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Emmy-winning producer, screenwriter and playwright Walter Halsey Davis, whose credits include the television movies Last Flight Out, Jane Doe, The Killing Mind, Stone Fox, and The Great Escape II: The Untold Story, has died. He was 76.

Davis died on Aug. 31 after a battle with metastatic prostate cancer, according to his family and former associates. The Redondo Beach native was a fifth generation Californian whose aviator aspirations led to a U.S. Navy officers training program. Davis excelled in his class but set aside that ambition in favor of creative writing and poetry pursuits and a Uc Santa Barbara degree in English literature.

While working on an Mfa degree at UCLA, Davis’ pursuits got a major boost when his 1971 play The Tapioca Misanthropa won the Samuel Goldwyn Award. His other stage credits included Panhandle and Tilden.

Davis has spent some of his teen years in Germany and his command of the language...

“It’s that time of year….” for another big holiday themed comedy. We’ve had a big family yuletide mix of laughs and tears with Almost Christmas, that’s, ahem, almost a month old now. That bit of tinsel joined a long list of similar movie comedies like Love The Coopers and a film now considered an annual viewing tradition for many, National Lampoon’S Christmas Vacation. Yes, they’re all holiday hijinks with the family, but that other family is largely ignored. I’m speaking of the “workplace family”, the folks you bond with while “on the job” (many “workaholics” spent more time with them than their spouses and kids). Ah, the studios got the hint, so the newest movie present under the big multiplex tree is all set to be unwrapped. Looks like we’re all invited to the big Office Christmas Party.

The film begins with a...