Murder, Inc. (1960 film)

Murder, Inc.
Title from the trailer
Directed byBurt Balaban and
Stuart Rosenberg
Screenplay byIrve Tunick and Mel Barr
Based onthe book "Murder, Inc."
by Burton Turkus
and Sid Feder
Produced byBurt Balaban
StarringStuart Whitman
May Britt
Henry Morgan
Peter Falk
CinematographyGayne Rescher, A.S.C.
Edited byRalph Rosenblum
Music byFrank DeVol
Production
company
Princess Productions
Distributed by20th Century-Fox
Release date
  • June 28, 1960 (1960-06-28)
Running time
103 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$750,000[1]

Murder, Inc. is a 1960 American gangster film starring Stuart Whitman, May Britt, Henry Morgan and Peter Falk. Filmed in Cinemascope and directed by Burt Balaban and Stuart Rosenberg, the film was based on the true story of Murder, Inc., a Brooklyn gang that operated in the 1930s.[2]

Falk was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his first major feature role as Abe Reles, a vicious thug who led the Murder, Inc. gang and was believed to have committed 30 murders, for which he was never prosecuted.[3] In his 2006 autobiography Just One More Thing, Falk said that Murder, Inc. launched his career.[4]

This was the first film directed by Rosenberg, who later won acclaim for Cool Hand Luke (1967), and it launched Stuart Whitman's career as a leading man.

A highly fictionalized film on the same basic events titled The Enforcer (1951), starring Humphrey Bogart, was released in the United Kingdom with the title Murder, Inc.

  1. ^ "10-MILLM MOVIE MAY BE CANCELED". New York Times. Feb 3, 1960. ProQuest 115203494.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference IMDBMurder was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Murders In The United States: Crimes, Killers And Victims Of The Twentieth Century. McFarland & Company. January 2004. ISBN 0-7864-2075-8.
  4. ^ Falk, Peter (2006). Just One More Thing. Carroll & Graf Publishers. p. 76. ISBN 9780786717958.