Flaxy Martin (1949)

I wanted to see Flaxy Martin because of Zachary Scott. I think he is an underrated actor, and I always enjoy his films. Scott is often associated with playing creepy cads, probably because of his outstanding performance as Monte Beragon in Mildred Pierce (1945). But many of his roles, including his roles in films noir, don’t always involve thugs or cads. In Flaxy Martin, he plays Walt Colby, a lawyer who gets in over his head as legal counsel for Hap Richie, a club owner who sometimes resorts to illegal activities to get what he wants. It doesn’t help that Colby has fallen in love with Hap’s girlfriend, the Flaxy Martin of the film’s title.

Flaxy Martin has shown up from time to time at the Internet Archive, which is where I saw it, but films sometimes come and go at the archive, and Flaxy Martin is no exception. I found it at the archive twice, then it disappeared twice. If a film disappears before you have a chance to see it, try searching on the film’s title once again at the archive’s website to find out if it has been reposted. Flaxy Martin sometimes shows up on the television channel Movies!, as it did earlier this week and will again tonight (July 16, 2026) at 10:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. Check the website here for the schedule.

The film has one of the most startling openings I have ever seen. The credits roll while a familiar theme plays on the soundtrack. The music is close to a film noir theme often used by Twentieth-Century Fox. If you are a fan of The Dark Corner (1946), a Fox noir, and have seen it as often as I have, you will recognize the musical theme to Flaxy Martin. (The same theme is also used for other Fox noirs.) The credits end, the music stops, and the film cuts to a window in the middle of being shot out and its glass shattered. Once the shooting stops, a man jumps out of the window and runs down the dark city street. The transition is jarring, and it is perfect for film noir.

The man escaping through the shattered window is Caesar, criminal associate of Hap Richie. Richie wants lawyer Walt Colby to get Caesar off the hook. Colby protests: He never agreed to be a lawyer for anything or anyone else besides Richie’s businesses, but Richie insists. Colby relents, but the conflict between the two men is already set up before viewers realize that Colby is in love with Richie’s girlfriend, Flaxy Martin. Martin is not loyal to anyone but herself, and she is the femme fatale of this film. This isn’t giving anything away: Viewers can see this almost from the start. After Colby visits Caesar in jail, he calls Martin, who is entertaining Richie, and both of them are entertaining various ways to play Colby.

(This article about Flaxy Martin contains spoilers.)

Before Caesar’s trial begins, Richie and Martin enlist a woman named Peggy Farrar to give false testimony. With this surprise witness, the case against Caesar goes south, and Caesar is acquitted. Richie is thrilled with the result. Colby knows that he has been double-crossed with a witness who gave false testimony. The district attorney isn’t happy with the verdict either and suspects foul play on the part of Caesar and Richie. Colby warns Richie about Farrar: She wants more money now, and she told Colby about her deal with Richie and lying on the stand. Colby threatens to leave and talk to the D.A. Richie finally agrees to cancel his contract with the Richie syndicate, but he hatches a plan to set up Colby.

Richie calls Caesar for “a little job,” and Peggy Farrar is fished out of the river the next day. Two police detectives go to Farrar’s apartment to start their investigation. One of them finds a marriage license for Farrar with Martin’s name as witness on it. Martin is the logical next step in their investigation. Martin goes to Colby for help. She wants Colby to leave Richie out of it, but Colby doesn’t think that is a good option because there is too much circumstantial evidence.

Walt Colby is so smitten with Martin that he offers to confess to Farrar’s murder and shield Martin and Richie from any involvement. He is convinced that he will succeed in diverting the case because there is no evidence against him. When the two detectives show up, Colby turns himself over to them.

This was one plot point that I found a bit hard to believe. Did Colby’s ego get in the way of his good judgment? Colby is convinced that he can escape a guilty verdict not only because he is innocent but also because he plans to defend himself. But perhaps love really is blind because he never foresees how Richie and Martin will double-cross him: Fred Banford, a cab driver, is hired by Richie to testify against Colby at his trial. Branford maintains that Colby killed Peggy Farrar, and not in self-defense. Colby realizes that Richie and Martin have set him up. He is found guilty and sentenced to twenty years in prison.

