Good concept, poorly executed.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Long before he directed Casablanca, Mildred Pierce and The Adventures of Robin Hood (among other brilliant films) Michael Curtiz took a hand in putting together this little Depression gem about shady detective work, women with money to spare, and a budding romance. The always puckishly sophisticated William Powell appears to have a great deal of fun playing what appears to be a shady detective—but one with an integrity and a great charm for women. In this zippy little pre-code gem, Powell is hired to put a wealthy female gambler in jeopardy so that her considerable winnings can be taken back by the speakeasy where she gambles; can you guess what happens when the two meet? The woman is played by the engagingly attractive but underused Margaret Lindsay, and she's an apt foil for Powell's machinations (Lindsay has never looked better than she does in this film, and one wonders why she never moved into more major films).This is another Warner Brother's quickie, a highly entertaining, fast-moving (67 minutes!) "B" film loaded with familiar character actors like Hobart Cavanaugh and Irving Bacon and even Toby Wing, whose wide-smile and sexy persona impresses immediately in a five second appearance as one of Powell's willing conquests. There's even a pre-code drug addict named "Whitey" referred to as a "hophead" into "snow," the sort of drug reference which, as a result of the new code, would completely disappear from films for twenty years after 1934; drugs didn't make a major appearance again until Sinatra's Oscar-nominated performance in The Man With The Golden Arm in 1956. This is not a great film by any means, but a perfect Saturday matinée popcorn movie, an excellent example of a studio film that was no longer made after 1950.

Private Detective 62 casts William Powell as a detective once again. But if you think you're going to see something on the order of Nick Charles or Philo Vance think again. Powell is playing one seedy gumshoe who through the circumstances of the Great Depression and the fact he's been deported back to America from France under indiscreet circumstances, he finds he's desperate for employment.He works a few cons in this film, but the biggest is when Powell goes into partnership with peephole peeper Arthur Hohl and then the two are financed in their detective agency by gangster/gambler Gordon Westcott.Westcott has a special job for them, to discredit and/or get money back that society woman Margaret Lindsay. But one sight of Lindsay and Powell has an attack of ethics. Private Detective 62 has its moments, but Powell's ethics seem to be rather elastic here. He's not like his more famous detective roles and I think fans will be disappointed.

Don Free (William Powell) is a down-on-his-luck character in a depression-era big city that reluctantly joins a private detective agency to make a few bucks. Janet Reynolds (Margaret Lindsay) is a gal with a gift for roulette. Janet is either extremely lucky or using an undisclosed system, but however she is doing it, she has been on a winning streak for some time, letting the house hold her winnings so that she won't feel afraid to leave the casino at night. Her gambling gifts have run up a tally of over $50,000, a fortune in the Great Depression. She announces to the management of the casino that she intends to cash her chips so that she can head to Europe, a decision which imposes a deadline on the casino, especially since they don't want to part with that much cash. They devise an elaborate scheme when she agrees to meet with the payout master in his apartment. They know that she always carries a gun for protection, so they arrange for the weapon to be loaded with blanks, and when the payout master aggressively comes on to her, she shoots him in self-defense. She flees the apartment in terror, believing that she has committed a murder. The payout master calls his buddies on the telephone to let them know that she fell for the gag, when suddenly a hand eases through the curtains with a pistol in it, and the payout master is shot again, this time for real. Don Free (William Powell) has become involved with Janet (Margaret Lindsay) because of a case he has undertaken with his shady partner, hoping for a $10,000 fee, but unfortunately for the bad guys in this film, Don Free is an ethical detective, and he begins using his considerable intellect to defend Janet and get her out of the mess. Highly entertaining movie, even though you can see they are falling for each other, but Don and Janet are so appealing in their roles, you're pulling for them all the way through the picture. Masterfully directed by Michael Curtiz, this is one depression-era film which provides solid entertainment.

A good tight little film. The plot is obvious and creaky but William Powell is as stylish and suave, something he was to perfect later in the thin man series. The direction by Curtiz is well above average for the time ..... some beautiful angle shots, a nice fluid camera and I love the stair bit at the end .... in other words it is not as "stage bound" as a lot of other films from the time. The female lead, Margaret Lindsay,does a good job of looking pretty, and the great character actor Charles Lane turns up yet again. Its only about 67 minutes long and its a hoot .... pity the story isn't up to scratch (although they managed to sneak in a character called Whitey who is a hop head and at one stage is told to lay off the "snow") and it starts off slow otherwise it would be a mini classic ( like Powell's other film of about the same time "Jewell Robbery")