Phil Karlson

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Phil Karlson (July 2, 1908 - December 12, 1985) was a Chicago-born film director known for his no-nonsense film noir films. Karlson directed 99 River Street, Kansas City Confidential and Hell's Island all with actor John Payne in the early 1950s.

The son of popular Irish actress Lillian O'Brien, Phil Karlson studied painting at Chicago's Art Institute.

Karlson got into the film industry working as a prop man while a law student, at his father's request, at Loyola Marymount University in California. After working a number of film jobs, including being an assistant director for a number of Abbott and Costello film shorts, Karlson directed his first film in 1944 and in 1949 directed the first film starring Marylin Monroe, Ladies of the Chorus. He worked on a number of low-budget projects for Monogram Pictures and Eagle-Lion Films before making his mark in 1950. It was then that he was known for directing tough, realistic and sometimes violent gritty crime films. In the 1960s the quality of his directed films declined, which included working on Kid Galahad (1962) with Elvis Presley and two Dean Martin Matt Helm spy films. He had his biggest success in 1973 when he directed the hit film, Walking Tall. The film made the director a rich man many times over, thanks to the fact that he owned a large part of the movie.