John C. Higgins was an American screenwriter

Screenwriter

Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...

. During the 1930s and early 1940s, the Winnipeg, Canada-born scribe worked on mostly complex murder mystery films including the James Stewart film Murder Man (1935). During the late 1940s, Higgins continued to pen thrillers including semidocumentary

Semidocumentary

Semidocumentary is a form of book, film, or television program presenting a fictional story that incorporates many factual details or actual events, or which is presented in a manner similar to a documentary...

-style films including director Anthony Mann

Anthony Mann

Anthony Mann was an American actor and film director, most notably of film noirs and Westerns. As a director, he often collaborated with the cinematographer John Alton and with James Stewart in his Westerns.-Biography:...

's He Walked By Night

He Walked by Night

He Walked by Night is a black-and-white police procedural film noir, crediting Alfred L. Werker as director. The film, shot in semidocumentary tone, was loosely based on newspaper accounts of the real-life actions of Erwin "Machine-Gun" Walker, a former Glendale police department employee and...

, Raw Deal

Raw Deal (1948 film)

Raw Deal is a 1948 film noir directed by Anthony Mann and shot by cinematographer John Alton.-Plot:Prisoner Joe Sullivan , who has "taken the fall" for an unspecified crime, breaks jail with the help of his girl, Pat...

, T-Men

T-Men

T-Men is a semidocumentary style 1947 film noir shot in black-and-white. The film was directed by Anthony Mann with cinematography by noted noir cameraman John Alton....

and Border Incident

Border Incident

Border Incident is a film noir directed by Anthony Mann. The MGM film was written by John C. Higgins and George Zuckerman. The film was shot by cinematographer John Alton who used shadows and lighting effects to involve an audience despite the fact that the film was shot on a low budget...

. Higgins also wrote horror films like the Basil Rathbone

Basil Rathbone

Sir Basil Rathbone, KBE, MC, Kt was an English actor. He rose to prominence in England as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in over 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers, and, occasionally, horror films...

 starrer The Black Sheep

The Black Sleep (1956 film)

The Black Sleep is an American black-and-white horror film, scripted by John C. Higgins from a story by Gerald Drayson Adams developed for producers Aubrey Schenck and Howard W. Koch, who had a four-picture finance-for-distribution arrangement with United Artists. The film was re-released in 1962...

(1956) and Higgins last film Daughters of Satan (1972). Higgins also wrote the science fiction film Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Robinson Crusoe on Mars

Robinson Crusoe on Mars is a 1964 Techniscope science fiction film retelling of the classic novel by Daniel Defoe. It was directed by Byron Haskin, produced by Aubrey Schenck and starred Paul Mantee, Victor Lundin and Adam West...

(1964).