Michael Shayne, Private Detective

The first in an extremely interesting series of programme fillers from 20th Century-Fox, important today because it featured a tough, resilient and self-reliant private eye before the popularity of those moody Humphrey Bogart movies later on in the decade. Shayne was the creation of pulp fiction hack Brett Halliday and was incarnated on screen by the excellent Lloyd Nolan, an actor whose very persona suggested he brooked no nonsense. This pilot movie is abrasive, sexy and eminently watchable within its B-budget confines. Hugh Beaumont took over from Nolan later.