The Man Who Walked Alone | |
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Directed by | Christy Cabanne |
Produced by | Christy Cabanne (associate producer) |
Written by | Robert Lee Johnson |
Story by | Christy Cabanne |
Starring |
Dave O'Brien Kay Aldridge |
Music by | Karl Hajos |
Cinematography | James Brown |
Edited by | W. Donn Hayes |
Distributed by | PRC Pictures, Inc. |
Release date
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Running time
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71 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
The Man Who Walked Alone is a 1945 American B film comedy-drama film produced by PRC Pictures, Inc., directed by Christy Cabanne, with top-billed Dave O'Brien and Kay Aldridge, along with Walter Catlett and Guinn (Big Boy) Williams.
During the final months of World War II, Marion Scott is hitchhiking towards the small town of Plainfield (a common American town name, although fictional in the context of this film). He is offered a ride by a young woman who turns out to be Wilhelmina "Willie" Hammond, a member of a wealthy society family, running from an arranged marriage to another socially prominent type, stolid Alvin Bailey. Acting on the reported theft of Bailey's car, the police stop the pair and, after identifying the stolen car, put the pair in jail. Willie arranges their bail and takes Marion to the family mansion where, having left her keys, she tries to crawl through the window, causing the pair to be arrested again and the story to land in the headlines of the local papers. Willie initially thinks that Marion is an Army deserter, but after he explains his discharge for medical reasons, she gives him a job as the family chauffeur, even though Wiggins, the eccentric old caretaker of the estate, has misgivings. Learning of the "scandal", Willie's widowed mother, Mrs. Hammond, "old maid" Aunt Harriet, younger sister Patricia as well as family dressmaker Camille, all return from New York, along with Alvin Bailey and Alvin's physical trainer and sidekick, the big "dumb" Champ. After a series of family arguments and complications, Alvin willingly gives up Willie so she can marry Marion, who modestly did not disclose that he was a national hero as a result of wartime valor, that he was hitchhiking simply to maintain anonymity, and was now being welcomed by the mayor and the governor, and honored with a parade by Plainfield, the birthplace of his killed-in-battle wartime best friend, which will now become his adopted hometown.