Michael Shayne: Private Detective
Michael Shayne: Private Detective

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- 66/100 based on 559 votes

Millionaire sportsman Hiram Brighton hires gumshoe Michael Shayne to keep his spoiled daughter Phyllis away from racetrack betting windows and roulette wheels. After Phyllis slips away and continues her compulsive gambling, Shayne fakes the murder of her gambler boyfriend, who is also romancing the daughter of casino owner Benny Gordon, in order to frighten her. When the tout really ends up murdered, Shayne and Phyllis' Aunt Olivia, an avid reader of murder mysteries, both tr... (Full plot summary below)

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Actors in Michael Shayne: Private Detective:

Lloyd Nolan
Marjorie Weaver
Joan Valerie
Walter Abel
Elizabeth Patterson
Donald MacBride

Full Plot Details

Millionaire sportsman Hiram Brighton hires gumshoe Michael Shayne to keep his spoiled daughter Phyllis away from racetrack betting windows and roulette wheels. After Phyllis slips away and continues her compulsive gambling, Shayne fakes the murder of her gambler boyfriend, who is also romancing the daughter of casino owner Benny Gordon, in order to frighten her. When the tout really ends up murdered, Shayne and Phyllis' Aunt Olivia, an avid reader of murder mysteries, both try to find the identity of the killer.

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Movie Reviews

User Review - 10/10 by Bruce BThis is just one of 4 movies in a Michael Shayne collection. Glad I came across this one, very enjoyable, a smart witted and comical detective who is out to solve any crime. Worth 5 stars
User Review - 8/10 by Alex SAn extremely fun little hard-boiled pulp film.
User Review - 8/10 by James HPart of an irresistibly cheap purchase of a set of Fox Cinema Classics releases, I'd never even heard of the character Michael Shayne. Brett Halliday (as David Dresser) created him in the late 1930s, apparently as an all-new character type, but one which has since become so familiar as to be an archetype--or perhaps a cliché. Being someone who does not voraciously devour mystery novels or films, I am blissfully ignorant of how common the character is. Of course, these were Fox b-roll pictures, so it's no surprise that the characters aren't incredibly deep, and as a result I do see some familiarity in Shayne, but not enough to ruin, or even affect, my enjoyment--except, perhaps, in a positive way. Michael Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) is a private detective (thus the clever title) who is currently down on his financial luck, having the furniture moved out of his office against his will. But our first glimpse of him is at the racetrack (horses, not dogs, just for the record) where Phyllis Brighton (Marjorie Weaver) is caught up in her own gambling fever, to the disappointment of her father Hiram P. Brighton (Clarence Kolb). Shayne puts a stop to her attempts to regain lost money by interceding with a man who is about to supply her with more money for another bet, on which she has a "sizzling tip." Her father being the racing commissioner, he takes a "sure thing" as a sign of cheating--probably doping the horse. When the tip pays off, Phyllis is disappointed and Shayne receives an offer for a case--Larry Kincaid (Robert Emmett Keane), in the name of an anonymous client asks Shayne to return a $10,000 investment to said client from the hands of Harry Grange (George Meeker). Shayne turns it down and is instead hired by Hiram, who is impressed with his ability to handle Phyllis' gambling. Of course, Phyllis rides the coattails of Grange in the casino of Benny Gordon (Douglass Dumbrille), whose daughter Marsha (Joan Valerie) has been romancing Grange. When Grange turns up dead, this swirling mass of characters and an antagonistic Police Chief Painter (Donald MacBride) leads Shayne on a merry chase to avoid having the murder pinned to himself and find the real murder to guarantee that pin won't stick. Shortly before this movie ended, I had a sudden flash memory of a review I'd read while trying to decide whether I was really interested in these films or just suckered by a good deal--someone said that Elizabeth Patterson (who plays Aunt Olivia to Phyllis) stole the show. That reviewer was half right. Aunt Olivia's elderly fascination with mysteries that peaked with Shayne's appearance, and her resulting interest in solving this case alongside him is a great device--not one that feels false (as the use of this device in later films, and likely books, surely implies), and adds a nice extra layer to the light and comedic overtone to the film. However, Nolan very ably holds himself up to the role of the hardboiled (perhaps light-boiled in this film version) Irish detective, with a smartassed remark for just about any line given him, all reeled off not with a Bogart swagger, but with the kind of sarcastic mischievousness of an average person with a quick wit--not to prove his superiority (though it's often there), but rather to amuse himself and possibly those around him, as well as deflect questions or statements he has no desire to honestly respond to. They don't make you chuckle at their snappy intelligence so much as giggle the way you would if someone actually had a snippy retort to a comment made by someone in front of you. It's not a lesser form, but it's certainly different. I'd understood that he gathered the cast toward the end of the film to reveal the plot, which I was wary of--it often comes off as a cheap and ridiculous device for easily reeling out the plot to the audience, but here it was mired in Shayne's sense of humour and his clever way of manipulating people--thus filling in gaps for him as well as the audience, and making it flow quite naturally. Despite Leonard Maltin's middling and mediocre reviews of this film, it's actually a pretty great little one--Eugene Forde directs competently if not spectacularly, in a very solid turn, with a screenplay that never hobbles by Stanley Rauh and Manning O'Connor. It doesn't jump out and scream, "Lost classic!" but it's hardly the shrugging two stars of Maltin's review, either. I'm very pleased with the purchase and do look forward to more of Nolan's amusing--but, let me add, still tough enough--P.I.
User Review - 6/10 by jay nBreezy mystery made all the better by Lloyd Nolan and a game Elizabeth Patterson.

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