Murder is
My Business (1946) – 5.0
Michael Shayne returns in a series of five films for PRC starring Hugh Beaumont (Leave it to Beaver). Shayne had been portrayed earlier in seven films from 1940 to 1942 starring Lloyd Nolan. The Nolan ones were produced by Fox, so these are definitely a step-down in quality. They are also very much made for the second feature market, this one coming in at 62-minutes. Still, it's tough guy detective Michael Shayne, created by Brett Halliday in a series of fifty novels from 1939 to 1958 - and then others took over the character to write further novels. I read one of those ghost-written ones and it was awful. Not sure if Halliday's are any better.
But I will take noir anyways I can get it - by the bottle or in a shot glass. Low class or in a highball. Tough guys and tougher dames ring my cinematic bell. The terse dialogue, the louse of a cop who likes to roust people, the peepers and creepers that inhabit this world. Gunsels who get killed by the end. The sock in the jaw. The knockout drugs. Nightclubs and blonde singers of torch songs. The private eye who for $20 a day and expenses gets beaten up, threatened, left for dead and never quits. He rarely gets the girl because she wants him dead. Shayne gets socked four times in this one. All by the same guy. His defense is like the Maginot Line. He needs to do better. I saw the punches coming from across the room. Get your left up man. We all learned that in high school. This is the first in the series, so hopefully his reflexes get faster and his punches get harder. Knowing Beaumont mainly from being the calm and understanding father on Leave it to Beaver, he seems an odd choice as Shayne, but during this period he played a lot of tough guys in B films. After this he was in three films as P.I. Dennis O'Brien and a slew of other low-budget films. The Beaver made him famous.
A wealthy married woman hires him to find out who is sending her threatening letters. And to protect her. Nice job Shayne. Before he even gets paid, she is found dead and his friend Joe was set up to take the fall. A real fall. The hard kind as he is shot dead by the husband. Joe's pretty blonde wife takes a gun to shoot Shayne and loses her nerve - only of interest as she is played by Virginia Christine - years later and a few pounds heavier we all got to know her as Mrs. Olson, The Folger's Coffee lady in TV ads. His secretary (Cheryl Walker) snoops around and gets into trouble, another murder, a pretty blonde comes on to Shayne and he gets knocked over a few times. The script isn't going to be mistaken for Hammett but the dialogue is fast and so are the women. The acting by the co-actors could use an upgrade but this is PRC.
Larceny in her Heart (1946) – 5.5
The second in the Hugh Beaumont Mike Shayne film series from PRC. That means it is cheap and short, which is just fine. Shayne and his secretary Phyllis (Cheryl Walker) are going off on a two-week vacation. Together. Come on Shayne. Haven't you heard of MeToo? You can't have a fling with your secretary. Well, he is saved from a future lawsuit when Stallings (Gordon Richards) walks in with a case for Shayne. He wants to find his stepdaughter who has gone missing. A $500 retainer looks as good as a steak to a hungry man. It takes a turn for easy when the stepdaughter walks in a little later and collapses in his office. He takes out the $500 check and kisses it and dreams of a soft bed and running servants. But a case can never be that easy.
He tucks her up and goes out to run an errand. A little careless on his part. When he returns, she is dead. Strangled. He leaves again and when he comes back, the body is gone and so maybe is the $500. But like a sadistic merry-go-round, he tries that parlor trick again and leaves and she is back, just as dead as before. For good measure the cops keep popping in and Phyllis too. And he has to play hide and seek with the body. That $500 is looking like a mirage. But this is Shayne, crack Private Eye always with a gambit up his sleeve. He still has his glass-jaw from Murder is My Business and goes down twice - the last time in front of Phyllis who thanks the guy - now I can take him on vacation. To Niagara Falls. He may really go down for the count this time.
Blonde for a Day (1946) – 5.5
PRC returns with the third in the five-film series with Hugh Beaumont (Leave it to Beaver) as Michal Shayne. There were three of them in 1946 and two in 1947. Giving one the sense of how quickly and cheaply they were made. But no worse than many of the B crime films of the time. And no better. This one has a bunch of blondes and murders in it which is always a plus. Shayne is now living in San Francisco and has changed actresses for his secretary Phyllis from Cheryl Walker to Kathryn Adams in this one. Adams happened to be Beaumont's real wife and they had two sons - Beaver and Wally - and a daughter. Ok, Hunter and Mark. But their flirtation remains the same. As does his glass jaw. In all three of these so far, it takes one good sock to his jaw to knock him out.
