(1941, Dir. Eugene Forde)
In short: Private Investigator Michael Shayne tries to solve a double-homicide case so he can have enough money to marry his increasingly impatient fiancee. This is a very formulaic, studio movie. There's really no greater message being woven into the story--it's just entertainment for entertainment's sake. It does paint marriage as an inevitably bad and unhappy thing. The murders occur because of complicated marriages, and practically every character tries to dissuade Shayne from getting married--and in the end, he's not able to anyway. That's as close as it gets to there being any kind of moral to the story. This movie was so bad! It was a B-movie if I ever saw one, fulfilling every bad stereotype that exists for Old Hollywood--annoying detective jargon, nagging girlfriends, crazy actors, bumbling police, and not to mention several troubling racial stereotypes. The plot was trying to be clever, but didn't succeed. The cinematography was nice, and some of the jokes landed all right, but mostly I was just praying that it would end, the sooner the better. 3.5/10 Beppo the Dog Costumes.
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AuthorEileen here, writing reviews for film class. Archives
April 2018
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