The Lady in the Morgue *** (1938, Preston Foster, Frank Jenks, Patricia Ellis) – Classic Movie Review 12,160

‘DETECTIVE BILL CRANE AGAIN!… Wise-cracking around for clues… And making them fit.. In a thrill-filled mystery drama!’

Director Otis Garrett’s well-made 1938 Universal Pictures B-movie murder mystery film noir thriller The Lady in the Morgue [The Case of the Missing Blonde] stars Preston Foster, Patricia Ellis, Frank Jenks, Barbara Pepper, Thomas E Jackson, Rollo Lloyd, Wild Bill Elliott, and Roland Drew.

The corpse of a blonde female goes missing from the morgue in highly suspicious circumstances and wisecracking private detective Bill Crane (Preston Foster) looks into the case, especially urgently since he becomes the police’s number one suspect. More bodies turn up, equally suspiciously, or even more suspiciously. The morgue keeper is found killed and Police Lieutenant Strom (Thomas E Jackson) and Police Inspector Layman (Morgan Wallace) suspect that Crane and his assistant Doc Williams (Frank Jenks) had something to do with both the body disappearing and the morgue keeper’s death.

A more than adequate yarn twists and unravels reasonably satisfactorily in this short and pacey if fairly obvious support-movie suspense thriller, with solid performances, expert handling and a decent mystery-movie screenplay.

The screenplay by Eric Taylor and Robertson White is based on the 1936 Crime Club novel The Lady in the Morgue by Jonathan Latimer, one of his series of novels featuring private detective William Crane.

In 1937, Universal Pictures made a deal with the Crime Club, publishers of whodunits, allowing it to select up to four of its books annually for production as B-pictures. The Lady in the Morgue is the third in Universal’s Crime Club mystery series of 11 films between 1937 and 1939. The first is The Westland Case, based on the Jonathan Latimer novel Headed for a Hearse (1937), followed by The Black Doll (1938), The Lady in the Morgue (1938), Danger on the Air (1938), The Last Express (1938), The Last Warning (1938), Mystery of the White Room (1939), and The Witness Vanishes (1939).

The Crime Club series was made at a unit headed by producer Irving Starr, with former film editor Otis Garrett often directing.

A new management has taken over troubled studio Universal Pictures after the costly production of Show Boat (1936) and the Crime Club deal is an example of its willingness to make creative marketing tie-ins.

The film was released on 22 April 1938 by Universal Pictures.

Most of the opening score is taken from Franz Waxman’s music for The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

The cast are Preston Foster as Bill Crane, Patricia Ellis as Mrs. Sam Taylor, Frank Jenks as Doc Williams, Thomas E Jackson as Police Lieutenant Strom, Wild Bill Elliott as Chauncey Courtland, Roland Drew as Sam Taylor, Barbara Pepper as Kay Renshaw, Joe Downing as Steve Collins, Archie Robbins as Frankie French, Al Hill as Spitzy, Morgan Wallace as Police Inspector Layman, Brian Burke as Johnson, Donald Kerr as Greening, Don Brodie as Taxi Driver, Rollo Lloyd as Coroner, and Gordon Hart as Colonel Black.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,160

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