kapelusznik18 ****SPOILERS*** The first of the Michael Shayne Private Detective movie has our hero Michael Shayne, Lloyd Noland,about to get evicted from his office with all the furniture taken off his hands for him being behind in his monthly payments. That's when fate shines on him with Michael being given the job by money man and race horse connoisseur Mr. Brighton, Clarence Kolb, to look after his out of control daughter Phyllis, Marjorie Weaver, and keep her away from any gambling establishment like casinos and race tracks that she's hopelessly addicted to.Not much of a job at first for Michael but later in trying to scare Phillis stiff and straighten her out after getting away from him and ending up losing $2,000.00 that she didn't have at the nearest casino things backfire on him. Michael ends up getting Phillis' boyfriend Harry Grange, George Meeker, smashed by spiking his drink after Michael clobbered him for taking Phillis there. Later Michael alter he kissed and make up with a barley able to stand on his feet Harry drives him out into the woods in Phillis' car and leaves him for dead spraying a bottle of catchup on him to make it look like blood.This joke soon turned out to be a disaster for Michael in that later, after he called the police to revive and sober up Harry, he as well as Phillis found him dead as a door nail by being shot in the head! With his chief protagonist in the movie Police Chief Painter, Donald McBrie, about to run Michael in for murder he turns the tables on him by planning to expose his crooked dealings, whatever they are, under the table that aren't exactly kosher!***SPOILERS*** Despite working on his own Michael gets help from Aunt Olivia, Elizabeth Patterson, a self styled gumshoe who gets her training in detective work from reading murder mysteries from cheap dine store novels she buys at the supermarket. It's here that Aunt Olivia shows that she's not the hair brained screwball that everyone thinks she is by helping Michael, who at one point ended up losing his pants, cover all the clues as well as his behind that he may have missed that exposed who Harry's killer really was. As usual it, the murder of Harry, had to do with money the killer expected to have won at the race track that was cashed by Harry, who put the bet in for him, before he got it! Which had to do with a scam the killer try to pull off by entering a "Ringer", a champion South American racehorse, in the race which he bet $10,000.00 on that he replaced a ready for the glue factory nag "Bonjo Boy" who went off at odds of 15 to 1!

grainstorms "Michael Shayne Private Detective" (1940), is an unexpected charmer: a delightful hardboiled private eye movie that will have you chuckling to the very last frame while trying to figure out the murderer before Mike Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) does. Starring that thoroughly likable no-nonsense pro, Lloyd Nolan ( who appeared in the first seven of a dozen Shayne movies), and set in the last peaceful days before World War II, "Michael Shayne Private Detective" – the first in the series -- is an enjoyable gift box of welcome surprises: a period piece where the cars are both boxy and racy, men's suits are double-breasted and boxy, and the private eyes think best when they're boxed in. Private detective Shayne, broke as usual, suddenly gets a juicy assignment. All he has to do is nursemaid a spoiled rich girl (Marjorie Weaver), who has the gambling bug and all the wrong friends. Mike's attempt to show her a lesson backfires, and suddenly he's the chief suspect in a murder.A little thing like that's not going to stop Mike Shayne. Ingenious and inventive, fast-thinking and fast-talking, he has to dodge the cops while finding the real murderer. And now he's acquired a zany assistant, a proper old lady with a surprising taste for blood.Aunt Olivia: It was the great piano mystery. The body was found under the piano, his throat was strangled with piano wires, the soft pedal was found embedded in his neck, and somebody had completely severed the head from the body. He was dead!Michael Shayne: (dryly) Oh, suicide, hmmm?Mike's proficient with both a riposte and a pistol. ("Hey, that brooch is as phony as a mother-in-law's kiss!") And he's not bad with badinage. Cop: When are you gonna start talking straight?Mike: Not until my attorney gets out of law school!Shayne may have a quip for every question; but he's also sentimental, full of malarkey and blarney, whimsical, perpetually broke and a sucker for a pretty face.Add a batch of odd characters played by a superb supporting cast: Douglas Dumbrille, Elizabeth Patterson, George Meeker, Walter Abel and Irving Bacon; and you've got a screwball comedy with smooth ensemble acting, an ample supply of corpses and a solution that actually makes sense.An appreciation of Lloyd Nolan: "The actor who was generally credited with 'A' performances in a decade-long series of 'B' films became so good, in fact, that he permitted himself the luxury of turning down work, a privilege that ordinarily falls to far better known stars." -- The Los Angeles Times.

gridoon2018 The first film in the (quite prolific) Michael Shayne series, and also the first one I watched. There is nothing much above the ordinary in the direction or the production values (which may account for the film, and perhaps the whole series, being largely forgotten today), but the plot is dense (so dense, in fact, that you'll need to watch the final explanations by Shayne AT LEAST twice to get everything straight), Nolan makes a likable Shayne, Marjorie Weaver is a perky and appealing leading lady, the supporting cast is full of familiar faces (if not necessarily names - I'm sure I've seen the guy playing the gruff inspector before - playing, again, the gruff inspector!), and there is the occasional clever line ("This thing is as phony as a mother-in-law's kiss"). I think fans of the genre will go for this. **1/2 out of 4.

jwells97 When I began researching Lloyd Nolan in preparation for writing his biography, I had seen him in only two roles -- as the crusty doctor in the TV series JULIA, and as the compassionate policeman in the 1940s movie A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN. Then I got a DVD of some of his Michael Shayne movies and was blown away by the first one, MICHAEL SHAYNE: PRIVATE DETECTIVE. It was so refreshing to see Lloyd as a young man and playing such a lighthearted character! Since then, I've watched videos of much of his work, and he's totally believable no matter what kind of character he's playing. I think this movie will always be my favorite, though.