The Lady in the Morgue

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.

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."

Preston Foster plays a PI hired to investigate the case of a missing body. It's a fast-paced mystery, though a little too fast. It can be confusing with so many characters, and though the dialogue is snappy and humorous, it lacked clarity. Still it's enjoyable, and a great insight into the era. Plus, it's good to see one of my favourite 1940's b-western star Wild Bill Elliott. I didn't recognise him at first.

"The Lady in the Morgue" is the 3rd of 11 Crime Club Mysteries...mysteries based on crime novels under the same umbrella title.

The story begins with a woman found dead...hanging in a cheap hotel. Bill Crane, a private detective, responds to the case, as he thinks she might actually be a missing rich woman. But when he goes to the morgue to check out the body, the attendant there has been murdered and the corpse has been stolen! Clearly this is no run of the mill case for Crane.

This is a decent but otherwise unremarkable mystery. During this era, Hollywood made hundreds (if not thousands) of them and while it's slightly better than average (the acting and production values put it above similar films from Monogram and other similar studios), there's little that distinguishes it over the rest of the lot...and much of it is because Crane needed to spend MUCH of the finale of the film explaining everything! At least Crane is a private eye...in most of these sorts of films they are newspaper reporters or amateurs! Well made but one you don't need to rush to see.

Part of the Crime Club series, and based on an original by Jonathan Latimer, this nifty little mystery is often cited as a model of 30s B-movie adeptness. It was directed by the unjustly forgotten Otis Garrett (who died young), a former editor who uses flash-pan edits and other visual tricks to maintain a breakneck pace -- so fast that it's pretty difficult to follow the complex plot. Although a bit too reliant on dialog scenes, there are enough effective wisecracks, bizarre demimonde characters (shifty undertakers, dour taxi drivers, carefree taxi dancers) and risqué asides (apparently, the production code enforcers often neglected these low budgeters) to raise the quality well above the norm. One side benefit is an appearance by a young Barbara Pepper, sassy and sardonic as ever, but surprisingly lithe and seductive. Soon-to-be-famous Stanley Cortez provided the cinematography.