The Lady in the Morgue

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.

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.

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.

A woman hangs herself at a hotel, and no one can identify her. PI Preston Foster is hired to look into the matter by a wealthy family. Soon the corpses and the mysteries pile up in this nicely tangled CRIME CLUB entry.

It's based on a mystery series by Jonathan Latimer, and it's a good mystery. Even if the screenwriters and director Otis Garrett can't put much snap into the dialogue, and there's an awful large amount of backscreen projection, the good cast keeps things moving along in a confused way throughout. Frank Jenks is Foster's stooge, Patricia Ellis is the leading lady, and the usual fine supporting players show up in this Universal programmer.

Latimer started turning out screenplays the next year, and seems to have peaked in the mid-1940s with nicely confusing noirs like THE BIG CLOCK. He would contribute to the PERRY MASON TV series, and die in 1983 at the age of 76.