Larceny in Her Heart (1946)

Larceny in Her Heart, released in 1946, is the second of the five 1940s Mike Shayne movies made by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC). 20th Century-Fox had made seven movies starring Lloyd Nolan in the early 40s based on the popular Mike Shayne novels of Davis Dresser (written under the pseudonym Brett Halliday).

PRC revived the series in 1946 with Hugh Beaumont as Shayne. The Mike Shayne of the novels is pretty hardboiled but both the Lloyd Nolan and Hugh Beaumont Shayne movies are very much lighter in tone with Beaumont’s Shayne becoming a cheerful easygoing guy who seems to think that being a private detective is a great lark.

Mike and his girlfriend Phyllis (Cheryl Walker) are just about to take off on a vacation when a middle-aged man named Burton Stallings offers Mike a case, with a big fat retainer as an inducement. It’s about his missing step-daughter Helen.

Mike turns the case down but then changes his mind when a very distressed very dishevelled young woman arrives at his office and promptly passes out. Mike has reason to believe that this girl will make the Helen Stallings case ridiculously easy to crack, which will earn Mike a fat fee for virtually no work.

The dead body on the couch puts an end to Mike’s daydreams about easy cases. There’s only one thing worse than having a corpse on your hands and that’s having the corpse disappear again without explanation. And there’s one thing that’s even worse than that - having the corpse turn up again.

Mike also has Detective Sergeant Pete Rafferty to deal with. Rafferty has a grudge against Mike. Explaining a dead body to Rafferty might be tricky.

Shayne does have a lead. It’s always good to have a lead but when the lead comes in the form of a shapely blonde that’s even better. And this shapely blonde seems to be very friendly towards private detectives. She’s been a nurse at the Stallings residence. Mike already knows that screwy things have been happening there but he needs to know the details. Lucille (the shapely blonde nurse) might just to able to fill him in.

There’s also a gangster and a trumpet player, both of whom seem to have been interested in Helen Stallings. Mike goes undercover as a patient in a private sanitarium for rich drunks. That dead body continues to be a problem.

The one major flaw of American B-movies of the 30s and 40s is an over-abundance of comic relief. That’s a bit of a problem here but the comedy is amusing enough.

Hugh Beaumont is brimming with charm and gives a lively performance. He’s definitely the best thing about this film. The other players are all quite adequate.

This is a PRC movie so production values are at best basic but then (bearing in mind the words of wisdom of Jean-Luc Godard) all you really need for a private eye movie is a girl and a gun. This one has a reasonably OK story (although one or two incidents do get just a tad confusing) and some amusing banter as well as girls and guns.

Director Sam Newfield churned out countless B-pictures (he may have been the most prolific American director of all time). He does a pretty uninspiring job here although of course you do have to remember that PRC shooting schedules were incredibly tight. It would have been nice to have a bit more action and a bit less talking.

Some of the other movies in the series were adaptations of Brett Halliday novels but in this case Howard L. Shrock’s screenplay is an original story.

The big problem with this movie is that some key elements are left very obscure and some incidents don’t make a whole lot of sense. We’re told too many things rather than getting to see them.

All five PRC Mike Shayne movies have been released on DVD, on a single disc, by Classicflix. Larceny in Her Heart gets a transfer that is far from pristine but it’s OK. It’s better than Alpha Video quality. The sound is a little crackly at times but there’s no problem following the dialogue.

This is a movie for those who like their crime B-movies light and breezy. If you fall into that category there’s probably enough here to keep you happy but it’s a slight disappointment after the first of the PRC films, the excellent Murder Is My Business. If you’re going to buy the Classicflix set (and if you’re a B-movie fan you should) then Larceny in Her Heart is worth a look if you set your expectations at a modest level.