Half a Sinner (1940 film)

Half a Sinner

Original film poster
Directed by Al Christie
Produced by Al Christie (producer) (uncredited)
Jack H. Skirball (producer)[1] (uncredited)
Written by Frederick J. Jackson
Dalton Trumbo (story "Lady Takes a Chance")
Starring See below
Cinematography Charles Van Enger
Edited by Barney Rogan
Distributed by Universal Pictures
Release dates
  • April 5, 1940 (1940-04-05)
Running time
 59 minutes
Country United States
Language English

Half a Sinner is a 1940 American film directed by Al Christie. It stars Heather Angel as a schoolteacher who in one day becomes Public Enemy Number One in Pennsylvania. The film is based on Dalton Trumbo's short story "Lady Takes a Chance". The working titles of this film were Everything Happens to Ann and The Lady Takes a Chance.

Plot summary

On the last day of school for the year, 25-year-old schoolteacher Miss Anne Gladden has one of her students writing punishment lines reading I WILL TRY TO BE GOOD on the blackboard. After the class is dismissed, she releases the boy from his punishment where she tells him that not everyone can do what they want to do in their life so they might as well make the best of what they have. She is overheard by an older teacher who remarks to Miss Gladden that she prefers the troublemaking students as they are the ones who can think for themselves. Anne is surprised at what she says with the older teacher replying that she has just turned 40 that day and has had regrets about not doing wild things when she was young. She advises Anne to do what she never did as one day she too will be old before she expects to be.

Returning to her home Anne decides to have one day of excitement in her life. She spends her savings on an expensive dress and hosiery and releases her pet canary Delilah in the open air for a taste of freedom. Sitting in a public park she is bothered by rude man who propositions her. When Anne sees he is carrying a concealed revolver she knocks him down and drives off with his car. The man she has pushed down is a gangster, the car she has driven off with is one that he stole, and on the floor of the back seat is the body of a man that he just murdered. The dead man is covered by the overcoat of the murderer's employer; a powerful crime boss. Unaware of her back seat passenger and that she is being pursued by the police and murderous criminals, Ann picks up a handsome hitchhiker...

Cast

Production

The film is Dalton Trumbo's second screen credit and the last of Jack Skirball's Arcadia Pictures. Skirball, an ordained Rabbi later produced Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt.[2] The film started production in February 1939 and was to be released by Grand National Films. After the 1939 demise of Grand National, the completed film was picked up for release by Universal Pictures.[3]

Heather Angel had played Phyllis Clavering in five Bulldog Drummond films, four of them opposite John Howard, and one with Ray Milland. A Universal contract star, John King had played Ace Drummond in a serial. This film was the last on his Universal Pictures contract that led him to finish his motion picture career playing a singing cowboy in Mongram's Range Busters B Western series.

Notes

  1. ↑ Motion Picture Herald. Quigley Publishing Company. 1939. Retrieved 2015-03-19.
  2. ↑ "JACK H. SKIRBALL - NYTimes.com". nytimes.com. Retrieved 2015-03-19.
  3. ↑ "Half a Sinner (1940) - Notes - TCM.com". tcm.com. Retrieved 2015-03-19.

External links

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