I watched an interesting movie last night, though...."Detective Code 62"...a 1933 Warner Brothers "Vitaphone" programmer starring William Powell.
Very unusual 1-hour 17-minute film with Powell being ousted from Paris (and France) where he was working as a detective and where he had been caught with sensitive documents. Just as he's arriving at NYC port, the captain of the French vessel receives a wire telling him to return with Powell who will be further scrutinized. Powell escapes, jumps ship and swims to shore. He talks his way into a job with a flea-bag detective agency. Soon, the agency is thriving. But Powell's partner yields to too much temptation. Powell is assigned to "get something good" on a society dame who has been winning big at a local gambling joint. Powell's partner is a "secret partner" of the owner of the gambling joint. Powell shows up at the casino, dressed to the nines, and falls in love with this woman. At any rate, he learns about what's going on after a phony murder set-up, a real murder, a setup to murder him, etc. It's fast, it's tongue-in-cheek, and it was the perfect vehicle for Powell to "test" for the role of Nick Charles. Powell was one of those rare movie stars...one who instinctively knew how to "act" when the cameras rolled. I was glad I saw it, and I was glad to delete it, too.