- published: 17 Aug 2009
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Michael Gordon (born Irving Kunin Gordon; September 6, 1909 – April 29, 1993) was an American stage actor and stage and film director.
Gordon was born in Baltimore and raised in a middle class Jewish community. He was a member of the Group Theatre (1935–1940), and was blacklisted as a Communist in the days of McCarthyism. He later joined the faculty of the UCLA Theatre Arts Department. Gordon summered at Pine Brook Country Club in Nichols, Connecticut. Pinebrook is best known for becoming the summer home of the Group Theatre. Some of the other artists who summered there were: Elia Kazan, Harry Morgan, John Garfield, Lee J. Cobb, Will Geer, Clifford Odets, Howard Da Silva and Irwin Shaw.
Because of his being blacklisted, Gordon's Hollywood career falls into two phases. In 1940, he started as a dialogue director and went on to direct B-movies. In the late 1940s, he distinguished himself by directing not just some action movies but also melodramas and films noir. He also directed the 1950 film Cyrano de Bergerac, for which José Ferrer won a Best Actor Academy Award. After his blacklisting, he was forced to stop directing films temporarily, but was called back to Hollywood at the end of the 1950s by producer Ross Hunter, who wanted him to direct Pillow Talk, a vehicle for Doris Day and Rock Hudson. Subsequently, Gordon's second creative phase was concerned with light-hearted comedy films.
Actors: Jesús Franco (actor), Julio Parra (producer), Otto Retzer (actor), Jesús Franco (writer), Jesús Franco (composer), Jesús Franco (director), Jesús Franco (editor), Antonio Mayans (miscellaneous crew), Antonio Mayans (actor), Ajita Wilson (actress), Ajita Wilson (actress), Nadine Pascal (actress), Marie Luise Lusewitz (actress), Gina Janssen (actress), Raymond Hardy (actor),
Genres: Action, Adventure, Crime, Drama, Horror, Thriller,Actors: Alan Napier (actor), Frank Lackteen (actor), John Hamilton (actor), Robert Anderson (actor), Michael Ansara (actor), Robert Armstrong (actor), Gene Lockhart (actor), Frederic Brunn (actor), André Charlot (actor), Jack Chefe (actor), James Conaty (actor), Gino Corrado (actor), Marcel Dalio (actor), Marcel De la Brosse (actor), William J. O'Brien (actor),
Plot: Michael Gordon, star reporter with a nose for trouble, is heading home after completing a difficult assignment in Iraq. On a Damascus stopover he relays a tip to a fellow American newsman who subsequently ends up in a local camel market with a knife in his back. Even though everyone, including the American legation, seems to want Gordon to leave the country, he feels obliged to find his friend's murderer. Among the red herrings he must sort through in the "World's Oldest City" are an informing card cheat, a beautiful femme fatale, an enigmatic hotel owner, a Frenchman with two aliases, and several sinister Arabs. In short order, Gordon foils Nazi plots to unite the Arab tribes against the Allies and help the Germans seize the Suez Canal.
Keywords: africa, airplane, american-abroad, arab, arabia, camel, car-crash, caravan, card-cheat, chase