Jo Eisinger was a film and television writer whose career spanned more than forty years from the early forties well into the eighties. He is widely recognized as the writer of two of the most psychologically complex film noirs: Gilda

Gilda

Gilda is a 1946 American black-and-white film noir directed by Charles Vidor. It stars Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth in her signature role as the ultimate femme fatale. The film was noted for cinematographer Rudolph Mate's lush photography, costume designer Jean Louis' wardrobe for Hayworth , and...

(1946) and Night and the City

Night and the City

Night and the City is a film noir based on the novel by Gerald Kersh, directed by Jules Dassin, and starring Richard Widmark and Gene Tierney. Shot on location in London, the plot evolves around an ambitious hustler whose plans keep going wrong....

(1950).

His credits also include The Sleeping City

The Sleeping City

The Sleeping City is a 1950 film noir, shot in semidocumentary style, starring Richard Conte. Set in and shot at New York's Bellevue Hospital, it was directed by George Sherman....

(1950) and Crime of Passion

Crime of Passion (1957 film)

Crime of Passion is a 1957 American crime film noir directed by Gerd Oswald and written by Jo Eisinger. The drama features Barbara Stanwyck, Sterling Hayden, Raymond Burr and Fay Wray, among others.-Plot:...

(1957), a coda to the films of the noir

Film noir

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...

style, for which he wrote the story as well as the screenplay. Starring Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck

Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...

, it is a strikingly modern commentary about how women were driven mad by the limitations imposed upon them in the postwar period.

Jo Eisinger started writing for radio penning numerous segments for the Adventures of Sam Spade series. He returned to thriller and private eye adventure series in the 1960s writing for ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 television program Danger Man

Danger Man

Danger Man is a British television series that was broadcast between 1960 and 1962, and again between 1964 and 1968. The series featured Patrick McGoohan as secret agent John Drake. Ralph Smart created the program and wrote many of the scripts...

and the mid-1980s HBO series Philip Marlowe, Private Eye

Philip Marlowe, Private Eye

Philip Marlowe, Private Eye is a mystery series that aired on ITV in the United Kingdom and on HBO in the United States from April 16, 1983 through June 3, 1986. The series featured Powers Boothe as Raymond Chandler's titular character, and was the first drama produced for HBO.-Synopsis:The series...

. His script for an episode of the latter show, "The Pencil", earned him a 1984 Edgar Award

Edgar Award

The Edgar Allan Poe Awards , named after Edgar Allan Poe, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America...

.

Eisinger's credits also include several films that departed from his accustomed genres of mystery, adventure and crime. Among them are Oscar Wilde (1960, starring Sir Ralph Richardson and Robert Morley

Robert Morley

Robert Adolph Wilton Morley, CBE was an English actor who, often in supporting roles, was usually cast as a pompous English gentleman representing the Establishment...

, The Rover (L'Avventuriero), (1967), from a novel by Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad

Joseph Conrad was a Polish-born English novelist.Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, although he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties...

 and starring Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth

Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...

 and Anthony Quinn

Anthony Quinn

Antonio Rodolfo Quinn-Oaxaca , more commonly known as Anthony Quinn, was a Mexican American actor, as well as a painter and writer...

, and The Jigsaw Man

The Jigsaw Man

"The Jigsaw Man" is a short story in the Known Space universe by Larry Niven. The story was first published in Harlan Ellison's anthology Dangerous Visions, and is included in Niven's collections All the Myriad Ways and Tales of Known Space....

(1984), starring Laurence Olivier

Laurence Olivier

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM was an English actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century. He married three times, to fellow actors Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright...

 and directed by Terence Young.

Eisinger wrote the books on which the Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 plays What Big Ears! (1942) and A Point of Honor (1937) were based. His 1943 novel The Walls Came Tumbling Down was adapted in 1944 for the long-running radio drama program Suspense

Suspense (radio program)

-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...

; the episode featured screen and radio actors Keenan Wynn

Keenan Wynn

Keenan Wynn was an American character actor. His bristling mustache and expressive face were his stock in trade, and though he rarely had a lead role, he got prominent billing in most of his film and TV parts....

 and Hans Conried

Hans Conried

Hans Georg Conried, Jr. was an American comedian, character actor and voice actor.-Early years:He was born on April 15, 1917 in Baltimore, Maryland to Hans Georg Conried, Sr. and Edith Beyr Gildersleeve. His mother was a descendant of Pilgrims, and his father was a Jewish immigrant from Vienna,...

. A film version of The Walls Came Tumbling Down starring Edgar Buchanan

Edgar Buchanan

Edgar Buchanan was an American actor with a long career in both film and television, most familiar today as Uncle Joe Carson from the Petticoat Junction, Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies television sitcoms of the 1960s...

 and George Macready

George Macready

George Peabody Macready, Jr. , was an American stage, film, and television actor often cast in roles as polished villains.-Background:...

 debuted in 1946.

Jo Eisinger's second marriage was to Lorain Beaumont. Eisinger used his wife's maiden name for Mr. Beaumont, one of the characters in The Walls Came Tumbling Down.

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