KnotMissPriceless Why so much hype?

Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Kidskycom It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

Borserie it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

kapelusznik18 ****SPOILERS****Michael Shayne, Lloyd Nolan, got his hands full in delivering a very important witness to exonerate someone, Joe Callahan, that Shayne when he was a cop sent up the river for four years for robbery. The witness Helen Carlson, Mary Beth Hughes, is whisked literally under cover on the Denver to San Francisco train to get her to the court, not church, on time to testify in Callahan's defense. It's there where the trouble begins in that in exonerating Callahan would implicate the Governor of the state of California Clebe Wentworth in framing Calllahan for the murder that the Gov's son Larry committed! The trouble in all this is that the star witness Helen Carlson is not that dependable in testifying in that she's a cold stone drunk and on top of all that the Governor's goons are out to whack her before she makes it to SF to testify! And it's poor Michael Shayne's job to make sure that she get there alive!We also have Shayne's pesky ex-girlfriend reporter Kay Bently, Lynn Bari, who's not only engaged-do you notice that back in those days in the movies that more women are engaged then married- to the Gov's right hand man Tom Linscott, Donald Douglas, whom Shayne takes an immediate dislike of! What comes from right out of the blue is Everette Jason, Louis Jean Heydt,who's escaping from his boring and secure life as a dry goods salesman with his life savings, $10,000,00, for a much better life of thrills and excitement as a big game hunter in South America. It's later that Jason hooks up with Helen Carlson and plans to check out of the country and elope to South America! Thus leaving both Michael Shayne and the person she's to testify for both out in the cold and strapped into the San Quentin gas chamber.***SPOILERS***Llyod Nolan looking as if he suffering from a severe case of sleep deprivation sleepwalks through the entire movie in trying to get Helen to testify as well as keeping her from getting drunk as well as killed at the same time. Kay Bently does her best to screw things up for Shayne in being angry at him for keeping the big story of Helen testifying from her not realizing that a man's-Callahan- life is at stake and may well end up losing it because of her foolish actions. Much like the far better movie "The Narrow Margin" released ten years later the film is saved by the comedy relief of Pullman Porter Ben Carter who discovers Jason's $10,000.00 and thinks he embezzled it and keeps upping the amount in how much it is, from $10,000.00 to a half a million, that throws everything else in the movie completely out of whack!

GManfred This is a pretty good entry in the Mike Shayne series. I say pretty good because there are a couple of better ones than this one. It starts off on good footing - a witness is traveling to a trial on a train, in disguise and in the care of Mike Shayne. Naturally, there are a few others on the train with a great deal of interest in uncovering this witness. Then follows the usual hijinks and shenanigans that take place on a train with sleeping cars; people coming in and out of compartments looking for this one and that, shady characters searching for passengers, people breaking into compartments, etc.Several reviewers have compared this film to "The Narrow Margin", but from this point on, "Sleepers" and " Margin" differ significantly, as "Sleepers" begins to lose its luster as well as the slight amount of tension it has built up. I disagree with some reviewers that "Narrow Margin" was copied on this picture, as that movie was taut and tense right to the end, with Charles McGraw of the scowling countenance in the role played by Nolan here. "Sleepers" goes off on a tangent - the witness (Mary Beth Hughes) has fallen in love with a man who has stumbled into her compartment (Louis Jean Heydt, out of character as a good-natured slob instead of a sneak), they leave the train with the help of a passenger, and from here on the film limps to a crowd-pleasing, pablum ending so characteristic of B movies.Lloyd Nolan is, as always, stalwart and more charismatic than at any other time in his career as Shayne, which is the main reason to watch this entertaining series. I just wished they could have come up with a better way to end matters, like "The Narrow Margin" did.

