Zeus

Nick Carter, Master Detective (1939)

• Director
  • Jacques Tourneur
• Writers
  • Bertram Millhauser(screen play)
  • Harold Buckley(based on a story by)
  • John Russel Coryell(character)
• Stars
  • Walter Pidgeon
  • Rita Johnson
  • Henry Hull

  Pulp-novel detective Nick Carter was created in the 1880s, but most film versions of the character have been updated to modern times. Such was the case with MGM's three-episode "Nick Carter" series, which got off to a good start with Nick Carter, Master Detective. Walter Pidgeon plays the title character, who in this episode gets mixed up with industrial espionage. Posing as one "Robert Chalmers", Nick gets the goods on a gang of foreign spies (no country names, please!), bringing them to heel during a serial-like waterfront chase. Rita Johnson essays a rare sympathetic role as stewardess Lou Farnsby, while Donald Meek steals the show as Bartholomew the beekeeper (a character who would grow increasingly annoying as the series went on). Nick Carter, Master Detective was coscripted by Bertram Millhauser, who also penned several of the Rathbone-Bruce "Sherlock Holmes" films.