Jay Dratler
Writing
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jay Dratler (September 14, 1910- September 25, 1968) was an American screenwriter and novelist. Born in New York City, his mother was from Austria. After attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the late 1920s, he studied at the Sorbonne in France and the University of Vienna, becoming fluent in French and German. He returned to the United States in 1932. Cashing in on his exceptional language skills on his return to the United States, he was employed as an editor by a New York publisher and translated the books Goya and Zeppelin from German to English. He moved to Hollywood and become a successful screenwriter and novelist. He wrote six novels, many screenplays and more than twenty television scripts. He was considered very influential during the classic era of film noir in the 1940s. He won both an Academy Award and an Edgar Allan Poe Award for Call Northside 777, and was nominated for an Oscar for his writing on Laura. The 1948 film Pitfall was based on Dratler's novel of the same title. Late in life, Dratler began learning Spanish and became fluent, moving to Mexico City in the sixties. Dratler died of a heart attack at the British-American Hospital in Mexico City in 1968. His body was returned to New York. He was survived by his widow Berenice, a daughter, and a son, Jay Dratler, Jr., who became a professor of law at the University of Akron School of Law, specializing in intellectual property law.
Known For
Burke's Law is an American detective series that ran on ABC from 1963 to 1965 and was revived on CBS in the 1990s. The show starred Gene Barry as Amos Burke, millionaire captain of Los Angeles police homicide division, who was chauffeured around to solve crimes in his Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud II.
Burke's Law
A satirical inversion of the ideal of the perfect American nuclear family, they are an eccentric wealthy family who delight in everything grotesque and macabre, and are never really aware that people find them bizarre or frightening. In fact, they themselves are often terrified by "normal" people.
The Addams Family
A police detective falls in love with the woman whose murder he's investigating.
Laura
Also known as 'Mirror Theater', this was an American anthology drama television series.
Revlon Mirror Theatre
In 1932, a cop is killed and Frank Wiecek sentenced to life. Eleven years later, a newspaper ad by Frank's mother leads Chicago reporter P.J. O'Neal to look into the case. For some time, O'Neal continues to believe Frank guilty. But when he starts to change his mind, he meets increased resistance from authorities unwilling to be proved wrong.
Call Northside 777
After surviving a murder attempt, an auto magnate goes into hiding so his wife can pay for the crime.
Impact
An insurance man wishing for a more exciting life becomes wrapped up in the affairs of an imprisoned embezzler, his model girlfriend, and a violent private investigator.
Pitfall
Ex-con turned private investigator Bradford Galt suspects someone is following him and maybe even trying to kill him. With the assistance of his spunky secretary, Kathleen Stewart, he dives deep into a mystery in search of answers.
The Dark Corner
A Justice of the Peace performed weddings a few days before his license was valid. A few years later five couples learn they have never been legally married.
We're Not Married!
When newlyweds visit Las Vegas, the wife's shady past comes to the surface.
The Las Vegas Story
When an heiress finds out that the friendly young man she's met at Sun Valley is really an investigative reporter, she ruins his career by falsely claiming they're married.
That Wonderful Urge
A valet to a bankrupt millionaire plans to rebuild his boss's fortune by passing a scullery maid off as a high-society debutante.
Higher and Higher
Young intern Jeff Burton, impulsively offers a lift to an odd-looking gentlemen. It soon turns out that Jeff's passenger is an inventor has just escaped from a shady sanitarium, where he has been held prisoner by Nazi spies.
Fly By Night
Emery Slade was one of the brightest stars in Hollywood in 1932, but by 1949 his career has hit the skids. Fortunately, he is able to convince studio head Melville Crossman to cast him in the adaptation of a hit Broadway show. Crossman has one condition: Slade must travel to New York and convince the female star of the stage production to join the film. Slade goes, but, when he eyes the winsome Julie Clarke, he hatches a different scheme.
Dancing in the Dark
When a murder occurs on an ocean liner docked in New York, the trail leads to Coney Island and a spy ring.
Meet Boston Blackie
In this comedy, actor Hugh Herbert plays six different roles. Only one of the roles is a man. The story centers around a dizzy music lover, who has grown rich through real estate deals. Also figuring in the story are a cab driver/performer, and a down-on-her-luck, aspiring singer. They meet when she hails his cab as she skips out on her former boarding house because she cannot pay rent.
La Conga Nights
A murder is committed during the auction of a valuable statue. The prime suspect is Boston Blackie, whose reputation for living on the edge of the law makes him an easy target for the police. When the body disappears, Blackie must find it to prove his innocence.
Confessions of Boston Blackie
The ringmaster of a flea circus inherits a fortune...if he can find which chair it's hidden in.
It's in the Bag!
Christopher Reynolds, an American flying with the R.A.F, is shot down over German-occupied Holland and is given shelter by a Dutch family. Posing as the insane husband of the daughter of the house, Anita Wolverman, Reynolds convinces the German officer quartered there, Major Zellfritz, with the necessity for her divorce decree to be granted. After the court-hearing, Anita, goes to manage a home for retired ladies and, persuaded by Reynolds, tries to gain military information from the German Officer. When her former husband escapes from the insane-asylum his exploits are blamed on Reynolds. With the help of the old ladies and Anita, who "remarries" him, Reynolds escapes to England in a stolen German airplane.
The Wife Takes a Flyer
In this musical comedy, a motley band of musicians have only their extreme poverty in common. They end up writing a hit and getting a recording contract. The trouble is, the composer's works are never played without another band member doctoring them up to make them swingier. Fortunately, the composer isn't too averse to the changes as he has just won the heart of the beauty who sings his revamped songs.