Night Editor is a 1946 American film noir directed by Henry Levin and starring William Gargan, Janis Carter and Jeff Donnell. It was based on a popular radio program of the same name. The script for the film was based on a previous radio program episode "Inside Story." A B-movie produced by Columbia Pictures, The movie was to be the first in a series of films featuring stories about the graveyard-shift police beat reporters at a fictional newspaper, the New York Star, but no other Night Editor films were made.
Sony Pictures released it in the boxed set Bad Girls of Film Noir: Volume II along with Women's Prison, One Girl's Confession and Over-Exposed.
Plot
Crane Stewart (Charles D. Brown), the editor of the New York Star, while playing poker with his friends, tells a story about a cop involved in a murder investigation.
In flashback, the editor tells the tale of police lieutenant Tony Cochrane (William Gargan), a family man who cheats on his wife with socialite femme fatale Jill Merrill (Janis Carter). Cochrane and the woman, who is also cheating on her husband, witness a man bludgeoning his girlfriend to death with a tire iron while the couple is parked at "lovers lane" by the beach.
The two can't report the crime without revealing their cheating, a dilemma which eventually leads to bigger troubles. Meanwhile, Cochrane must investigate the killing but is not able to tell anyone he witnessed the crime.
Cast
William Gargan as Lt. Tony Cochrane
Janis Carter as Jill Merrill
Jeff Donnell as Martha Cochrane
Coulter Irwin as Johnny
Roy Gordon as Benjamin Merrill
Charles D. Brown as Crane Stewart
Paul E. Burns as Police Lt. Ole Strom
Harry Shamnon as Police Capt. Lawrence
Frank Wilcox as Douglas Loring
Robert Kellard as Doc Cochrane (as Robert Stevens)
Radio program
The radio program the film was based upon ran from 1934 until 1948.
Sponsored by Edwards Coffee, this featured Hal Burdick (1893–1978) as the "night editor". Burdick would receive readers’ requests for stories, in a "letter to the editor" format, which he would relate to the listeners. Burdick played all characters in the program. The stories varied greatly including tales of war, adventure, crime, and an occasional ghost story. The radio series was adapted for Night Editor, a short-lived TV series on the DuMont Television Network in 1954, also hosted by Burdick.