Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Simply A Masterpiece

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Blistering performances.

When the Michael Shayne series was revived in the mid-1940s after a four-year break, Hugh Beaumont replaced Lloyd Nolan in the title role, and there was also a significant drop in production values. "Three On A Ticket" is an extremely low-budget movie (of course, the fact that it's only available in "unofficial" and unremastered prints doesn't do it any favors, either). But if you can get used to that, it's not really a bad film. The story is half-obvious, half-clever: a private detective from New York walks into Michael Shayne's office and, before saying a single word, drops dead - he had been shot. Not long after the police take away the body, a glamorous blonde enters Shayne's office and basically asks him to help her get rid of her criminal husband. What's the connection? And what's the significance of the baggage claim ticket that Shayne found in the dead man's pocket? Beaumont, although inferior to Nolan, is OK in the role, and Louise Currie, who if IMDb is correct will turn 100 (!) in a couple of months, makes a coolly dangerous femme fatale. ** out of 4.