Murder Is My Business

In response to this film title, I would say that boredom is my burden. I watch it because it was in my library and I purchased it a long long time ago because it was from Sam Newfield. I am a bit harsh, unfair with this little crime mystery yarn. I deserves better than to be depicted like this. It is an ordinary private eye, Mike Shayne, leading an investigation. Period. I am a movie buff but not a fan of this kind of movies. It is not that bad however, fairly, it's not a crap, it remains well done for a Poverty Row Corporation stuff. And not Producer Releasing Corp...as it officially was named.....

Hugh Beaumont is Mike Shayne in this well-written B mystery. After detective Ralph Dunn denounces him on the radio as someone with underworld connections, Helene Heigh contacts him. She's been getting threatening letters, and her husband and stepchildren hate her. As Beaumont leaves, her husband, Pierre Watkin, asks him to arrange for a faked robbery at his home. Beaumont turns him down angrily. Then Miss Heigh and a burglar turn up dead, and Beaumont is being framed for accessory.

Brett Halliday's detective had been used in a series of Fox B movies starring Lloyd Nolan. That series had been inactive for several years, and its reactivation at PRC had some changes, including a more violent, occasionally film noir attitude., following Dick Powell's jump-start role in MURDER, MY SWEET. Beaumont doesn't talk like the low-rent 'tec that Nolan was, and he gets hit a lot more -- and has a glass jaw. The mystery is nicely complicated, with a lot of threads to be teased out.

Beaumont spent many years in Hollywood, doing a lot of narrating work, and appearing in more than 80 movies, most of them in uncredited bits. He went straight from one of them to his career-defining role as Ward Cleaver in LEAVE IT TO BEAVER. He gave up acting to be a minister in the mid-1960s, and died in 1982, aged 73.

As a true fan of Film Noir, no movie in this genre (no matter how cheap or how bad) is a waste of my time. However I must confess that I was completely unfamiliar with the character of Michael Shayne as I hadn't read any of Brett Halliday's books nor seen any of the movies until now. I still haven't seen Fox's Lloyd Nolan series, but having just finished the PRC Hugh Beaumont quintet I was pleasantly surprised and rather impressed.

All 5 movies were produced between late 1946 and early 1947. Each was made for less than $100,000 and were shot in one week or less. That's the impressive part. What's surprising was how entertaining they were. I enjoyed the light and humorous touches Beaumont brought to the character and it was a change of pace to see a detective with a glass jaw who got knocked cold more than once in every movie. While guessing the murderers was pretty easy, the whys and wherefores kept me watching until the final credits.

Shaynes' girl Friday, secretary Phyllis aka Angel, was played by 3 different actresses with varying results. Cheryl Walker who was in the first 3 films (MURDER IS MY BUSINESS, LARCENY IN HER HEART, THREE ON A TICKET) was by far the best while Kathryn Adams (BLONDE FOR A DAY) , incidentally Beaumont's real life wife, was next best, while Trudy Marshall in the final film (TOO MANY WINNERS) fell to the rear but that was more the fault of the writers than it was her's. Ralph Dunn played Shayne's nemesis Inspector Rafferty in 4 of the 5 movies.

I thought that LARCENY IN HER HEART, with its scenes in the sanitarium, was the best of the set followed by BLONDE FOR A DAY, MURDER IS MY BUSINESS, and THREE ON A TICKET, with TOO MANY WINNERS falling into last place. All 5 of the films were helmed by PRC's most prolific director Sam Newfield who was the brother of producer and PRC boss Siegfried Neufeld (the family's original name). All 5 films clock in at under 70 minutes making them true B movies.

Up until now the PRC Michael Shayne mysteries were only available in second generation or worse 16mm dubs that had poor sound and uneven picture quality. Now, thanks to Classic Flix who did a 2k digital restoration on the best surviving materials, these movies look better than they ever have (or ever will, for that matter). They come at a great price so the only drawback is that there are no subtitles which the older I get, the more I appreciate having them. Check these out and I'll bet you'll find them a worthwhile discovery as well. For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

For those who have never seen Hugh Beaumont outside of Leave It To Beaver, here's a chance to do so. Beaumont made quite a few mystery/detective films before hitting the small screen, and his role a Michael Shayne is typical of many of his portrayals. Here he is a slightly-wisecracking private dick who likes to leave trails of peanut shells wherever his cases take him. He's sort of a cross between Dick Powell's version of Philip Marlowe, and Dick Powell's radio character of Richard Diamond (if you can picture that). The production values are what you would expect from PRC, and yet I've seen worse. The storyline leaves little room for suspense, with a not too-unpredictable ending. Still, Beaumont's pleasant personality, some classic autos, and a couple of classy-looking '40s dames make this a watchable entry in the Michael Shayne series.