I do not find it surprising that Eddie answered the question--after all, that's what "Ask Eddie" is (mostly!) all about. That's why I suggested it! :-)

I think it helped that Anne Hockens remembered the film from its NC screening--that likely was pivotal in getting the question "on the docket."

And now it's clear that Eddie doesn't get much (if any) advance look at the questions, because if that had been the case, he wouldn't have had his "wheels spinning" when Anne verbalized the question.

He would, for example, already had the name and info on Russell Birdwell--though I think his original intro to the film when NC screened it was inaccurate: Birdwell did direct other films in what clearly was a catch-as-catch-can Hollywood career. THE COME ON was his only noir, however.

He seems to have been involved with the Selznick regime dating from the larger-than-life impresario's time at RKO. He was involved in the publicity for GONE WITH THE WIND--and he is one of the real-life characters depicted in THE SCARLETT O'HARA WAR (1980), a TV movie that was one of three culled from Garson Kanin's novel Moviola (and that, according to the trivia listings at IMDB, were apparently screened on three consecutive evenings).

Tony Curtis played Selznick.

Eddie's free-association regarding John Hoyt was a bit strange--while it is not a huge stretch tonally to see him in the Franchot Tone role in PHANTOM LADY, it doesn't seem to be based on any evidence that he was being considered for the role--especially since Hoyt, a longtime Broadway actor who was part of the Mercury Theater, didn't move to Hollywood until the year after PHANTOM LADY was released.