One Body Too Many (1944)

• Director
  • Frank McDonald
• Writers
  • Winston Miller(original screenplay)
  • Maxwell Shane(original screenplay)
• Stars
  • Jack Haley
  • Jean Parker
  • Bela Lugosi

  Another of Jack Haley's comedy vehicles for Pine-Thomas productions, One Body Too Many casts Haley as timid insurance salesman Albert Tuttle. Much against his better judgment, Tuttle makes a business call at a sinister old mansion, intending to sell life insurance to the owner. He proves a bit late, inasmuch as the owner has just kicked the bucket. The mansion is full of avaricious relatives, who are obliged by the dictates of the decedent's will to remain in the house until the authorities claim the body. Realizing that dead man's niece Carol (Jean Parker) is a damsel in all kinds of distress, Albert decides to stick around to keep Carol from meeting her uncle's fate. Though there's a murder-mystery angle in One Body too Many, the audience knows who didn't do it the moment Bela Lugosi shows up as a butler.