The Lady in the Morgue [1938] [DVD]

A young woman is found hanging in a hotel room, but no one knows who she really is. As several shady people go to investigate whether she is the wife of a certain crime boss, a detective is hired by a rich family to see if the body is that of their missing daughter. However some one doesn't want the body identified and they steal the corpse, killing a morgue attendant in the process.

This fast moving mystery manages to be both jokey and hard edged with there being a real sense of danger. A solid mystery, there is a point where you stop trying to work it all out and just watch it because it's just so much fun. Definitely worth a look.

Universal "crime club" filmed three of the books. While all three had different directors, all three starred Preston Foster as Bill Crane and Frank Jenks as Doc Williams, his assistant. The Lady in the Morgue (1938), based on Latimer's similarly titled 1936 novel, was directed by Otis Garrett. It is the second, and best, of these films. The other two are The Westland Case (1937) and The Last Warning (1938).