Blonde for a Day

This rare Sam Newfield's film brings nothing to a movie buff's knowledge. Every moviegoer can live without it, but for those who have nothing else to do, those who want to waste time, why not? It is an amusing and not so boring gumshoe plot...If you like Hugh Beaumont, maybe you'll bear it. The copy I purchased was rather good and that helps a lot to appreciate, let's be fair. The directing is also Ok, but Sam Newfield was a prolific director and that means he was a professional, despite the low budgets he had at his disposal. So, I won't say any real harm about this little detective film. It's not too long, anyway.

Tightly plotted detective flick with Hugh Beaumont as Mike Shayne, one of five after taking over from Lloyd Nolan. Those only familiar with Beaumont as a television dad will be surprised by his hard edge and sense of humor. Good portrayal of the iconic character.

Hugh Beaumont is Mike Shayne. His real-life wife, Kathryn Adams, is his secretary. When his old friend, Paul Bryar, is beaten to a pulp, the PI and his girl Friday fly to a Manhattan that looks surprisingly like Glendale in this blah entry in the Monogram series.

THe story is appropriately convoluted, but it's abbreviated by a series of women who say "I shouldn't tell you, but....", including nurses, legal secretaries and so forth. It's the only way that screenwriter Fred Myton seems to be able to figure out how to advance the plot. He had a long and thoroughly undistinguished career in Hollywood in B westerns and cheap melodramas, from 1916 until 1952, ratcheting out scenarios and screenplays for almost 170 shorts and features. He died in 1955, a few months shy of his 70th birthday.

Unremarkable Mike Shayne programmer, the sort of assembly line product that kept post-war audiences entertained (1946). Mike (Beaumont) is trying to find who shot his reporter buddy Rourke (Bryar), leading him through a thicket of blondes, a brunette, and an ornery editor (Ferguson). Unfortunately, the handsome Shayne lacks an edge to go along with his impish charm that too often bleeds into a wise-guy manner. As an actor, Beaumont's much better as Beaver Cleaver's dad. Not much suspense builds as the story progresses, nor does the visual style add mood. Rather, the focus is more on personalities than plot. And in that regard, the hefty Kendall's chief inspector appears too dense to be either amusing or convincing. Nonetheless, the two statuesque brunettes, Adams and Hoshelle, are real eye-catchers, at the same time Adams swings a really mean right-cross that's perhaps the movie's high point. Anyway, if you don't require much from amateur detective flicks, it's an easy though forgettable 68-minutes.

It was not uncommon for B-movie detective and crime films to have sequels...and often the sequels starred different actors in the leading roles. A good example is "Too Many Winners"...a Michael Shayne detective mystery. For years, Lloyd Nolan played Shayne but here Hugh Beaumont is in the lead. This isn't too surprising, as Beaumont played in a lot of crime films in the 1940s-50s before gaining greater fame as Ward Clever in "Leave it to Beaver". In all, Nolan made seven (for Twentieth Century-Fox) and Beaumont made five Shayne films (for the tiny studio, PRC). The PRC ones aren't quite as good...though I still enjoy them and find the films far more watchable than most of PRC's output.

Mike Shayne's friend, Tim, is a crusading reporter who has been pushing the police to do their jobs and work harder. Like many such reporters in old films, he's soon attacked and nearly killed...so Shayne investigates. The clues lead to a blonde and a possible blackmailing scheme.

The best thing about this cheap B-movie is Beaumont. His acting and dialog is very enjoyable and a HUGE departure from his nice-guy TV image. This alone carries the film and makes it just a bit better than the average B of the era.