Donald Free
Created By Raoul Whitfield
A series of short stories that
appeared in Black Mask in 1932, relating the adventures
of DONALD FREE, a disgraced government agent forced to
accept work at a particularly seedy private detective agency.
The stories were to form the basis for a pretty successful movie,
Private Detective 62, the next year, starring William Powell.
A good tight little film. The plot is obvious and creaky but William Powell is as stylish and suave, something he was to perfect later in the thin man series. The direction by Curtiz is well above average for the time ..... some beautiful angle shots, a nice fluid camera and I love the stair bit at the end .... in other words it is not as "stage bound" as a lot of other films from the time. The female lead, Margaret Lindsay,does a good job of looking pretty, and the great character actor Charles Lane turns up yet again. Its only about 67 minutes long and its a hoot .... pity the story isn't up to scratch (although they managed to sneak in a character called Whitey who is a hop head and at one stage is told to lay off the "snow") and it starts off slow otherwise it would be a mini classic ( like Powell's other film of about the same time "Jewell Robbery")
Not great, maybe, but by most accounts, a very entertaining little crime film. Powell, as always, is fun to watch, Margaret Lindsay as "the babe" is easy enough on the eyes, and the direction by Curtiz is less stiff and "stagey" than most other flicks of the time. And it was said to have inspired Dashiel Hammett when he created his own eye/spy, Secret Agent X-9, for the comics.
Raoul Whitfield, one of the masters of the pulps, was also responsible for private eyes Ben Jardinn and Jo Gar (under the pen name of Ramon Delcolta).
SHORT STORIES
FILM
Respectfully submitted by Kevin Burton Smith.
