by Hal Erickson
biography
Actor/director Ralph Murphy made the migration from Broadway to Hollywood in the earliest days of the talkie era. At first engaged as a dialogue director (a frequent assignment for New York-trained talent), Murphy directed his first film, the breezy Eddie Quillan vehicle The Big Shot, in 1931. After a brief stay at RKO-Pathe, Murphy settled in at Paramount Pictures, where he remained until 1944. Most of Ralph Murphy's films aren't the sort of fare that pops up in retrospective or nostalgia books, but there were some roses among the thorns, among them The Notorious Sophie Lang (1936), Night Club Scandal (1937), Pacific Blackout (1942), and the above-average horror film The Man in Half Moon Street (1944).
