The Lady in the Morgue

A few years before this Universal cheapie was made in 1938, the Laemmles, father and son, were ousted from the studio because of the excessive amount of money they overspent on their 1936 prestige production of the Irene Dunne SHOWBOAT. This typical lowest-budget B picture shows what the same studio could do for pennies. Stanley Cortez, who was to go on to photograph MAGNIFICENT AMBERSONS, must have lit these cheap sets in five minutes. The music is all stock, some borrowed from THE BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN. The director, the talented former editor Otis Garrett, does a commendable job. He shoots close angles to hide the bare sets and minimal furniture, and keeps the actors moving and talking so frantically that no one need bother to follow the plot. Lots of good wisecracking dialogue,and excellent no-nonsense acting from the usual tough guy and tough girl regulars. Well worth a visit if only to see the butler in the penthouse scene.

1938's "The Lady in the Morgue" was the third Crime Club from Universal, and the second to feature Preston Foster as Detective Bill Crane, with Frank Jenks as his sidekick Doc Williams. An attractive blonde suicide disappears from the morgue, with Crane, on assignment to identify the missing corpse, under suspicion for the murder of the morgue attendant; meanwhile, Chauncey Courtland ('Wild Bill' Elliott) is searching for his missing sister, and two different gangsters are putting the squeeze on Crane, each one hoping his girl isn't the missing blonde. Considering all the subplots going on things wrap up nicely, moving at a fast clip, with witty wisecracks galore, particularly when Crane is told to go down to the morgue: "think they'll take me?" Guaranteed to keep one guessing, and easily the best of the 3 Crane titles (preceded by "The Westland Case," followed by "The Last Warning"). The next Crime Club would be "Danger on the Air."

The Lady in the Morgue (1938)

** (out of 4)

Detective Crane (Preston Foster) goes to the morgue to see about a woman who committed suicide but as witnesses come in to ID her body it disappears. Crane and Lieutenant Storm (Thomas E. Jackson) try to find out exactly who the woman was, who murdered her and why they needed to steal the body.

This is another entry in Universal's Crime Club series, which was formed because the studio needed to make some low-budget movies that could make them a nice little profit. While this series has pretty much been forgotten today, back when it was released the films managed to catch on with the public and turned all eight into hits. Of course, their ability to make money has nothing to do with their actual quality and this entry in the series is pretty bland.

The film starts off on a good note as we learn that the woman was involved with two rival gang leaders and you'd think with the plot it would lead to a good mystery but sadly it doesn't. The film pretty much falls apart around the thirty minute mark and the rest of the movie goes by extremely slow and you just really don't care what's going on. When the mystery is finally revealed at the end it's good but by then it's just too late. Both Foster and Jackson can't do much with their roles and the supporting ones are rather bland as well.

Regretfully I have to say straight away that I was disappointed in this film. It is the follow-up to 'The Westland Case' in the short-lived Universal Bill Crane detective series. The first film was good so I do admit that I had expectations of this one. And indeed this drew me in at the beginning. But by the time of the early second half of the movie my eyes started to glaze over which is always a bad sign.

A naked woman initially called Alice Ross is found hanged from apparent suicide in the downbeat Darlow Hotel. Colonel Black calls in Bill Crane in on the case but then later he denies that he actually did so. The body is placed in a morgue and a number of interested parties have their own theories who the woman actually was. The body disappears and the morgue keeper is killed by an intruder at the same time.

The identity of the woman keeps changing according to the character who is talking about her. I found it difficult to fathom the relationship these people had to the dead woman at time. The plot became meandering rather than intriguing so the film lost all real mystery for me. By all means try this film because it has a fairly good IMDb rating. And discouraging people from watching B-mysteries from this period is the last thing I want to do but sorry to say I have this one on my DWA (Don't Watch Again) list.

That's how fast the movie unfolds. I think I followed the plot well enough to understand what happened, but I'm not sure. As near as I can tell, there was one unresolved murder, but it didn't affect the story one way or the other. It was also never explained how Preston Foster could be a suspect in one of the murders - he was a detective trying to solve it, after all. I guess it was to inject some humor and make the Police Dept. look comical. Never understood why 30's movie audiences bought the premise of mixing comedy into murder mysteries. To me they're like oil and water.

There are lots of unexplained bits of trivia, coincidences and non-sequiturs, too many to mention here, but that kind of thing devalues the storyline and serves only to break the viewers concentration - and with this picture one needs all of one's concentration. The cast was serviceable, especially Preston Foster as the hero, and it was fun to see Bill Elliott before he became a cowboy star. But the break-neck pace makes me think I should see it again, to catch what I missed the first time - so my rating is a holding grade. I'll get back to you.