The Truly Obscure: Paul F. Heard

[The last in the series to date, although I do intend to take it up again. The responses to the "Truly Obscure" directors posts at The Blackboard were a little anemic, and since that's a board rather than a blog, I was a mite disappointed.]

Paul F. Heard's claim to noir micro-fame is his direction of Hong Kong Affair (1958). The film was marketed in the spring of 1958 as a vehicle for "Maverick" star Jack Kelly (who played Bart Maverick to James Garner's Bret). "Maverick" had just premiered in the fall of 1957 to immediate success, so given television filming schedules, the likelihood is that Hong Kong Affair was shot before Kelly had achieved this stardom. He was already an active performer on television and in minor movie productions (including -- I like this -- the 1956 Mexican omnibus film Canasta de cuentos mexicanos, Basket of Mexican Tales).

There was apparently location filming in Hong Kong; the IMDB says so, and we can also deduce that from the presence of secondary lead Michael Bulmer, whose three acting credits are all Hong Kong productions (the other two being German-language films, including the noirish-sounding Coffin from Hong Kong, 1964). Probably Bulmer was an HK resident.

Heard was primarily a producer of religious shorts and features for the Protestant Film Commission and his own Paul F. Heard Productions (including the Oscar-nominated documentary Kenji Comes Home, 1949). On Hong Kong Affair, his co-producer and co-writer was Raymond Friedgen, who had an, ahem, less religious career producing exploitation films, going back as far as Free Kisses (1926) in the silent era. Friedgen also produced the infamous Child Bride of the Ozarks (1938); directed the documentary Killers of the Sea, with Captain Wallace Caswell, Jr., the "Crocodile Hunter" of his day, who kills a tiger shark, octopus, and giant sea turtles with his bare hands during the course of the film; produced a couple of B westerns with Spade Cooley, a bargain-basement singing cowboy; and associate-produced the most frequently re-issued and re-titled grindhouse feature of the Forties, A Fig Leaf for Eve AKA Desirable Ladies AKA Flaming Girls AKA Hollywood Nights AKA Room for Love AKA Reckless Youth AKA Strips and Blondes AKA (my favorite) Not Enough Clothes.

Since Paul F. Heard's film titles tended more toward A Wonderful Life, Second Chance, The Congregation, The Secret of the Gift, The Hidden Heart, and Each According to His Faith, he and Friedgen must have been interesting production meetings on Hong Kong Affair. God, meet Mammon!

I could not make this stuff up. I haven't the imagination.