Time to Kill **** (1942, Lloyd Nolan, Heather Angel, Ethel Griffies, James Seay, Doris Merrick) – Classic Movie Review 2497

Time to Kill (1942) is the first screen adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s novel The High Window and the final Michael Shayne film starring Lloyd Nolan made at Fox, which then closed down their popular B-movie unit.

‘Mike Shayne in a killer-diller of a chiller-diller… with no time out to count the corpses!’

Lloyd Nolan stars in the 1942 American film noir mystery thriller film Time to Kill, his final Michael Shayne mystery, which is especially fascinating as it is based not on a Brett Halliday story at all, but on Raymond Chandler’s novel The High Window, suitably restructured for the series, using Halliday’s character of detective Michael Shayne instead of Chandler’s Philip Marlowe.

[Spoiler alert] In the classic yarn, nasty old Mrs Murdock (Ethel Griffies) hires detective Michael Shayne (Nolan) to get back her valuable missing antique coin, The Brasher Doubloon, stolen from her coin collection, she believes, by her missing chorus girl daughter-in-law. She sees her as a thieving gold-digger, not good enough for her son, whom she abuses. Shayne discovers the appropriately named Linda Conquest, the beautiful daughter-in-law oddly as eager to escape the Murdock family as old Mrs Murdock is to dump her. Shayne has found the girl and then seems to have found the coin, but he soon finds himself knee-deep in corpses.

[Spoiler alert] The Brasher Doubloon was stolen from Mrs Murdock by her oddball son Leslie Murdock (James Seay), who used it to pay off a blackmailer. 

Director Herbert I Leeds’s 1942 black and white film noir thriller is fast-paced, tense, utterly riveting B-movie mystery material, belying its humble status as a film series finale. It is a hectic rush to pack it all in in just 61 minutes. Rarely do you beg a film to be longer, like with this one. Viewers need to keep their wits about them to follow the wealth of characters and the intricacies of Chandler’s plotting. If The Big Sleep is difficult to follow, so is Time to Kill. There is a surprisingly tough tone, with sudden outbreaks of violence and murder. It really keeps the faith with Chandler’s material. British actress Heather Angel enjoys a rare turn as a leading lady, playing Myrle Davis. 

20th Century Fox was looking for detective film series after the success of Charlie Chan and Mr Moto film series in 1940 and bought the film rights to Raymond Chandler’s 1942 novel The High Window for just $3,500. Fox producer Sol M Wurtzel hired Clarence Upson Young to write the screenplay. The hard-boiled, wisecracking dialogue is first rate, giving the actors a good time. Nolan is excellent as the private detective Shayne / Marlowe in the Humphrey Bogart style, slightly lacking Bogart’s charisma but making up for it in shabby style and easy-going credibility, with a good way with both the dialogue and the action, and his interaction with the other characters. Ethel Griffies’s nasty old Mrs Murdock is a little triumph, in a character actor tour-de-force. The screenplay even has to pull in a bit of comedy and romance, as well as the series demands, and provide a final scene farewell wrap-up, all in 61 minutes!

Time to Kill is the first screen adaptation of Chandler’s The High Window, after 20th Century Fox bought Raymond Chandler’s 1942 novel The High Window for $3,500. Fox do not mention the novel’s title in the credits. It was remade in 1947 as The Brasher Doubloon, directed by John Brahm. Nolan appeared in a series of seven Michael Shayne films, starting with Michael Shayne: Private Detective (1940), and the character continued for five more at PRC studios with Hugh Beaumont.

Hugh Beaumont starred in five more, far less successful Shayne films in 1946-47 for the Producers Releasing Corporation company: Murder Is My Business (1946), Larcerny in Her Heart (1946), Blonde for a Day (1946), Three on a Ticket (1947), and Too Many Winners (1947).

Also in the cast are Doris Merrick as Linda Conquest Murdock, Ralph Byrd as bodyguard Lou Venter, Richard Lane as Lieutenant Breeze, Sheila Bromley as Lois Morny, Morris Ankrum as Alexander Morny, Ethel Griffies as Mrs Murdock, James Seay as Leslie Murdock, Ted Hecht as George Anson Phillips, William Pawley as Mr Hensch, Syd Saylor as The Mailman, Lester Sharpe as Elisha Washburn, Charles Williams as The Dentist, LeRoy Mason as Rudolph, the headwaiter and George Melford in Minor Role.

Time to Kill is directed by Herbert I Leeds, runs 61 minutes, is made and released by 20th Century Fox, is written by Clarence Upson Young, based on Raymond Chandler’s novel The High Window, is shot in black and white by Charles Clarke, produced by Sol M Wurtzel, and scored by David Raksin.

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.

Brett Halliday wrote a series of books with Michael Shayne as the private detective while Chandler’s was Philip Marlowe. RKO Pictures bought Chandler’s 1940 novel Farewell, My Lovely and filmed 1944’s Murder, My Sweet with Dick Powell as Philip Marlowe.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2497

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Raymond Chandler, author of the novel The High Window.