William Powell was between his higher profile turns as amateur sleuths Philo Vance at Paramount and Nick Charles at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer when he made this amusing one-off for Warner Brothers, directed by Michael Curtiz. In Private Detective 62 (1933), Powell plays a compromised government agent reduced to working as a private dick for a disreputable New York agency during the early days of the Depression. When he is retained to dig up dirt on society dame Margaret Lindsay, whose roulette winnings are an embarrassment to casino owner Gordon Wescott, Powell finds himself falling unexpectedly in love with his subject - a development that has unforeseen and deadly consequences. A sparkling example of the Warners house style, Private Detective 62 is briskly played by a buoyant cast that includes Arthur Hohl (as Powell's untrustworthy partner) and Ruth Donnelly (as the agency's loyal secretary and voice of conscience), and is brought in under the wire by Curtiz at just 67 minutes. Underpaid and undervalued at the factory-like Warner Brothers, Powell would soon depart for the cozier climate of MGM. After playing the exasperating Philo Vance one more time in The Kennel Murder Case (1934) - also directed by Curtiz - Powell began to define his enduring screen image in such films as Metro's Manhattan Melodrama (1934) and The Thin Man series, as well as Universal's socially conscious comedy My Man Godfrey (1936).

By Richard Harland Smith