changes in the months prior to Hellinger's passing, including the addition of Humphrey Bogart as vice-president, and the signing of a six-picture financing and distribution deal with David O. Selznick's Selznick Releasing Organization. Mark Hellinger Productions owned the filming rights to several Ernest Hemingway stories, Forest Rosaire's novel East of Midnight, Arthur Cohn's screenplay Disbarred, Gordon Macker's screenplay Race Track, Philip G. Epstein's screenplay Mistakes Will Happen, and Jerry D. Lewis' screenplay Twinkle, Twinkle; in addition to three films in development: Knock on Any Door, Criss Cross and Act of Violence. Any of these properties may have been picked for Dassin to direct in 1948. The company also held contracts with actors Bogart, Burt Lancaster, Don Taylor and Howard Duff, and with cinematographer William Daniels. Bogart, Selznick and secretary-treasurer A. Morgan Marie announced their plan to continue Mark Hellinger Productions in January 1948, by co-heading the company and honoring the late producers' namesake with the previously planned films in development. However, difficulty lay in finding a new executive producer to head the production; Jerry Wald was first approached but was unable to free himself from his Warner Bros. contract. Robert Lord was then offered the post and freed himself from his Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract to accept the new position. Unfortunately, Hellinger's widow, former actress Gladys Glad Hellinger, decided to liquidate the company and all of its assets in early February 1948. The story properties and actor, director and cinematographer contracts were sold to other studios via the William Morris Agency. This lead Bogart, Lord and Marie to form their own film production company, Santana Productions, and secure a financing and distribution deal with Columbia Pictures with some of the properties they managed to purchase. It is unknown which, or if a studio bought out Dassin's remaining one-picture deal, though news reports hinted towards Universal-International Pictures or Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. In late December 1947, before Bogart, Selznick and Marie had decided upon continuing the Mark Hellinger Productions firm, Dassin took the opportunity of his non-exclusive contract to partner with stage actor and producer Luther Adler in an independent film venture. Adler had recently purchased Jack Iams' novel Prophet by Experience in September 1947 and hired Ben Hecht to adapt it and write the screenplay. The story dealt with a hermit who is taken out of seclusion by a magazine writer, and who has a unique set of experiences in the outside world. Adler, who