
Blind Alibi
A rich playboy wants to marry a chorus girl, but he'll lose his fortune if his trustee doesn't approve of his sweetheart. She decides to work in the trustee's brokerage firm under an assumed name to get on his good side, but complications ensue.
She Knew All the Answers
Gangsters are attempting to control the solutions (and winning) of the puzzles in a national newspapers picture puzzles contest craze.
Everybody's Doing It
Delia Jordan's father is murdered and some very valuable jewelry stolen. She hires The Lone Wolf.
The Lone Wolf Strikes
A small-time Chicago hood, now deceased, gets a second chance at life by striking a bargain with the Devil to inhabit and attempt to corrupt a totally honest politician.