Michael Shayne: Private Detective (1940)

Absolutely the worst movie.

A different way of telling a story

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Speaking of series pictures, one of the best centers around the Michael Shayne character created by Davis Dresser. Although there are twelve movies in the Hollywood series, it's only the first seven, all starring Lloyd Nolan, that are really worth seeing. The opening entry, "Michael Shayne, Private Detective" (1941) has all the assets of the other Lloyd Nolan entries, bar one — an exciting plot. Twentieth Cenury Fox made the big mistake of basing this number one entry on an actual Davis Dresser novel. Mr Dresser's plots improved considerably as the more than seventy books in the series got underway, but in this one the old-hat story, filled to bursting with equally old-hat characters, will bore most audiences silly, despite the commendable efforts of a really first-rate cast, including the lovely heroine, Marjorie Weaver.

****SPOILERS*** The first of the Michael Shayne Private Detective movie has our hero Michael Shayne, Lloyd Noland,about to get evicted from his office with all the furniture taken off his hands for him being behind in his monthly payments. That's when fate shines on him with Michael being given the job by money man and race horse connoisseur Mr. Brighton, Clarence Kolb, to look after his out of control daughter Phyllis, Marjorie Weaver, and keep her away from any gambling establishment like casinos and race tracks that she's hopelessly addicted to.Not much of a job at first for Michael but later in trying to scare Phillis stiff and straighten her out after getting away from him and ending up losing $2,000.00 that she didn't have at the nearest casino things backfire on him. Michael ends up getting Phillis' boyfriend Harry Grange, George Meeker, smashed by spiking his drink after Michael clobbered him for taking Phillis there. Later Michael alter he kissed and make up with a barley able to stand on his feet Harry drives him out into the woods in Phillis' car and leaves him for dead spraying a bottle of catchup on him to make it look like blood.This joke soon turned out to be a disaster for Michael in that later, after he called the police to revive and sober up Harry, he as well as Phillis found him dead as a door nail by being shot in the head! With his chief protagonist in the movie Police Chief Painter, Donald McBrie, about to run Michael in for murder he turns the tables on him by planning to expose his crooked dealings, whatever they are, under the table that aren't exactly kosher!***SPOILERS*** Despite working on his own Michael gets help from Aunt Olivia, Elizabeth Patterson, a self styled gumshoe who gets her training in detective work from reading murder mysteries from cheap dine store novels she buys at the supermarket. It's here that Aunt Olivia shows that she's not the hair brained screwball that everyone thinks she is by helping Michael, who at one point ended up losing his pants, cover all the clues as well as his behind that he may have missed that exposed who Harry's killer really was. As usual it, the murder of Harry, had to do with money the killer expected to have won at the race track that was cashed by Harry, who put the bet in for him, before he got it! Which had to do with a scam the killer try to pull off by entering a "Ringer", a champion South American racehorse, in the race which he bet $10,000.00 on that he replaced a ready for the glue factory nag "Bonjo Boy" who went off at odds of 15 to 1!

When a wise-cracking detective takes on high society and is hired to keep an eye on an old friends' rebellious daughter, he finds out that such an assignment can lead to murder. Lloyd Nolan began his brief spell as detective Michael Shayne in this enjoyable detective drama which has a lot of elements of comedy and a few of that growing genre called film noir.At first, debutante want to be Marjorie Reynolds finds Nolan's presence an aggravation, especially when he spoils her fun by bringing her home from a gambling joint after she's used up all of her allowance. Her domineering father (Clarence Kolb) is so grateful that he employs Shayne immediately to keep an eye on her while he's away on business. He's grateful because his office has just been cleared of its furniture. Her dotty aunt (Elizabeth Patterson) is intrigued because she's obsessed with murder, and when a real one does occur (following an unfortunate joke that Nolan tried to perpetrate on the unknowing Reynolds), it is Patterson who will aid him the most, although a lot of her advising chatter is based on nothing more than "True Detective" magazines she's read.The mystery takes the viewer to the races, to a gambling house, and to the countryside where Nolan left the victim after he slipped him a mickey. It is all a rouse to try to keep Reynolds in line (she was romantically involved with the man), but everything turns haywire when the ketchup on the man's shirt is joined by the blood gushing from his head. Among the others involved are Douglas Dumbrille as the gambling house owner, Joan Valerie as his hot-tempered daughter, and Donald MacBride as an initially seeming smart cop whose idiotic partner could fry anybody's brain cells. It's all entertainingly presented, decently acted, and well produced, resulting in a "B" mystery where the laughs come just as frequently as the thrills.

When I began researching Lloyd Nolan in preparation for writing his biography, I had seen him in only two roles -- as the crusty doctor in the TV series JULIA, and as the compassionate policeman in the 1940s movie A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. Then I got a DVD of some of his Michael Shayne movies and was blown away by the first one, MICHAEL SHAYNE: PRIVATE DETECTIVE. It was so refreshing to see Lloyd as a young man and playing such a lighthearted character! Since then, I've watched videos of much of his work, and he's totally believable no matter what kind of character he's playing. I think this movie will always be my favorite, though.