Sam Malko visits Colby in prison. This is Malko’s first appearance in the story, but he is at the prison because he feels that he owes Colby a favor. Colby helped his wife and children when he was in legal trouble. Malko overheard Caesar talking about Colby taking the rap for him, and he sees Flaxy Martin with Hap Richie, who comes to his garage all the time. It doesn’t make sense, according to Malko, because he always thought that Martin was Colby’s girlfriend. If Colby had any hopes about Martin before Malko’s visit, they are shattered now.

Colby escapes from a train while he is being transferred from the courthouse jail to prison after his sentencing. He walks away from the tracks and flags down a car driven by Nora Carson. He collapses in the road, and Carson brings him home to recuperate. Carson tells him that the D.A. is quoted in a newspaper article as saying that he thinks Colby is innocent. She also tells him why she brought him home to recuperate: “I guess you want to know why I helped you. Well, let’s just say it’s because I’m a sucker. I happen to feel sorry for anyone who runs away from something. I know what it is to run away.”

Carson’s nosy next-door neighbor calls the local sheriff because she is suspicious of Carson’s visitor. Carson tells the sheriff that Colby is her brother dropping in for a visit. Then Roper, another of Hap Richie’s associates, shows up, ready to use his gun. Roper takes the sheriff’s gun and orders him to use his handcuffs to cuff Colby and Carson together, then he locks the sheriff in a closet. (I did wonder at this point what happened to the nosy neighbor. Why isn’t she watching out for the sheriff now?)

Colby and Carson escape, take Roper’s car, talk their way out of a police roadblock, and head back to New York City to ask Malko for help getting out of the handcuffs. Colby wants to talk to Caesar, but he is dead, shot in the back, by the time Colby arrives at his walk-up apartment. Caesar’s (old, black, landline) phone rings, and Colby picks up the receiver, just to listen. It’s Roper, and he knows Colby is listening on the phone. Colby has no choice but to leave Caesar’s apartment, which leads to a rather lengthy cat-and-mouse chase between him and Roper.

Flaxy Martin has heard what happened to Caesar and Roper at Richie’s club, and she arrives home to call Richie and tell him that she is leaving town. By this time, Colby is hiding in Martin’s apartment (he escaped Roper), and he overhears her talking to Richie. Martin tries to insist that she loves Colby, but he is not as easy to convince anymore. Richie arrives, and Martin pulls a gun and tries to double-cross both of them. Martin shoots Richie and kills him, and Colby takes her gun. He calls the police and leaves her to face them alone. He returns to Malko’s garage to see Nora Carson. But Carson isn’t interested in running away anymore. She tells Colby, “Nobody ever ran away and ever had anything but bad dreams. I’ve had enough of them.” Carson leaves without Colby, and Malko is on hand to set Colby straight. He tells Colby that Carson loves him and that he shouldn’t let her get away. Colby agrees, and he and Carson get their happy ending. But this is film noir: They have to face the police and their questions first.

The plot of Flaxy Martin is not as complicated as those of other films noir, but it still pays to see it more than once to catch all the details. For example, the first time that I saw it, I couldn’t figure out why Sam Malko took such an interest in Walt Colby’s predicament. His visit to Colby in prison is his first screen appearance, and there didn’t seem to be any backstory between them. It was only on a second viewing that I heard Malko say that he feels he owes Colby a favor because of his help in the past.

A second viewing also cleared up some of my confusion about Nora Carson’s reasons for not wanting to go on the run with Walter Colby at the end of the film. In the middle of the film, she tells Colby that she understands the need to run away because she has done it herself. But in Malko’s garage, she tells him that she doesn’t like his plan to run away. What was she thinking? It turns out that I missed some important lines of dialogue: Carson is tired of running. She is in love with Colby and doesn’t want to keep moving. She would rather settle down and forego the bad dreams that plague people on the run. Malko sets Colby straight and helps him see what his future could be.

