Time to Kill

Time to Kill (1942)

Mike Shayne in a killer-diller of a chiller-diller... with no time out to count the corpses!

Lloyd Nolan is back as detective Michael Shayne who's in search of a stolen coin.

Date of release
1942-12-24
TMDB
5.9 / 10 (6)
Runtime
1h 1m
Genres
Mystery
Director
Herbert I. Leeds
Collection
Michael Shayne Collection

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: The High Window

Time to Kill is a 1942 American mystery film directed by Herbert I. Leeds. It is the first screen adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel The High Window, which was remade five years later as The Brasher Doubloon. The detective was changed from Philip Marlowe to Michael Shayne for this version, with Lloyd Nolan playing the part and Heather Angel in a rare turn as leading lady. It is also the final Michael Shayne film starring Lloyd Nolan made at Fox, who closed down their popular B movie unit which included Mr. Moto, Charlie Chan, and the Cisco Kid. In 1946 the series would be reborn at Producers Releasing Corporation with Hugh Beaumont taking over the role.

Production

20th Century Fox bought Raymond Chandler's novel The High Window for $3,500. RKO Pictures purchased the rights to Chandler's 1940 novel Farewell, My Lovely and made 1944's Murder, My Sweet which would have the character of Philip Marlowe.

David Raksin was uncredited for his work on Time to Kill although the book Film Composers in America : A Filmography, 1911-1970 credits him. Emil Newman is credited with the film score of Superior "Michael Shayne" thrillers: Murders surround theft of valuable coin.

Time to Kill was written by Clarence Upson Young, based on Raymond Chandler's novel The High Window. Brett Halliday wrote a series of books with Michael Shayne as the lead character whereas Chandler's was Philip Marlowe. 20th Century Fox was looking for detective film series after the success of Charlie Chan and Mr. Moto film series in 1940.

Time to Kill's cinematographer was Charles Clarke.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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