Larceny in Her Heart
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Sam Newfield
Hugh Beaumont
Cheryl Walker
Ralph Dunn
Paul Bryar
Charles Wilson
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Private detective Michael Shayne is about to go on vacation with his secretary, Phyllis Hamilton, when wealthy Burton Stallings cajoles him into investigating the disappearance of his stepdaughter Helen. Rather than disappoint Phyllis, who is set on leaving town, Mike starts to mail Stallings' check back to him when a drunken woman stumbles into his office and collapses after muttering something about Stallings. From the photo that Stallings gave him, Mike recognizes the woman as Helen. Believing that he can now quickly solve the Stallings case and still leave town, Mike takes Phyllis to the train and promises to join her in forty-eight hours. When Mike returns to his office, however, he discovers that Helen has been strangled. Mike's nemesis, Sgt. Pete Rafferty, receives a report that a woman was heard screaming in Mike's office and investigates. Mike manages to get rid of Rafferty, and later, Tim Rourke, Mike's reporter friend, reveals that Helen had sued Stallings for an accounting of her father's estate, but later dropped the lawsuit. When he is questioned, Stallings reports that Helen was dating nightclub owner Arch Dubler, and Mike proceeds to Dubler's club. There, he is thrown out in the alley because he is improperly dressed and wakes up next to trumpet player Whit Marlow, Helen's secret husband. In the meantime, Tim tries to move Helen's body, only to discover that it has disappeared, but by the time Mike returns with Whit, the body has mysteriously reappeared, and Phyllis has come back to town. Eventually, Tim and Mike deliver Helen's body to Stallings' front lawn, but it is later found in the bay. Curious, Mike questions Stallings at his house and then makes a date with Lucille, the maid, who tells him that Helen's alcoholic mother spent time in a sanitarium and implies that she knows some of the family secrets. Later, Whit reveals that he and Helen were keeping their marriage secret until she turned twenty-one and received her inheritance. Despite the fact that Stallings has identified the body as Helen's, Mike asks the coroner to make a fingerprint comparison. After someone attempts to strangle Lucille, Mike gets himself committed to Doc Patterson's sanitarium, where Mrs. Stallings had been a patient. From one of the other patients, Mike learns that a woman is kept under restraint, and later that night, after ascertaining the woman's identity, Mike sneaks outside and asks a waiting Tim to bring Rafferty to the sanitarium in the morning. That morning, Patterson summons Stallings, and Mike holds them at gunpoint until Rafferty arrives. Then he reveals that the dead woman is not Helen Stallings, but Barbara Brett, a former patient at the sanitarium who resembled Helen. When he saw her while visiting Helen's mother, Stallings decided to hire her to trade places with Helen and, as Helen, drop the lawsuit against him. Later, he used Barbara to gain control of Helen's entire estate, which would come to him if Helen died before her twenty-first birthday. Mike suspected this deception after Whit revealed that the dead woman was not Helen. After Helen and Whit are reunited, Phyllis finally sets off for Niagara with Mike.
Director
Sam Newfield
Cast
Hugh Beaumont
Cheryl Walker
Ralph Dunn
Paul Bryar
Charles Wilson
Douglas Fowley
Gordon Richards
Charles Quigley
Julia Mcmillan
Marie Harmon
Lee Bennett
Henry Hall
Milton Kibbee
Crew
Ben Colman
Leo Erdody
Jack Greenhalgh
Edward C. Jewell
Ray Mercer
Sigmund Neufeld
Stanley Neufeld
Elias H. Reif
Raymond L. Schrock
Earl Sitar
Ray Smallwood
Bert Sternbach
Eugene C. Stone
Holbrook N. Todd
Bud Westmore
Film Details
Technical Specs
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The film's working title was Crime in the Night. The film's opening title card reads: "PRC Pictures presents Michael Shayne, Detective in Larceny in Her Heart." For more information on the "Michael Shayne" series, for Michael Shayne, Private Detective and consult the Series Index.
