THE LADY IN THE MORGUE

US, 1938, 67 minutes, Black-and-white.
Preston Foster, Patricia Ellis, Frank Jenks, Thomas Jackson, Gordon Elliott, Roland Drew, Barbara Pepper, Joe Downing, Archie Robbins.
Directed by Otis Garrett.

A fairly routine supporting crime feature from Universal Studios in the late 30s. It gives an opportunity for Preston Foster, often an action hero, to be a smart-talking private eye.

A woman is alleged to have hanged herself in a hotel room. The police are not sure of her identity. While they investigate, the private detective is called in, along with his associate, a comic turn from Frank Jenks, a bit slow on the uptake at times, but with an eye for the ladies. The investigator is laid-back, sleeps easily, gets involved in physical action, uses his wits to solve the issue.

In fact, the lady spends a long time not in the morgue. With various parties eager to know who she is, their possible partner, she is smuggled out of the mortuary, buried, dug up…

There are various men who want to know who she is. An urbane gentleman, concerned about his upset mother, wants to prove that the dead woman is not his sister who has left home. There is also another mysterious hostess from a nightclub – and her relationship with a trumpet player. Some attendants at the morgue are also killed, one by accident, the other deliberately to cover the murderer’s identity.

Eventually, the dead woman is the missing sister and the murderer is unmasked – the trumpeter.