Time to Kill

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.