Time to Kill

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.

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.

This is a fun little detective movie. It actually follows the storyline of The High Window a lot more closely than the later (and much inferior) The Brasher Doubloon. I gather that Michael Shayne's character is quite the wise-ass (he certainly is in this movie), but that's not too much of a stretch from the original Philip Marlowe, and Lloyd Nolan is quite enjoyable in the role.

Of course, like all Chandler adaptations, this one moves much too quickly to capture the hot, sticky southern California atmosphere that pervades so many of the original novels. The running time is too short to include every aspect of the novel, of course, and a couple of my favorite parts were left out, but overall, this is far superior to the version of the same novel that came out a few years later starring George Montgomery (The Brasher Doubloon). One of the better "second-tier" 40s mysteries I've seen.

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.

Lloyd 'Michael Shayne' Nolan is hired by Ethel Griffies to retrieve a valuable coin for her, the Brasher Doubloon, which she is convinced was stolen by chorus girl Doris Merrick, who is also involved with her son James Seay. What starts out as a routine assignment quickly becomes a puzzle for Nolan as he finds the coin, but then Griffies informs him she also found it back in her personal belongings! Something is not right, and it includes murder, blackmail, Griffies' fidgety secretary Heather Angel and a seemingly inconspicuous photo taken years earlier...

Even tho this is a Michael Shayne movie, it's the first screen adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel 'The High Window', which would be remade a few years later as 'The Brasher Doubloon' starring George Montgomery as Philip Marlowe. The plot is a maze, twisting and turning non-stop in its 60-minute runtime, as the always wise-cracking Nolan ('Lady In The Lake') goes from one clue/red herring to the next. You really need to pay attention or you'll miss things. This was the last of the Shayne movies starring Nolan and it does feel a bit rushed and less fun compared to the other ones. Having said that, it's still got its moments, and Nolan is always a blast as Shayne. But part of what made Nolan's Shayne movies so much fun was the continuous back&forth witty banter between him and the leading ladies (Mary Beth Hughes, Lynn Bari, Marjorie Weaver)... And this movie really lacks it as Angel's ('Lifeboat') character is nothing of the sort, and tough cookie Merrick ('Sensation Hunters') doesn't have quite enough screen time.

Director Herbert Leeds had already directed a few Shayne movies like 'The Man Who Wouldn't Die' so he knew how to direct these quick 'blink or you'll miss a clue' mysteries. DoP Charles G. Clarke ('Moontide', 'Violent Saturday') does a decent if unremarkable job. As mentioned, the movie does feel rushed, and while the crew obviously knew how to get the job done in a timely manner, it also shows. Not the best way for Nolan's Shayne to end, it's a slightly disappointing movie due to the high expectations created by the previous Shayne movies plus using a Chandler novel. A few years later Hugh Beaumont would take over as Michael Shayne for a new series of movies (which I've yet to see). Still good enough to watch for people interested in either Michael Shayne or Raymond Chandler.