Maybe I would have had an easier time following the film’s dialogue if I had had a DVD copy that came with subtitles. The Internet Archive doesn’t have captioning, but free is free and hard to beat.

It was a pleasure to see the film more than once, in spite of a few fuzzy plot points. Zachary Scott is fantastic in the role of Walter Colby, and Tom D’Andrea is the same as the trustworthy Sam Malko. He shows the right amount of hesitation about helping Colby and Carson when they arrive in handcuffs at his garage before helping them in the end. Virginia Mayo has the title role, and she is entirely convincing as the femme fatale playing two men against one another. But the film isn’t really hers. Zachary Scott is the true lead, the true star, which just added to the fun for me.

February 15, 1949, release date  •  Directed by Richard L. Bare  •  Screenplay by David Lang  •  Based on a story by David Lang  •  Music by William Lava  •  Edited by Frank Magee  •  Cinematography by Carl Guthrie

Virginia Mayo as Flaxy Martin  •  Zachary Scott as Walter (“Walt”) Colby  •  Dorothy Malone as Nora Carson  •  Tom D’Andrea as Sam Malko  •  Helen Westcott as Peggy Farrar  •  Douglas Kennedy as Hap Richie  •  Elisha Cook Jr. as Roper  •  Douglas Fowley as Max, the detective  •  Monte Blue as Joe, the detective  •  Jack Overman as Caesar  •  Max Wagner as Charles McMahon  •  John Harmon as Fred Branford  •  Harlan Warde as McClane, assistant district attorney

Distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures-First National Pictures  •  Produced by Warner Bros. Pictures-First National Pictures

Just Off Broadway (1942)

Of all the Michael Shayne films starring Lloyd Nolan that I have seen so far, Just Off Broadway has to be the noir-est. The film is still humorous and, yes, Phil Silvers plays Roy Higgins, a put-upon freelance photographer, for laughs. But there is more of a sense of danger in this film than in the previous Shayne detective films. When one of the characters, Rita Darling, is slapped across the face by another, George Dolphin, I almost wondered if she would get herself killed, too. That’s not something I have ever wondered about before in a Shayne film. That element of danger wasn’t the only difference from previous Michael Shayne films. The identity of the murderer came as a complete surprise to me, which is not always true of these short detective films.

Just Off Broadway is the sixth in a series of twelve films about the detective Michael Shayne. 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. Click on each film title below to see my blog post about the first five Michael Shayne films.

◊ Michael Shayne, Private Detective

◊ Sleepers West

◊ Dressed to Kill

◊ Blue, White and Perfect

◊ The Man Who Wouldn’t Die

Of course, some elements of Just Off Broadway are repeated from the first five films in the series. Michael Shayne is short on money and won’t be getting paid for his investigative work—again. His lack of finances is a running gag throughout the film and throughout the series. He and the female news reporter, Judy Taylor, who is working with him and wants the scoop, once had a romantic attachment, but Shayne is as short on luck in the romance department as he is with money. There’s no doubt, however, that he is a competent investigator, even if he does break the rules to find out the truth. As in the previous films, Shayne explains all the details of the murder and the case to end the film, this time to everyone in the courtroom at a murder trial.

The film starts with a chaotic crowd scene outside a criminal court building. Police officers hold back the crowd on the sidewalk while a car pulls up to the curb. When a woman, Rita Darling, gets out of the car, another woman asks for her autograph. Roy Higgins wants to take Darling’s photo, but a police lieutenant interferes. Others in the crowd rough her up a bit. One woman tries to steal her fur as a souvenir, and Rita belts her on the side of the head with her purse. Roy Higgins is still on scene, and he is happy to capture the purse-slinging moment on film.

Michael Shayne is a juror for the murder trial, and Rita Darling is a witness in the case. Lillian Hubbard is the suspect on trial for the murder of Harley Forsythe, a man who was involved with both women; thus, both had a motive to kill him.

