The Missing Corpse

Newspaper publisher J. Edward Bromberg has a running feud with fellow publisher Paul Guilfoyle. Bromberg doesn't like Guilfoyle publishing pictures of his daughter at nightclubs, and threatens the man, whom he calls a blackmailer. The next day he is to go duck hunting, and so spends the evening practicing with a rifle. The following morning, he is packing supplies in the car chauffeur frank Jenks will drive him in, and discovers Guilfoyle's corpse in there.

It's from a story by Harry O. Hoyt (best remembered for directing the silent The Lost World), and it's a pretty amusing comedy as Bromberg tries to ditch the body with Jenks' help, and keeps failing. Bromberg's reactions are funnier for not being particularly jittery in the face of the nitwits he encounters, from wife Lorell Sheldon to cop Archie Twitchell. It's a nicely layered performance by one of the founders of the Group Theater, and director Albert Herman lets him have his head.

I usually don't expect much from PRC movies. What a delightful surprise this was - it was funny, face paced, and entertaining. Also helping was that the print I saw was very good, from Amazon Instant Video. Henry Kruger (Bromberg), an honest and well-to-do newspaper publisher is ignored by his wife, son and daughter. Added to this is his ongoing dispute with a rival publisher who is a crook and a blackmailer. Angry over a photo the rival has published of his daughter, Kruger threatens him. Talking things over with his chauffeur, Mack Hogan (Jenks), Kruger decides to take a vacation and go to his hunting lodge. Unknown to him, the rival publisher is murdered by one of his victims and the murderer puts the body in the truck of his car. After arriving at the lodge, Kruger finds the body (thanks to the antics of a cute dog). There is a nosy highway patrolman hanging around and Kruger and Hogan struggle to keep the cop from finding the body. When the wife, son and daughter show up, the body is moved from room to room. Interestingly, Kruger's family keeps their knowledge about the body from the cop. Given this, the ending was a bit of a twist. I don't recall ever seeing Bromberg in a comedy role. He was excellent in the role as was Frank Jenks as the chauffeur. This movie is a lot of fun.

PRC produces an enjoyable item here with little funding, a comedic melodrama that successfully incorporates both verbal and visual humour, along with a dollop of suspense, in creating a picture notable for its rare featured performance by veteran supporting actor J. Edward Bromberg, skillful direction, and especially effective scoring, in addition to a clever scenario that benefits from perfect pacing to smoothly advance the action. A whimsical plot requires that scripting, acting, and editing combine equally to avoid mere giddiness, and that is the case here, with Bromberg cast as Henry Kruger, an ethical newspaper publisher who threatens Andy McDonald, his counterpart upon a rival big city (Los Angeles) tabloid, with physical harm after McDonald splashes a nightclub escapade involving Kruger's daughter upon his journal's front page. After the blackmailing McDonald is murdered by one of his victims, his corpse is chased from the unsuspecting Kruger's automobile trunk to a series of makeshift hiding places, with humorous perplexity resulting from Kruger's attempts to avoid being implicated in the homicide. Director Albert Herman, for his final feature film commission, ably leads his actors in the briskly gaited affair, and manages in fine fashion to balance comedy with sequences of suspense, aided throughout by a splendid score contributed by classically trained Karl Hajos, who adds pages to his prior work from studio stock, seamlessly blending the total into the narrative. Acting is of variable merit, with Frank Jenks winning the Thespic laurels in the role of Kruger's chauffeur and companion, a typically sharply defined performance from him, capitalizing upon his impeccable sense of timing.

Body, body, where's the dead body. Seems a non-breathing one gets around better than a breathing one. Then too, the murdered corpse is never where you'd expect it to be. And so, for better or worse, a nomadic corpse just about amounts to the plot. Good thing the narrative's full of colorful characters, and a fast moving director who never lets things drag. I like the way the amusing parts are under-played such that the acting never gets sappy. Cast-wise, It's a paunchy Bromberg, a smirking Jencks, a fluttery Randolph, and a sinister Weldon; together, they lift the skimpy narrative into a pleasantly entertaining programmer. Seems Bromberg's business rival turns up dead and the newsman's got to hide the body before others pin the murder on him. But can he, since new people keep turning up and turning things over in his mountain lodge. And when was the last time a paunchy, middle-aged short guy got the leading part in a flick. It does happen here and no camera tricks try to hide it. I guess my only gripe is the relative absence of shapely girls in that nifty 1940's attire. All in all, the flick's the kind of fun escape meant to ease wartime audiences. And dare I say it, fun too, even for a new millennium.

Great old movie....if you want humor and a twist in the story, this is a movie to see! Clean in todays standards. Not a waste of time. A peek into the past. A treasure!