Walter Doniger

A graduate of the Harvard School of Business, Walter Doniger started as a scriptwriter in the early 1940s with Universal. During the war years he collaborated on training films for the US Army. He maintained an interest in military matters that was reflected in much of his later work, both for television and for the big screen. The script for one of his last projects, "The Last Days of Saigon", written between 1980 and 1981, remained uncompleted and is held (still under classification) at the American Heritage Center at the University of Wyoming. From the late 1940's, Doniger began to specialize (first as writer, and, from 1954, as director and occasional producer) in masculine subjects, from tough prison dramas (Duffy of San Quentin (1954) and The Steel Cage (1954)) to war pictures (Cease Fire! (1953)), from films noir (Rope of Sand (1949)) to contact sports (Safe at Home! (1962) [baseball], Mad Bull (1977) [wrestling]). In 1957, Doniger established a small production company, Bettin