He receives a telegram from a Tim, reporter in his old hometown asking for his help. He has gotten beaten up by a racketeer after reporting on him. Shayne tells Phyllis no way - until he reads in the paper that his friend has been shot and is in the hospital. "Get us two tickets on the next plane". Blondes are crawling out of the woodworks. Three not so lucky gamblers who have won big get killed before getting far and they suspect a blonde dame with a distinct perfume and a .32. Tim's boss who has warned him off the story happens to have a blonde wife who looks at Tim like an Easter basket full of goodies. Another blonde shows up dead. The cop played by Cy Kendall is of course giving Shayne a hard time - but Shayne is always a step ahead. Not too bad - it keeps the killer a mystery till near the end and Beaumont is sliding into his role with ease.
Three on a Ticket (1947) – 5.0
The fourth in the Hugh Beaumont Michael Shayne series produced by PRC. They cram a lot in the one-hour running time - a bunch of killings, a femme fatale and Shayne getting socked more often than a prize fighter. The earlier films have shown that this Shayne can't take a punch or fight his way out of a game of tag played by a girl's elementary class. It gets a bit tedious seeing him knocked out time after time. Damn, you are Michael Shayne - definitely no Mike Hammer. Dead bodies and blondes always get him in trouble. This time in a matter of minutes.
An old acquaintance walks into his office and crumples down dead from a bullet wound. Kind of impolite. The cops (Ralph Dunn) don't buy that Shayne knows nothing about this. He forgets to mention the thousand dollars he is holding on to and a third of a baggage reclaim ticket. Then the blonde (Louise Curry) shows up with the smell of an alley cat out all night. But Shayne likes and especially likes the kiss she gives him. All she wants from Shayne is for him to kill her husband. The dead man had been working for her. Shayne figures this is all connected. The bad guys assume he has the ticket and keep beating him up. He fights back like a baby in a stroller. His secretary (Cheryl Walker) has a better punch than he does. The cops continue to harass him, the government says state secrets have been stolen, the blonde continues to tease and people keep getting killed. Not a bad B from PRC with solid acting from all involved. No budget to speak of as usual. Most of the videos except for Blonde for a Day are in dreadful condition and a test to get through.
Too Many Winners (1947) – 5.0
In this, the fifth and final Hugh Beaumont Michael Shayne mystery it takes about ten-minutes before Shayne is knocked out with a sock to the jaw. He needs to take some self-defense classes. But that is still five minutes after he meets a blonde who spells her name Trouble. And twenty-minutes before Shayne gets shot. And this is all in the same day. Being a P.I. in Los Angeles is a tough business. At least this time, he is well paid for his efforts. $10,000. Back in 1947 that is like a gold mine. This flies by like a mosquito on speed - but with too much time given to the feisty romantic give and take with his secretary (played by Trudy Marshall this time around). You call your secretary cutie, babe and doll today and just wait for the lawsuit to show up.
Shayne and the secretary are practicing duck calls for their vacation together when the phone rings - like it always does - and it is a woman (Claire Carlton) who says she has some information to sell him. He can't resist a woman and heads on over, but the price is too high for him. He warns her to be careful and sure enough she is killed not much later. So much for the blondes in this one. The cops of course think Shayne did it. They probably blamed him for the Black Dahlia murder too. He is contacted by the owner (John Hamilton) of the San Jacinto racetrack. Something is fishy. There are more winners than there should be. By the time nearly everyone has been killed, Shayne figures it out. This was the end of the series and the end of PRC. From 1939 to 1947 PRC produced 179 films - low budget usually filmed in seven days or less- Westerns and mysteries mainly. They were probably the best known of the Poverty Row film studios. They were purchased and incorporated into the Rank Organization. I am kind of a fan of their films - they served their purpose generally as the B picture, often got actors on the way down or on the way up and from time to time actually made a good film.
