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.
Add a Review
-
bluenova1969200216 October 2010
-
boblipton8 March 2019Hugh 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. -
gordonl5611 October 2015MURDER IS MY BUSINESS 1946
After 20th Century Fox stopped production of their successful string of Michael Shayne Private Detective films, Producers Releasing Corporation picked up the film rights. Lloyd Nolan had headlined the films for 20th Century. These were for the most part, nifty, well-paced little mystery programmers. P.R.C. used Hugh Beaumont to headline their series. Needless to say the production values are a lot less than the Nolan set of films.
In this one, the first with Hugh Beaumont, has Detective Michael Shayne getting involved in a murder and blackmail case. A wealthy woman, Helene Heigh, hires Shayne to find out who is blackmailing her. Before Beaumont can really dig into the case, the woman is killed.
The list of suspects is quite large with Heigh's husband at the top. The man, Pierre Watkin, had tried to hire Beaumont to arrange a robbery of Heigh's jewels. Then, there is the two children from Watkin's earlier marriage, Julia McMillian and David Reed. Add to this the brother of the dead woman, Lyle Talbot, his showgirl friend, Virginia Christine and several others. Also fouling up the case is the local Police Lt, Ralph Dunn. Dunn dislikes Beaumont and tries to pin the whole mess on Beaumont.
Helping Beaumont is his trusty secretary, Cheryl Walker and newspaper reporter, Richard Keene. Most of the film is spent with plenty of not so red herrings being thrown at the audience. Needless to say Beaumont ties all the loose ends etc into a nice bow for Police Detective Ralph Dunn.
There are a few snappy lines delivered by Beaumont but the film as a whole moves at a snail's pace. It seems much longer than the 64 minute runtime. Beaumont is watchable, but the rest of the cast looks like they would rather be elsewhere.
The director, Sam Newfield does what he can, but the poor production values etc do not help. The talented Newfield scored with several low rent programmers, like, THE LADY CONFESSES, APOLOGY FOR MURDER, MONEY MADNESS, THE COUNTERFEITERS, (all with Hugh Beaumont) FINGERPRINT'S DON'T LIE, WESTERN PACIFIC AGENT and HI-JACKED.
As a fan of this low budget type fare, I was a tad disappointed with this one. A OK try, but is falls short. Now I just need to take in the rest of this P.R.C film series for comparison. -
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.....