Blue, White And Perfect (1942)

Stars:

Lloyd Nolan, Mary Beth Hughes, Helene Reynolds

The high batting average of 20th Century-Fox's Michael Shayne detective series remained intact with Blue, White and Perfect. Having prevented his sweetheart Merle Garland (Mary Beth Hughes) from marrying a bigamous fortune-hunter (Ivan Lebedeff), Mike Shayne (Lloyd Nolan) offers to marry the girl himself (at long last!) Merle agrees, but only if Mike gets out of the private-eye racket and takes an honest job. Shayne manages to land a job at an aircraft factory, only to discover that he's been hired to protect the company's valuable supply of industrial diamonds. When the gems are stolen during a highly suspicious break-in, Mike follows the trail of clues to a fancy dress shop managed by one Mr. Hagermann (Henry Victor). Sending his fiancee off on a wild goose chase, Mike trails Hagermann to a Honolulu-bound ocean liner, where he renews an acquaintance with former lady friend Helen Shaw (Helene Reynolds) and is introduced to overly effusive young playboy Juan Arturo O'Hara (George Reeves). Detective-movie logic dictates that at least one of these characters is inextricably linked with the elusive Hagermann-who is no mere diamond thief but a very clever German spy. All sorts of serial-like thrills await Shayne before he manages to uncover the "Mister Big" behind the stolen diamond racket (and it's a real surprise to boot!) Like most of Fox's Michael Shayne series entries, Blue White and Perfect was based not on a "Shayne" novel by Bret Halliday, but on a whodunit originally written for another fictional sleuth: In this instance, the source was a novel by Borden Chase.