Michael Shayne returns in a series of five films for PRC starring Hugh Beaumont (Leave it to Beaver). Shayne had been portrayed earlier in seven films from 1940 to 1942 starring Lloyd Nolan. The Nolan ones were produced by Fox, so these are definitely a step-down in quality. They are also very much made for the second feature market, this one coming in at 62-minutes. Still, it's tough guy detective Michael Shayne, created by Brett Halliday in a series of fifty novels from 1939 to 1958 - and then others took over the character to write further novels. I read one of those ghost-written ones and it was awful. Not sure if Halliday's are any better.
But I will take noir anyways I can get it - by the bottle or in a shot glass. Low class or in a highball. Tough guys and tougher dames ring my cinematic bell. The terse dialogue, the louse of a cop who likes to roust people, the peepers and creepers that inhabit this world. Gunsels who get killed by the end. The sock in the jaw. The knockout drugs. Nightclubs and blonde singers of torch songs. The private eye who for $20 a day and expenses gets beaten up, threatened, left for dead and never quits. He rarely gets the girl because she wants him dead. Shayne gets socked four times in this one. All by the same guy. His defense is like the Maginot Line. He needs to do better. I saw the punches coming from across the room. Get your left up man. We all learned that in high school. This is the first in the series, so hopefully his reflexes get faster and his punches get harder. Knowing Beaumont mainly from being the calm and understanding father on Leave it to Beaver, he seems an odd choice as Shayne, but during this period he played a lot of tough guys in B films. After this he was in three films as P.I. Dennis O'Brien and a slew of other low-budget films. The Beaver made him famous.
A wealthy married woman hires him to find out who is sending her threatening letters. And to protect her. Nice job Shayne. Before he even gets paid, she is found dead and his friend Joe was set up to take the fall. A real fall. The hard kind as he is shot dead by the husband. Joe's pretty blonde wife takes a gun to shoot Shayne and loses her nerve - only of interest as she is played by Virginia Christine - years later and a few pounds heavier we all got to know her as Mrs. Olson, The Folger's Coffee lady in TV ads. His secretary (Cheryl Walker) snoops around and gets into trouble, another murder, a pretty blonde comes on to Shayne and he gets knocked over a few times. The script isn't going to be mistaken for Hammett but the dialogue is fast and so are the women. The acting by the co-actors could use an upgrade but this is PRC.
Larceny in her Heart (1946) – 5.5
The second in the Hugh Beaumont Mike Shayne film series from PRC. That means it is cheap and short, which is just fine. Shayne and his secretary Phyllis (Cheryl Walker) are going off on a two-week vacation. Together. Come on Shayne. Haven't you heard of MeToo? You can't have a fling with your secretary. Well, he is saved from a future lawsuit when Stallings (Gordon Richards) walks in with a case for Shayne. He wants to find his stepdaughter who has gone missing. A $500 retainer looks as good as a steak to a hungry man. It takes a turn for easy when the stepdaughter walks in a little later and collapses in his office. He takes out the $500 check and kisses it and dreams of a soft bed and running servants. But a case can never be that easy.
He tucks her up and goes out to run an errand. A little careless on his part. When he returns, she is dead. Strangled. He leaves again and when he comes back, the body is gone and so maybe is the $500. But like a sadistic merry-go-round, he tries that parlor trick again and leaves and she is back, just as dead as before. For good measure the cops keep popping in and Phyllis too. And he has to play hide and seek with the body. That $500 is looking like a mirage. But this is Shayne, crack Private Eye always with a gambit up his sleeve. He still has his glass-jaw from Murder is My Business and goes down twice - the last time in front of Phyllis who thanks the guy - now I can take him on vacation. To Niagara Falls. He may really go down for the count this time.
Blonde for a Day (1946) – 5.5
PRC returns with the third in the five-film series with Hugh Beaumont (Leave it to Beaver) as Michal Shayne. There were three of them in 1946 and two in 1947. Giving one the sense of how quickly and cheaply they were made. But no worse than many of the B crime films of the time. And no better. This one has a bunch of blondes and murders in it which is always a plus. Shayne is now living in San Francisco and has changed actresses for his secretary Phyllis from Cheryl Walker to Kathryn Adams in this one. Adams happened to be Beaumont's real wife and they had two sons - Beaver and Wally - and a daughter. Ok, Hunter and Mark. But their flirtation remains the same. As does his glass jaw. In all three of these so far, it takes one good sock to his jaw to knock him out.
