One Body Too Many (1944)
Directed by Frank McDonald

Film Review

One Body Too Many is a film which is drearily familiar, a variation on the 'old dark house' scenario which plays murder for laughs and ends up as a complacent farce that is soon forgotten.  This is by no means the worst film of its kind, and the presence of Bela Lugosi, always hovering in the background like a malignant spectre as he attempts to serve coffee that no one seems to want to drink, makes it a cut above the rest.  Jack Haley, forever famous for playing the Tin Man in the classic The Wizard of Oz (1939), is the principal gag merchant, although here he is breathtakingly unfunny, thanks to a distinct dearth of originality in the screenwriting department which results in tiresome old gags been trotted out without much in the way of enthusiasm.  For the most part, it's the same dismal formula played out yet again, cheap laughs and even cheaper thrills failing to make up for a storyline that is way past its sell-by date and Frank McDonald's totally uninspired direction.  Without Lugosi's caffeine-peddling incursions into this fumbling comedy it would be the perfect soporific.

Film Synopsis

After the death of millionaire Cyrus J. Rutherford his relatives assemble in his mansion to attend the reading of his will.  The heirs of Rutherford's vast estate will be named only after his body has been placed in the glass-domed vault being constructed at the top of the building.  If the body ends up being placed underground, the terms of the will are to be reversed, so that the ones originally offered the smallest share will gain the largest share and vice versa.  To ensure the body is not moved during the night, those relatives expecting to profit from the will call in a private detective to watch over it.  Insurance salesman Albert L. Tuttle turns up and is at once mistaken for the detective.  Against his better judgement, Tuttle is persuaded by Rutherford's niece Carol Dunlap to stay when the real detective fails to show up.  All goes well until another dead body is discovered.  It seems that someone is prepared to kill to inherit Rutherford's fortune...