Saturday, March 4, 2023

Blue, White and Perfect (1942)

 Lloyd Nolan's 'Micheal Shayne' # 4. Mary Beth Hughes is back, playing a different Shayne fiance, I'm affraid I don't see the chemistry the 20th Century Fox studio brass apparently saw. Shayne actually commits check fraud against his fiance in this film, he has about as good a reason you could have to do so, but still. Also Shayne's home location has apparently shifted back to California from New York.

The plot concerns Nazi's stealing and smuggling industrial diamond's, Shayne's employer in this film is an American defense contractor. Shayne pursues the smugglers aboard a passanger ship, meets later 50's Superman George Reeves who seems slimy at first but turns out to be an undercover FBI man, as well as another old flame, Helene Whitney.

This movie was released Janury 6th 1942, one month after Pearl Harbor, but was clearly made before because Shayne follows the smugglers to Honolulu and no reference to the attack is made. The film is crowded and feels longer then it's 74 minute running time. Highlights include a snipper who continually fails to hit Shayne and the detective pretending to be a stereotypically accented southern gentleman. **1/2

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