Larceny in Her Heart

Hugh Beaumont as Mike Shayne is about to take a vacation with with Cheryl Walker. His plans are interrupted when the corpse of a woman turns up in his office and her stepfather hires him to investigate; when the police try to confirm it, he denies it.

I didn't expect much from this PRC production, certainly not when the screenwriter is named Raymond L. Schrock -- which I read off the screen as "Raymond Schlock" -- but it's a nice, twisty little mystery that winds up in a drying-out farm for diposmaniacs;Beaumont is pretty good as the glib Shayne.

Shayne's creator was Brett Halliday, nee Davis Dresser, and he came up with Shayne as a marketing scheme. There were stories, novels, movies, radio shows, and even a long-running mystery magazine that paid royalties for using the Mike Shayne name. Halliday died in 1977, aged 72.