He receives a telegram from a Tim, reporter in his old hometown asking for his help. He has gotten beaten up by a racketeer after reporting on him. Shayne tells Phyllis no way - until he reads in the paper that his friend has been shot and is in the hospital. "Get us two tickets on the next plane". Blondes are crawling out of the woodworks. Three not so lucky gamblers who have won big get killed before getting far and they suspect a blonde dame with a distinct perfume and a .32. Tim's boss who has warned him off the story happens to have a blonde wife who looks at Tim like an Easter basket full of goodies. Another blonde shows up dead. The cop played by Cy Kendall is of course giving Shayne a hard time - but Shayne is always a step ahead. Not too bad - it keeps the killer a mystery till near the end and Beaumont is sliding into his role with ease.
Three on a Ticket (1947) – 5.0
The fourth in the Hugh Beaumont Michael Shayne series produced by PRC. They cram a lot in the one-hour running time - a bunch of killings, a femme fatale and Shayne getting socked more often than a prize fighter. The earlier films have shown that this Shayne can't take a punch or fight his way out of a game of tag played by a girl's elementary class. It gets a bit tedious seeing him knocked out time after time. Damn, you are Michael Shayne - definitely no Mike Hammer. Dead bodies and blondes always get him in trouble. This time in a matter of minutes.
An old acquaintance walks into his office and crumples down dead from a bullet wound. Kind of impolite. The cops (Ralph Dunn) don't buy that Shayne knows nothing about this. He forgets to mention the thousand dollars he is holding on to and a third of a baggage reclaim ticket. Then the blonde (Louise Curry) shows up with the smell of an alley cat out all night. But Shayne likes and especially likes the kiss she gives him. All she wants from Shayne is for him to kill her husband. The dead man had been working for her. Shayne figures this is all connected. The bad guys assume he has the ticket and keep beating him up. He fights back like a baby in a stroller. His secretary (Cheryl Walker) has a better punch than he does. The cops continue to harass him, the government says state secrets have been stolen, the blonde continues to tease and people keep getting killed. Not a bad B from PRC with solid acting from all involved. No budget to speak of as usual. Most of the videos except for Blonde for a Day are in dreadful condition and a test to get through.
Too Many Winners (1947) – 5.0
In this, the fifth and final Hugh Beaumont Michael Shayne mystery it takes about ten-minutes before Shayne is knocked out with a sock to the jaw. He needs to take some self-defense classes. But that is still five minutes after he meets a blonde who spells her name Trouble. And twenty-minutes before Shayne gets shot. And this is all in the same day. Being a P.I. in Los Angeles is a tough business. At least this time, he is well paid for his efforts. $10,000. Back in 1947 that is like a gold mine. This flies by like a mosquito on speed - but with too much time given to the feisty romantic give and take with his secretary (played by Trudy Marshall this time around). You call your secretary cutie, babe and doll today and just wait for the lawsuit to show up.
Shayne and the secretary are practicing duck calls for their vacation together when the phone rings - like it always does - and it is a woman (Claire Carlton) who says she has some information to sell him. He can't resist a woman and heads on over, but the price is too high for him. He warns her to be careful and sure enough she is killed not much later. So much for the blondes in this one. The cops of course think Shayne did it. They probably blamed him for the Black Dahlia murder too. He is contacted by the owner (John Hamilton) of the San Jacinto racetrack. Something is fishy. There are more winners than there should be. By the time nearly everyone has been killed, Shayne figures it out. This was the end of the series and the end of PRC. From 1939 to 1947 PRC produced 179 films - low budget usually filmed in seven days or less- Westerns and mysteries mainly. They were probably the best known of the Poverty Row film studios. They were purchased and incorporated into the Rank Organization. I am kind of a fan of their films - they served their purpose generally as the B picture, often got actors on the way down or on the way up and from time to time actually made a good film.
