Red Herring Bela Again

 

 (imdb)

ONE BODY TOO MANY-1944-Insurance agent Albert L. Tuttle (Jack Haley) gets involved with the reading of a millionaire's will and his greedy relatives when he visits the dead guy's home (he doesn't know about the death). The butler Merkle (Bela Lugosi) and the maid (Blanche Yurka) think about poisoning everyone. The relatives mistake Tuttle for a private investigator. The running gag is no one wants to drink their poisoned coffee. Relatives include Lyle Talbott, Douglas Fowley, Dorothy Granger and Lucien Littlefield. The one nice relative is the dead guy's niece (Jean Parker). Meanwhile, Prof. Hilton (William Edmunds) fools around with a telescope in the observatory. A clutching hand threatens Tuttle who manages to wind up in the millionaire's coffin underwater! Later he roams around in the dark with just a towel on. 

Not half bad comedy/horror/murder mystery although once again Lugosi is wasted in a red herring role. Director Frank McDonald also made another murder mystery with Haley called SCARED STIFF (1945).

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Salt Water Shemp

 

 (ebay)

SALTWATER TAFFY-1933-Elmer Waggonbottom (Jack Haley) and Wibur the kleptomaniac (Shemp Howard) are 2 near-do wells who accidentally join the navy and get in trouble with the CP0 (Lionel Stander). It's fairly a amusing and only about 20 minutes long. A rifle routine could have influenced the famous Abbott & Costello routine but both were probably taken from vaudeville. Director Ray McCarey was the brother of director Leo McCarey, who directed The Marx Brothers in DUCK SOUP the same year.

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