Thu 6 Feb 2020
A TV Episode Review: MICHAEL SHAYNE “Spotlight on a Corpse” (1961).
Posted by Steve under Reviews , TV mysteries[9] Comments
MICHAEL SHAYNE “Spotlight on a Corpse.” NBC, 13 January 1961 (Season 1, Episode 15). 60 minutes. Richard Denning (Michael Shayne), Herbert Rudley (Lt. Will Gentry), Gary Clarke (Dick Hamilton). Neither of the characters Lucy Hamilton or Tim Rourke appear in this episode. Guest Cast: Herbert Marshall, Robert Lansing, Constance Moore, Ruta Lee, Alan Hewitt, Jack Kruschen. Based on characters created by Brett Halliday. Director: Sidney Salkow.
Found murdered on a movie set is the associate producer-writer who also happens to be a notorious womanizer. Mike Shayne is hired by the producer who wants his own investigation done, but the thing is, his current would-be investor actually likes the idea of all the publicity a killing such as this would produce. A killing in more ways than one?
I wonder how many viewers at the time found the story line interesting. The money and the problems thereof that are involved in putting a movie together isn’t the sort of thing that people even bother to read about in their daily newspaper, much less in a sit-back-and-relax sixty minute TV show.
Or is that only me?
What I found far more watchable was a subplot involving the acting pair of Constance Moore (the elderly female lead) and Herbert Marshall (her former director now relegated to being her dialogue coach), who as a team are completely at odds with the young director (Robert Lansing), who thinks their way of making films are completely outmoded.
As for Richard Denning, he doesn’t fit my picture of Michael Shayne very much at all. He’s doesn’t have the build for it. He’s too cerebral. He’s too pleasant, and as written, too agreeable. He made a great Mr. North, but as Mike Shayne, the tough Irish detective, he’s a complete lightweight. In my opinion.
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PostScript: The credits, I believe, claim this episode was based on a Mike Shayne novel. I don’t recognize the story line, but then again, I haven’t read them all. Anyone?
February 6th, 2020 at 11:18 pm
Flaccid is the only word that works for this show, but Constance Moore, not Bennett, yes?
February 6th, 2020 at 11:32 pm
Barry
I had name correct in the opening credits, but further down in the review itself, that’s where things went wrong. Thanks for catching it!
February 7th, 2020 at 10:02 am
“The money and the problems thereof that are involved in putting a movie together isn’t the sort of thing that people even bother to read about in their daily newspaper, much less in a sit-back-and-relax sixty minute TV show.”
According to someone (Mel Brooks?) studios devote much more time and imagination to the money than to the films themselves.
February 8th, 2020 at 9:54 am
True enough, but the “money” aspect of this tale based on the movie-making industry just wasn’t interesting. The bigger conflict was between the old and the new way of doing things. The story was on a lot more solid ground there.
February 8th, 2020 at 6:40 pm
Not really typical of the series though I agree Denning wasn’t my idea of Shayne, but then neither was Mark Steven who did a pilot as Shayne. I always had in mind Dennis O’Keefe from either T-MEN or RAW DEAL as Shayne.
While I’m pretty sure this was an original episode many of the series were adapted from Halliday novels in the manner of Perry Mason with whom this shared producers.
Damn good guest cast.
February 8th, 2020 at 8:27 pm
No one else has noticed, but the post has been up for over a day now, and I’ve just seen that I called Richard Denning Richard Deming instead. An easy mistake to make, I’d say. (It’s fixed now.)
Whenever it’s come up, I’ve always said that my choice for as the perfect actor to play Michael Shayne was Kenneth Tobey, especially if the production was going to be in color.
Jeff Chandler on the radio was of course very good, too.
February 8th, 2020 at 10:46 pm
Tobey would have been great in the part.
February 9th, 2020 at 3:37 am
Nit-Picking Time:
Michael Shayne did not “share producers” with Perry Mason.
Shayne was co-produced by Four Star (Dick Powell’s company) and NBC.
Mason was produced by Erle Stanley Gardner’s Paisano Productions and CBS.
The credits for almost all the Shaynes can be examined at YouTube, and the Masons are all on DVDs; the two shows have almost no behind-the-scenes personnel in common.
That said, I certainly would like to see a restored Michael Shayne set somewhere down the line, So There Too.
February 9th, 2020 at 11:32 am
Thanks, Mike. That’s more than a nit that you picked, I’d say.
And, in spite of the fat that I didn’t care all that much about this episode, I’d like to see a set of restored Michael Shayne DVDs too. The one I watched was on a Alpha Video release. Not the best quality, but far better than the one on YouTube, which is so bad I refused to embed it into my review.