Sleepers West ***½ (1941, Lloyd Nolan, Lynn Bari, Mary Beth Hughes, Louis Jean Heydt, Edward Brophy, Don Douglas) – Classic Movie Review 12,153

Lynn Bari in the 1940s.

Lloyd Nolan stars again as Brett Halliday’s private detective Michael Shayne in the 1941 thriller Sleepers West, the second of seven 20th Century Fox support features made from 1940 to 1942.

Director Eugene Ford’s complex, lively and fast-moving 1941 20th Century Fox thriller film Sleepers West stars Lloyd Nolan once again as private detective Michael Shayne, this time escorting witness Helen Carlson (Mary Beth Hughes) on the train to San Francisco so that she can testify in a murder trial and save an innocent man.

This tense, tidy and pacey, but cheese-paring thriller uses Brett Halliday’s characters and remakes the 1934 Fox romantic drama Sleepers East (1934), which starred Preston Foster and Wayne Gibson, and was based on the 1933 novel Sleepers East by Frederick Nebel. It helps a lot that the material offers good, off-beat, compelling characters and a strong, complicated, engrossing plot, with the possibility of a lot of action and suspense.

Lloyd Nolan plays private eye Michael Shayne, who secretly escorts murder trial witness Helen Carlson (Mary Beth Hughes) by train from Denver to San Francisco. Helen’s testimony on Monday will exonerate a man falsely accused of murder, and take down a crooked politician. Shayne is shadowed by his ex-fiancée, Denver newspaper reporter Kay Bentley (Lynn Bari), now engaged to dodgy, duplicitous Tom Linscott (Don Douglas), an associate of the crooked politician, whose election chances would be destroyed by the acquittal.

The troubled ex-showgirl and jailbird Helen is befriended by a kindly runaway husband, Everett Jason (Louis Jean Heydt), who proposes a new life for both of them. She is looking for a nice, quiet life and he is running away from one, with a stash of his own cash in his suitcase.

Sleepers West (1941) with Lloyd Nolan, Lynn Bari.

Nolan turns in another sturdy and effective performance as Brett Halliday’s cocky private detective in the second of seven 20th Century Fox support thrillers made from 1940 to 1942. It may be only a stock mystery thriller story with a script dug up and dusted off from the studio’s old cupboard, but it is a good one, and it is lifted with lively handling by Eugene Ford and colourful performances by the nice cast, making the most of the characters and plot.

Bari and Hughes have a lot to do, and do it well, in authoritative, contrasting performances, and Heydt makes a nice, quiet impression, handling some surprisingly thoughtful dialogue, in a script largely laden with wisecracks. The train sets and detail are well managed and film even manages a short, slick sequence where their speeding train is involved in a wreck, followed by a dash a taxicab to San Francisco, and, along the way, another last-minute new character, the kindly Farm Lady (Ferike Boros) during an enforced stopover at a farm.

The Sleepers East novel was bought by Fox as a vehicle for Lynn Bari in October 1940 but in November 1940 it was tweaked as the second Michael Shayne movie, following Michael Shayne, Private Detective. Hence the strong roles for Bari and Hughes, who have as much screen time as the detective hero Shayne.

And if it recalls Narrow Margin, so much the better.

It may also be necessary to mention the work of uncredited actors Sam McDaniel, Charles R Moore and Mantan Moreland as porters, and Fred ‘Snowflake’ Toones as the waiter, in what are now seen as awkward negative portrayals.

Sleepers West (1941) with Louis Jean Heydt,, Mary Beth Hughes, Lloyd Nolan.

Sleepers West is directed by Eugene Ford, runs 74 minutes, is made and released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Stanley Rauh and Lou Breslow, based on the 1933 novel Sleepers East by Frederick Nebel, is shot in black and white by J Peverell Marley, produced by Sol M Wurtzel, and scored by Cyril J Mockridge and Emil Newman (musical director). The sets are designed by Lewis H Creber and Richard Day.

Filming started 18 November 1940 and it was released on 14 March 1941.

The cast are Lloyd Nolan as Michael Shayne, Lynn Bari as Kay Bentley Mary Beth Hughes as Helen Carlson, Louis Jean Heydt as Everett Jason, Edward Brophy as George Trautwein, Don Costello as Carl Izzard, Ben Carter as porter Leander Jones, Don Douglas as Tom Linscott, Oscar O’Shea as Engineer McGowan, Harry Hayden as Conductor Lyons, Hamilton MacFadden as Conductor Meyers, and Ferike Boros as Farm Lady.

The film series is: Michael Shayne, Private Detective (1940), Sleepers West (1941), Dressed to Kill (1941), Blue, White and Perfect (1942), The Man Who Wouldn’t Die (1942), Just Off Broadway (1942), and notably Time to Kill (1942), the final Michael Shayne film starring Lloyd Nolan made at Fox, which then closed down their popular B-movie unit.

Lynn Bari was one of 14 young women ‘launched on the trail of film stardom’ in August 1935 when they received six-month contracts with 20th Century Fox after 18 months in its training school. The contracts had a studio option for renewal for up to seven years. During World War Two she was the second-most popular pinup girl after Betty Grable but her film career fizzled out in the early 1950s when she was just in her early 30s.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,153

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