D.O.A. (1949) on Netflix
Approved19491h 23m
Accountant Frank Bigelow goes to San Francisco for a week, leaving his secretary and girlfriend behind. A stranger at a nightclub swaps his drink, and doctors find a poison with no antidote.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.2/1014,338 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes88%
Clip
Plot summary
Frank Bigelow is an accountant and notary in Banning, California. He leaves his secretary and girlfriend Paula Gibson behind for a week alone in San Francisco, where a group of conventioneers invites him out and a stranger at a nightclub switches his drink. The next morning he feels ill, and doctors find luminous toxin, a poison with no antidote. With only days left, Bigelow sets out to learn who poisoned him and why. Paula telephones with a lead: a businessman named Eugene Philips has been trying to reach him. The trail leads him to the Los Angeles importing firm that Philips ran, where the comptroller, Halliday, tells him Philips has died.
Cast
- Jess Kirkpatrickas Sam
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about D.O.A. (1949)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The shot of Edmond O'Brien running down Market Street in San Francisco was a "stolen shot", taken without city permits, with some pedestrians visibly confused as O'Brien bumps into them.
- A filing error meant the copyright to D.O.A. was not renewed on time, so the 1950 film fell into the public domain. It was subsequently remade as Color Me Dead in 1969, D.O.A. in 1988, Dead on Arrival in 2017 and D.O.A. in 2022.
- D.O.A. producer Harry Popkin owned the Million Dollar Theater in downtown Los Angeles, directly across from the Bradbury Building that director Rudolph Maté used for location shooting, and its blazing marquee appears in the film. The marquee did the same job later when Ridley Scott filmed Blade Runner at the Bradbury Building.
- The bop band seen while Edmond O'Brien's drink is spiked was filmed on a Los Angeles soundstage after principal photography ended, with James Streeter on tenor sax, Shifty Henry on bass and Teddy Buckner on trumpet. The music director then rerecorded the soundtrack with a big band led by Maxwell Davis, not the quintet on screen.
