The Lady In The Morgue is a 1938 comedy crime movie based on the Jonathan Latimer novel of the same name. Eric Taylor and Robertson White wrote the screenplay and Otis Garrett directed. It was the third film in a series of novelizations of Crime Club novels. Universal made eleven Crime Club films in all. I've read a few Jonathan Latimer novels but it was long ago and I didn't keep any of them. Eric wrote 15 films with Robertson and another 35 on his own. I've seen a good number of them, he wrote all 7 of the 1940s Ellery Queen films. He wrote the 1941 horror film The Black Cat, followed by The Ghost of Frankenstein, Phantom Of The Opera, Son Of Dracula and The Whistler.
A woman is found dead in a hotel room. Two rival crooks send their minions to check out the body and a detective agency sends Detective Bill Crane, played by Preston Foster, to try to identify the body for a client who wants to find out if it's her daughter. The body is stolen from the morgue and the attendant murdered. Crane's not too popular with the local cops but he's got enough attitude for 3 detectives. When pokes his nose into the crime scene, the antics with the elevator operator made me laugh out loud. Crane isn't popular with the local cops and as the movie plays out you can see why.
There's a bit of romance with Patricia Ellis and some banter with the police detectives. It's funny enough and there's a good enough story to get to the end. I got a few laughs out of it and would watch it again.
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