Warren Duff

Warren B. Duff (born May 17, 1904 in San Francisco , California , United States , † August 5, 1973 in Los Angeles ) was an American theater producer, screenwriter and film producer .

Live and act

Duff began his artistic career in the 1920s when he was producing stage pieces for repertory theater in the New York area. In the early 1930s he made the move to film, and Duff initially wrote manuscripts for productions by obscure micro-companies such as Tiffany Productions and KBS Productions. With the move to Warner Bros. Duff received significantly higher-quality screenplay assignments and from then on wrote stories for tangible gangster films, thrillers but also for romances with musical elements.

His greatest successes were achieved by the end of the decade with his manuscripts on classic men’s fabrics in which “tough guy” stars like James Cagney and / or George Raft played the leading roles, including A Hard Boy, Frisco, the City without a Law , Chicago - Angels with dirty faces , The Roaring Twenties , Fear of Death at Every Dawn , Oklahoma Kid and Twelve Months Probation . Duff also oversaw scripts for various Warner Bros. music film productions with genre stars, including Sweet Music with Rudy Vallee , Caliente, the City of Joy with Dolores del Río , The Singing Kid with Al Jolson, and Broadway Gondolier and Gold Diggers of 1937 , both with Dick Powell .

At the beginning of the 1940s, when classic gangster cinema as well as the traditional Hollywood film musical were in decline, Warren Duff turned to other topics and was now also employed as a film producer by his new employer RKO Pictures from 1944. In the mid-1950s, Warren Duff stopped working for the cinema and turned to (series) television both as a producer and as a screenwriter. Here he was responsible for countless episodes of popular long-running hits such as Markham, The People of Shiloh Ranch , Mannix , Crooks Against Crooks , Dan Oakland , FBI , Invasion Of The Vega And The Boss . Warren Duff retired in 1972 and died of cancer the following year.

Filmography

As a screenwriter for feature films, unless otherwise stated

• 1931: X Marks the Spot
• 1932: Hotel Continental
• 1932: Uptown New York
• 1933: The Big Brain
• 1933: The Constant Woman
• 1933: Deluge
• 1934: Midnight Alibi
• 1934: Heat Lightning
• 1934: The St. Louis Kid
• 1935: Sweet Music
• 1935: Caliente, the city of delights (In Caliente)
• 1935: Frisco, the city without a law (Frisco Kid)
• 1935: Broadway gondolier
• 1936: The Singing Kid
• 1936: Stage Struck
• 1936: Gold Diggers of 1937
• 1937: Stolen Holiday
• 1937: Varsity Show
• 1937: Submarine D-1
• 1937: Goldene Erde California (Gold is Where you Find It)
• 1938: Chicago Angels with Dirty Faces
• 1938: Gold Diggers in Paris
• 1939: Oklahoma Kid (The Oklahoma Kid)
• 1939: The Roaring Twenties (The Roaring Twenties)
• 1939: dread at every dawn (Each Dawn I Die)
• 1939: Espionage Agent
• 1939: Twelve months probation period (Invisible Stripes)
• 1940: 'Til We Meet Again
• 1941: The Lady from Cheyenne
• 1941: Shining Victory
• 1943: No Time for Love (No Time for Love)
• 1943: The Fallen Sparrow
• 1943: The Iron Major
• 1944: Leather Neck (Marine Raiders)
• 1944: Experiment in Terror (Experiment Perilous) (also production)
• 1946: Lady Luck (production only)
• 1947: Honeymoon (production only)
• 1947: Goldenes Gift (Out of the Past) (production only)
• 1949: Chicago Deadline
• 1950: Inspector Goddard (Appointment with Danger)
• 1950: Endstation Mord (Gambling House) (production only)
• 1951: Sealed Cargo (production only)
• 1951: The Turning Point
• 1953: Make Haste to Live
• 1955: The Barricades of San Antone (The Last Command)
• 1967: Three for Danger (TV movie)

literature

• International Motion Picture Almanac 1965, Quigley Publishing Company, New York 1964, p. 75

Web links

• Warren Duff on oac.cdlib.org
• Warren Duff in the Internet Movie Database (English)