Michael Shayne, Private Detective (1940)

December 19, 1940, release date

Directed by Eugene Forde

Screenplay by Stanley Rauh, Manning O’Connor

Based on the novel The Private Practice of Michael Shayne by Brett Halliday

Music by Cyril J. Mockridge

Edited by Alfred DeGaetano

Cinematography by George Schneiderman

Lloyd Nolan as Michael Shayne

Marjorie Weaver as Phyllis Brighton

Joan Valerie as Marsha Gordon

Walter Abel as Elliott Thomas

Elizabeth Patterson as Aunt Olivia

Donald MacBride as Police Captain Peter Painter

Douglas Dumbrille as Benny Gordon

Clarence Kolb as Hiram B. Brighton

George Meeker as Harry Grange

Charles Coleman as Ponsby, the Brightons’ butler

Adrian Morris as Al, assistant to Captain Painter

Robert Emmett Keane as Larry Kincaid

Frank Orth as Steve

Irving Bacon as the fisherman

Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox

Michael Shayne, Private Detective, released almost exactly seventy-six years ago, is the first in a series of twelve films. Lloyd Nolan starred as Shayne in seven of the films until the series was dropped by Twentieth Century Fox. These seven films were released from 1940 to 1942. When the series was picked up by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), Hugh Beaumont took over the role of Shayne for five more films, which were released in 1946 and 1947. I have not seen all of the films in the series, but, of course, I have seen Michael Shayne, Private Detective, and I do think it can be considered an avant noir (or proto-noir, a precursor to noir). Some may prefer to call it a mystery, and I am quite comfortable putting it both categories.

The film opens at the racetrack, and viewers understand from the start that Phyllis Brighton likes to bet on the horses. Her father, Hiram P. Brighton, is a member of the racing board, which checks horses for doping via a saliva test. When Brighton won’t give his daughter Phyllis any more money to bet on a horse called Banjo Boy, she looks for and finds someone who will loan her money in exchange for a brooch. Detective Shayne interrupts the transaction because he knows Phyllis’s father, although he has not yet been introduced to Phyllis.

The film then cuts to Shayne’s office. Moving men employed by the Eastside Furniture Company are moving furniture out of Shayne’s office because he can’t pay his bills. A Mr. Kincaid (Shayne calls him a shyster lawyer later in the film) comes in and offers Shayne a case, but Shayne refuses on ethical grounds. He doesn’t appreciate being asked to pressure a friend to pressure in turn an employee, Harry Grange, to pay the $10,000 he owes after betting on a horse that won. Kincaid and Shayne get into an altercation over Shayne’s definition of ethics. Shayne punches Kincaid, and Kincaid steals Shayne’s gun. He holds Shayne at gunpoint and then leaves with his gun.

I am pointing out these opening sequences because they are packed with detail that viewers need to note if they are to make sense of the plot. The film is only about seventy-seven minutes long, and these opening sequences are short, too. Viewers in 1940 would have had to pay attention if they wanted to understand the twists and turns of Shayne’s detective work. Viewers today have to do the same, but they are at a disadvantage because cultural and historical events that would have been common knowledge in 1940 are not so today. This lack of cultural and historical context doesn’t have to be an obstacle. At least today viewers can search for confusing terms online to find an explanation.

One example is The Baffle Book, which Phyllis’s Aunt Olivia discusses with Detective Shayne when she waylays him on his first visit to the Brighton household. From an online search, I discovered that The Baffle Book: Fifteen Fiendishly Challenging Detective Puzzles (by Lassiter Wren and Randle McKay, hardcover, 286 pages, published in 1928 by Doubleday, Doran & Company) was popular reading at the time Michael Shayne, Private Detective was released. Viewers in 1940 would have understood what Aunt Olivia was talking about; I had to search online to figure out the reference.

(This blog post about Michael Shayne, Private Detective contains spoilers.)

Michael Shayne, Private Detective mixes murder, mystery, and humor. Aunt Olivia provides some comic relief for the film and for Detective Shayne. At one point, she takes it upon herself to solve Grange’s murder, which she read about in the newspaper. She and the Brighton’s butler Ponsby are starting a file on the case.

• Aunt Olivia (to Detective Shayne): “Here I’ve been, solving other people’s murders all my life, and now that I have one so close to home, why, it’s just wonderful. Ponsby and I have started working on the case, but we haven’t any decent clues, have we Ponsby?”

• Ponsby: “Only the fact that Mr. Grange died in a sea of tomato ketchup.” [a reference to Shayne’s attempt to fool Phyllis into thinking that Harry Grange, who was merely unconscious at the time, had been shot in the chest by pouring ketchup over the man’s shirtfront]

• Aunt Olivia: “Yes, and that doesn’t make sense. The Baffle Book always gives you one or two things you can get your teeth into.”

Murder, mystery, and the detective as the main character aren’t the only reasons to think of Michael Shayne, Private Detective as an avant noir. The use of lighting throughout the film is almost—but not quite—comparable to that used in many films noir. Many of the scenes seem to be lit from the side so that the shadows cast are askew. The shadows don’t obscure quite like they do in films noir, but the use of lighting is noticeably different in Michael Shayne, Private Detective.

There’s no femme fatale, and the general tone of the film is definitely not riddled with angst; instead, it’s rather lighthearted with all the humor and the good nature on the part of most of the main characters. The film is almost—but not quite—a film noir, so it makes sense to call it an avant noir. And it’s a lot of fun to watch.