Movie review – Shayne #5 - “The Man Who Wouldn’t Die” (1942) **1/2

Michael Shayne shoe-horned into another film for which he wasn’t originally considered. This feels different to others in the series – a bit more spooky and horror film like. Shayne is called into investigate some weird stuff at an old house by an old female friend (Marjorie Lawrence, who was in the first Shayne film but who here plays a different character, although it’s a similar sort of role, i.e. little rich girl). To enable him to investigate, they pretend to be married which enables some fun Shayne comedy – one of the big attractions of the series. This one is notable for its number of spooky scenes: wind-swept house at night, digging up corpses, silhouettes of killers with glowing eyes. The support cast includes Henry Wilcoxon, Jeff Corey (later acting coach) and Dorothy Malone (one of her first films, though buggered if I could spot her – she’s probably one of the girls running past when Mike goes to see the magician whose backs are to the screen).