La hora de matar

Just a note of correction. On the previous post, the actor cited for his role in The Brasher Doubloon should be George Montgomery, rather than Robert Montgomery, who was featured in several films noir of his own, Lady in the Lake and Ride the Pink Horse, to name a few.

Lloyd Nolan himself can be seen in quite a few noir films, usually, but not always, on the side of the law (House on 92d Street, Somewhere in the Night, and Two Smart People.

It is a shame that The Brasher Doubloon (or Time to Kill, for that matter) have not been released on DVD as yet. Brasher is a 20th Century Fox production and perhaps it will be released in the near future as part of their Fox Film Noir series.

Lloyd Nolan plays Michael Shayne in the last of his appearances in the 20th Century Fox B series. He's called in by Ethel Griffies. She wants him to find evidence to get her son out of his marriage to a showgirl. She also believes her daughter-in-law has stolen a Brasher doubloon, a rare coin from her late husband's collection. Nolan takes the case, which leads to a lot of corpses.

It's derived from THE HIGH WINDOW, and is the second movie made from a Raymond Chandler story -- the first was THE SAINT TAKES OVER, based on FAREWELL, MY LOVELY; Hollywood had noticed Chandler, liked him and how his work fit into their plots, but of course, knew much more about how do it than the third best crime fiction writer ever. Having purchased the story from Chandler, they remade it in 1947 with George Montgomery as THE BRASHER DOUBLOON.

It's a nice effort for Nolan's Mike Shayne to go out on. The settings range from a rich woman's home and a swanky nightclub to a transient's hotel a step above a flophouse, and director Herbert Leeds shows how Nolan uses his fees to fix himself up in a lovely cinematic manner: in the first scene, we see Shayne with his feet on the desk, eating. It's a shot showing the bottom of his shoes, which need resoling, while he eats his his meal straight from a can. In a later iteration of the shot, his shoes have been resoled and he's eating off of china.

Entertaining Michael Shayne movie, the seventh and final in Fox's series starring Lloyd Nolan. A few years after this, PRC would restart the series with Hugh Beaumont. Nolan's Shayne goes out on a high note here with a story adapted from Raymond Chandler's "The High Window." Here Shayne is hired by a nasty old lady to recover a missing coin she believes her daughter-in-law stole. Shayne investigates and finds more to the story. Decent support from Heather Angel, Richard Lane, Ralph Byrd, Morris Ankrum, Doris Merrick, and Paul Guilfoyle. As with the other Shayne movies, Lloyd Nolan carries the movie. This one's a bit "tougher" than the others. Perhaps that's Chandler seeping through. It's no "The Big Sleep" but it's a good way to pass an hour.

Back in the early 40s, Twentieth Century-Fox made seven Michael Shayne films starring Lloyd Nolan. Generally, they were very good B-movies....quite a bit better than the average B crime film of the day. Much of it was because Nolan was so good in the films...much because the studio put more money and better scripts into the movies. This is the final Michael Shayne film starring Nolan. And, if you care, this movie was remade in 1947 as "The Brasher Doubloon"...an excellent crime film....one that is actually a bit better than this original!

When the story begins, a crabby rich lady pays Michael Shayne to recover a lost rare coin, the Brasher doubloon. However, this is a ruse and soon the bodies are piling up around Shayne and he starts to realize that there is far more to the story than that....and the key is a very timid lady who lives with the oldster.

There are a few off-putting things in this film, such as a violent couple who fight like dogs (this is somehow supposed to be funny) and Shayne pretending to like an unattractive woman in order to manipulate her. These just felt out of place. Otherwise, it's a competent and enjoyable tale...and it really makes you wish the studio had made more. Sadly, the subsequent films were made elsewhere and didn't even star Nolan...and are less interesting.

Time to Kill (Herbert I. Leeds, 1942) – Lloyd Nolan's final outing as Michael Shayne, Fox Studios' cocky private eye, is one of the earliest Raymond Chandler adaptations, drawing its inspiration from The High Window. Shayne – the irrepressible, quick-witted, appealing Nolan – takes on an apparently simple assignment from the wealthy Mrs Murdoch (Ethel Griffies) and finds the bodies piling up around him. Fox's lack of faith in the series is evidenced by the slim running time, with this one playing barely more than an hour. That means you get 56 minutes of tightly-scripted thriller – with a sardonic sense of humour – before the scripters have to cram in a wordy, five-minute explanation of Chandler's convoluted plot. It's an absolute riot until then, though, and a return to form after a slightly disappointing sixth outing.

The series opener – Michael Shayne, Private Detective – is a classic of its type, with a hilarious script and slick, fast-moving direction, making a virtue of its low budget. The second film put him on a train (Sleepers West), the third took him to a theatre (Dressed to Kill) and the fourth and fifth appeared to have been made with spare Charlie Chan screenplays someone had left lying around. There's something of the Warner Oland Chan about the ship-bound Blue, White and Perfect, while The Man Who Wouldn't Die – set in a haunted house and with a genuinely ingenious mystery – is pure Toler. Just Off Broadway, which had Shayne solving a case whilst sitting on a jury, was less accomplished, but this one ends the Nolan series on a high, effortlessly recapturing the flavour of the first film. Tracing a murky investigation from the second Shayne gets pitched into the mystery – fielding the call in his dingy office and reeling off a list of made-up references – to the moment he wraps it up, it's a real treat. It's also nice to see Shayne get a girlfriend who can handle him. An extra 10 minutes would have been welcome, allowing the whodunit to be unwrapped in a more leisurely fashion and providing time during the climax for something other than solid exposition, though given half a chance I'm sure Nolan would have spent it all wisecracking anyway.