‘Funniest killer-diller chiller!’
One Body Too Many is a 1944 comedy mystery film about an insurance salesman who arrives at a creepy mansion to discover his potential eccentric millionaire client already dead. Instead he gets embroiled in a house full of greedy, murderous relatives competing for the inheritance.
The movie was directed by Frank McDonald from a screenplay by Winston Miller and Maxwell Shane.
The movie stars Jack Haley, Jean Parker and Bela Lugosi. It was distributed by Paramount.
Plot:
Timid insurance salesman Albert L. Tuttle (Jack Haley) visits eccentric millionaire Cyrus J. Rutherford, intent on selling him a $200,000 deal. Instead, he finds that Rutherford has recently died and his mansion is now full of relatives who are, according to the will, all bound to remain in the mansion until a glass-domed vault is constructed on the roof, to house the deceased millionaire who was an ardent follower of the stars.
Tuttle is mistaken for a private detective sent to guard the body, and once the confusion is cleared up and the real detective fails to show, he is convinced by Rutherford’s niece Carol Dunlap (Jean Parker) to remain and ensure that the body is not stolen. If the body should be buried in any place other than the vault, the will states that recipients who would receive the largest request will receive the smallest, and vice versa.
One of the recipients plans to reverse the will in their favour, hide the body and kill anyone who gets in their way. Unfortunately for mild-mannered Tuttle, he is directly in the way of the killer, and the rest of the conniving family…
Full film free to watch online:
Cast and characters:
Jack Haley … Albert L. Tuttle
Jean Parker … Carol Dunlap – Dead Man’s Eyes; Bluebeard; The Ghost Goes West
Bela Lugosi … Merkil
Blanche Yurka … Matthews
Lyle Talbot … Jim Davis
Douglas Fowley … Henry Rutherford
Fay Helm … Estelle Hopkins
Bernard Nedell … Attorney Morton Gellman
Lucien Littlefield … Kenneth Hopkins
Dorothy Granger … Mona Rutherford
Maxine Fife … Margaret Hopkins
William Edmunds … Professor Hilton (uncredited)
Lyle Latell … Manager of Atlas Detective Agency (uncredited)
Ralph Peters … Insurance Agent (uncredited)
Film Facts:
The producers originally wanted Boris Karloff for the butler role.
Frank McDonald signed to direct in December 1943, when it was known as Too Many Bodies
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