Michael Shayne

MICHAEL SHAYNE, PRIVATE DETECTIVE-Lloyd Nolan plays the title role, a wisecracking down on his luck PI who's hired by a rich client (Clarence Klob) to watch over his gambling obsessed daughter Phyllis (Marjorie Weaver) while he's away. A police chief (Edward MacBride) tries to pin the murder of Harry Grange (George Meeker) on Shayne as he was shot with the detective's own gun. Later after pretending to be a doctor Shayne and Phyllis team up with her old aunt Olivia (Elizabeth Patterson) to solve the murder. A horse racing fix and the disappearance of the daughter of a casino owner (Douglas Dumbrille) figure into it. This murder mystery (based on the novel “The Private Practice of Michael Shayne” by Brett Halliday) with comic overtones is a little too routine and talky but the characters and acting make it enjoyable. It's the first of seven 20^th Century Fox productions all starring Lloyd Nolan as the flippant gumshoe. Four more lower budgeted entries were later produced by PRC (with Hugh Beaumont in the lead). The Shayne character was on radio and later in a short lived TV series (starring Richard Denning).

Director Eugene Forde had directed several Warner Oland/Charlie Chan mysteries.

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