Henry Randolph, a butler for one of Hubbard’s neighbors in her apartment building, is on the witness stand when someone throws a knife from the rear of the courtroom, Randolph is killed instantly. Michael Shayne jumps out of the jury box, takes the knife off the floor after it fell out of Randolph’s body, and hides it under the prosecution’s table. Judy Taylor sees what Shayne is up to and decides to find out what he knows.

The jury is sequestered and staying in a hotel. The night of Randolph’s murder in the courtroom, Shayne escapes the hotel via the fire escape to investigate the crime because he doesn’t believe Hubbard killed Forsythe or has anything to do with Randolph’s murder. Shayne returns to the courtroom to retrieve the knife that he hid, but Taylor is already there to retrieve it. They wrestle for the knife, which he gets away from her, but Taylor won’t let him leave without taking her along on his investigation.

(This blog post about Just Off Broadway contains spoilers.)

I know that these Michael Shayne films are really played for laughs, and calling them noir (or avant noir, a term I use instead of proto-noir) is a bit of a stretch. In addition, some of the plot details in Just Off Broadway stretch credulity, even if they are funny and make the film a joy to watch:

◊ Michael Shayne is a private detective serving on a jury. I don’t know what the legal ramifications would be in real practice or if the ramifications would depend on jurisdiction.

◊ Shayne escapes from jury sequestration to investigate the murder himself because he doesn’t believe the defendant is guilty.

◊ Shayne is the only one who notices that the knife that killed Henry Randolph has fallen on the floor. And he is the only one who has time to hide it under the district attorney’s desk. These details are a little easier to believe because Randolph is killed on the witness stand, and his murder creates shock and panic in the courtroom.

◊ Shayne and Judy Taylor escape from the police officers arriving on the scene at the Acme Storage Company by outrunning them and then jumping on a tour bus. These same officers seem to abandon the search for both of them, even though they were leaving the scene of a murder.

◊ Shayne, a juror, is allowed to question a witness on the stand, and that witness is defense attorney John Logan. Again, I don’t know what the legal ramifications would be or if the ramifications would depend on jurisdiction.

◊ Shayne solves the murder in one night, even though he visits several knife throwers, takes a tour bus ride, visits a nightclub, and interviews a jeweler, among other investigatory tasks.

So it’s true: You have to be willing to suspend disbelief several times to enjoy this film. But it really is so much fun, and none of these Shayne films were ever meant to be taken seriously.

 I have seen Just Off Broadway twice already: It’s just over an hour long. While some of the plot details are predictable and others are preposterous, seeing it twice was well worth it. It helped me to catch some details that I had missed after a single viewing. Lloyd Nolan is great—as always—as Michael Shayne, and I have enjoyed all the Shayne films that I have seen so far. I’m glad I still have one more (Time to Kill) to see. And then I get to see the Shayne films starring Hugh Beaumont.

Although her role is uncredited, I am almost positive that Virginia Mayo is the elevator operator who makes her first appearance toward the end of the film. If anyone knows for sure, please do let me know.

September 25, 1942, release date  •  Directed by Herbert I. Leeds  •  Screenplay by Arnaud d’Usseau  •  Based on an idea by Jo Eisinger and the character of Michael Shayne created by Brett Halliday  •  Music by David Raksin  •  Edited by Louis R. Loeffler  •  Cinematography by Lucien N. Andriot

Lloyd Nolan as Michael Shayne  •  Marjorie Weaver as Judy Taylor, news reporter  •  Phil Silvers as Roy Higgins, photographer  •  Janis Carter as Lillian Hubbard  •  Richard Derr as John Logan, defense attorney  •  Joan Valerie as Rita Darling  •  Don Costello as George Dolphin  •  Chester Clute as Sperty, Shayne’s juror-roommate  •  Francis Pierlot as Sidney Arno, jeweler  •  Grant Richards as District Attorney John F. McGonagle  •  George M. Carleton as Judge Robert Walters  •  Alexander Lockwood as Count Edmond Telmachio  •  William Haade as the night watchman  •  Leyland Hodgson as Henry Randolph, the butler  •  Oscar O’Shea as Pop, the stage door security guard  •  Virginia Mayo as the elevator operator

Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation  •  Produced by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation