My father David Clarke appears in this 1952 release, playing a pencil-mustachioed heavy, as they were known before they were called bad guys. His name is Joseph Kemp in the picture, which you should see if you haven't, and do check out the imdb listing , especially trivia, since this is an exceptional film in many ways. It was one of the first made with a hand-held camera, it mostly takes place on a train, but only a few seconds were actually shot on one. One story, however, the one about Howard Hughes, is more complex than the imdb item on it. According to Stanley Rubin, who produced the film:
"We finished the picture in '51. Howard Hughes had taken over the studio. He ran the finished cut, our cut of "Narrow Margin," one midnight, which was rather typical of Mr. Hughes. By the way, I never met him. I did get memos, but never met him in person. Hughes had bought the studio while we were making "Narrow Margin," but later he brought in Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna to head up production at the studio. In any case, Hughes ran the picture, which had gotten very good word of mouth already. I got a memo from Mr. Hughes, saying he thought it was a very good film, but that he wanted to hold it — instead of releasing it when it was due to be released, the memo stated that he wanted to hold it for a while and he wanted me to think about some way to turn "Narrow Margin," which we had shot for under $250,000 and in under 15 days, into an A-picture. Well, there wasn't any way to turn "Narrow Margin" into an A-picture unless you just scrubbed the picture and recast it with A-names and shot it all over again. I communicated that feeling to Mr. Hughes, but he persisted in thinking that there might be some way to turn it into a big picture. And he held it under his arm or in his vault for a year and that's why "Narrow Margin" was released a year, year and a half after it was finished... Hughes added at least one additonal heavy. I think Dick Fleischer shot those scenes. I was gone. I was already at Fox."
http://www.hollywoodfiveo.com:80/archive/issue2/cinema/rubin.htm
Dad, who's simply terrific in the film, told me that Hughes was deeply disturbed by the police corruption in the original version, and that the heavy character Hughes added was there to highlight that the leading cop was a straight arrow who would never take a bribe. A year after the film had wrapped, Dad was brought back to Hollywood for re-takes involving this character and his impact on the film.
Rubin doesn't mention this angle, nor did William Friedkin in his dvd commentary of the film.