Terrell-4 For the first 40 minutes of Sleepers West, one of the Michael Shayne quickie B movies starring Lloyd Nolan, I thought we might be in the middle of tense Narrow Margin territory. Mike Shayne is hiding a secret witness on a train barreling through the night between Denver and a high profile trial in San Francisco. Her testimony can prove the innocence of a man framed for a murder...a murder that involves some very powerful people who want the case closed fast and permanently. And on that train is a killer determined to identify the witness and stop her from testifying. That's not all. Also aboard is a smart, shrewd and sexy newspaper reporter, Kay Bentley (Lynn Bari), an old romance of Mike's who is determined to find Mike's witness and get a scoop. Then there's the tall guy with a suitcase full of cash who might just be a poor shrump...or a killer, too. If that's not enough for Mike, his witness, Helen Carlson (Mary Beth Hughes), is a lush piece of frosting who enjoys a drink, has lazy eyes and lips as plump as Angelina Jolie's collagen injections. If Sleepers West, a great, odd-sounding title, settles down to standard B movie fare toward the end, the ride at least is a lot of fun. Lloyd Nolan remains the reason to see this comedy/ mystery. Lynn Bari adds style and sexiness and has a great voice. She was a good actress who could handle comedy, drama, weepies or romance. Over a long career, she'd shrug and do the movies she was offered, and never was able to break out of the B's. Blue, White and Perfect (1942), directed by Herbert I. Leeds, is the fourth and last in the Michael Shayne Mysteries - Volume I. In some ways, it's the best of the four. Once again we have an economical set, this time on an ocean liner steaming from Los Angeles to Honolulu. There's espionage involving industrial diamonds, murder, fist fights and a nice near- drowning in a flooding ship's compartment. The story is as complicated than the other three were, but it hold ups for the length of the movie. In this one, the ruthless Mr. Big is well disguised until the end. The confined quarters of the ship means there are lots of scrambles up and down stairways and people following each other at night in the halls. Lloyd Nolan continues his pitch-perfect portrayal of Shayne as cocky, funny, tough when he has to be and veering closely, but not close enough, toward getting married. Shayne's escape from marriage this time is cleverly handled by a corpse with a knife in its back. Don't blame yourself if you get confused over some of the characters in these films. Mary Beth Hughes appears in three of them, Helene Reynolds in two and Marjorie Weaver in two. And they're all in leading roles never playing the same characters. Lloyd Nolan must have been as confused as Mike Shayne sometimes appears to be. And let's hear it for double- breasted suits. That's what Shayne always wears, and they look good on him.

F Gwynplaine MacIntyre 'Sleepers West' has a complicated pedigree. In the early '30s, pulp-magazine novelist Frederick Nebel wrote a detective story called 'Sleepers EAST'. The Fox studio bought the rights and filmed this in 1934, but the film 'Sleepers East' is spoilt by some boring romantic elements that dilute the mystery plot. In 1941, Fox remade the story ... changing the plot to make this film an appropriate entry in their 'Mike Shayne' series. They also retitled it 'Sleepers WEST'. The directional change is appropriate to a private-eye story, as westward is the most noir-ish direction: the progression towards sunset ... and death. (Compare this with Rodgers and Hart's 'All Points West', in which the main character dies at the end ... or Lucille Fletcher's radio script and Twilight Zone episode 'The Hitch-Hiker', in which Death and his victim are both heading west on the highway.)'Sleepers West' is a nice taut little B-picture, a splendid example of those second-feature low-budgeters that Hollywood did so well in the great studio era. Even the film's title pleasingly evokes the 1940s, when sleeping-cars ('sleepers') on American railway trains were commonplace. (On a British railway, 'sleepers' are the wooden ties that hold up the rails.) Movies that take place aboard moving railway trains are always enjoyable: the characters are hurtling along at top speed even if the plot goes off the rails.Lloyd Nolan had a mug that usually cast him as criminals, but here he's perfect as Mike Shayne, the hard-bitten yet incorruptible private eye. Shayne is escorting Helen Carlson from Denver to San Francisco, where she's to testify in court. Helen's testimony will free a man who's been falsely convicted of murder ... but her testimony will also expose a powerful corrupt politician. So, of course the train to Frisco is chock-full of passengers who want to kill Helen. As if Shayne hasn't enough troubles, there's also one of those stereotypical 1940s 'girl reporter' types (well-played by the vivacious Lynn Bari), who keeps getting in Shayne's way at inconvenient moments.There are lots of those great supporting roles that nostalgic movie-goers expect in 1940s films like this: I especially enjoyed the great Edward Brophy and the underrated (but prolific) character actor Harry Hayden. Unfortunately, another typical trait of 1940s Hollywood movies makes an unwelcome appearance here: the gratuitous Negro stereotype. In the days of Pullman sleeping-cars, there was a well-organised union of Pullman porters: all of them African-American men. It makes perfect sense that a black actor is cast as the porter in 'Sleepers West'. Regrettably, the role is played by Ben Carter: a plump, simpering, pop-eyed, high-pitched, effeminate black man whom I always find painful to watch on screen. Ben Carter's character portrayals were consistently much more annoying (and possibly more racist) than those of the notorious Stepin Fetchit ... though never quite so annoying as those of Edgar Connor, possibly the most offensive Negro actor in the (no pun intended) dark days of Hollywood stereotypes. Couldn't the railway porter in this movie have been depicted as an ordinary human being: a black man just trying to make an honest living, like pretty much everyone else?Despite that one cavil, I eagerly rate 'Sleepers West' 9 points out of 10. They don't make 'em like this any more!