I recently rewatched 'Peyton Place', a movie I love in which Lloyd Nolan plays wise old Dr. Swain, it's a very endearing performance. Nolan was a character actor whose career spaned from the 30's to the 80's but not someone you'd build a film around, or so I thought.
Turns out that Nolan stared in 7 'Micheal Shayne Private Detective' movies for 20th Century Fox between 1940 and 1942; these were B pictures running around 75 minutes or so. P. I. films of this type tend to be pretty non descript, working class smart alicks with good hearts underneath, Nolan plays the part on the less cynical side and is likable.
In this first film in the series, simply titled 'Micheal Shayne, Private Detective', the plot concerns murder, a love triangle, the fixing of horse races and all appears to be set in California. Lots of genra type characters in this, most memorable is Crossville, Tennessee native Marjorie Weaver as the female lead and Elizabeth Patterson as her aunt, a character whose vorocious appitie for mystery stories causes her to over involve herself in the proceedings.
I don't recall hearing of the Micheal Shayne character before, despite seeming rather generic he was a pretty hot property for some time. Micheal Shayne appered in 77 paperback novels (the later 27 written by ghost writers after creator Brett Halliday's death), over 300 short stories, the 7 20th Century Fox films and an additional 5 over at PRC (Producers Releasing Company) where the part was played by Hugh Beaumont, later the dad on 'Leave it to Beaver'. Three different actors would play Shayne on the radio between 1944 and 1953, there was a single season TV series on NBC 1960-61 and there were also comic books. Impressive.
'Micheal Shayne, Private Detective' is a reasonably solid first offering, kind of playful and ultimately better then I expected, so I'm going to give it ***
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