“What will be, will be. It’s all in the stars.”
Albert L. Tuttle (Jack Haley) is exactly what you think he is. A milk toast Mr. Chicken insurance salesman. He has managed to gain an audience with the eccentric millionaire Cyrus J. Rutherford. Mr. Tuttle is intent on selling him a $200,000 life insurance policy. When he gets to the Rutherford mansion he finds out the Mr. Rutherford has already kicked the bucket. The house is now full of gold digging relatives there to hear the reading of the will by Rutherford’s attorney Morton Gellman (Bernard Nedell).
Our list of heirs is as follows: Rutherford’s sister Estelle Hopkins (Fay Helm), her husband Kenneth (Lucian Littlefield), his niece Margaret (Maxine Fife), his nephew Jim Davis (Lyle Talbot), his niece Carol Dunlap (Jean Parker), his nephew Henry (Douglas Fowley), his wife Mona (Dorothy Ganger), Professor Hilton (William Edmunds) and last but not least the two servants Merkil (Bela Lugosi) the butler and Matthews (Blanche Yurka) the house keeper. The best lines are delivered by the dead man in the details of his beneficiaries.
According to the will Mr. Rutherford did not want to be buried underground. All the potential heirs are to remain in the mansion until a glass-domed vault is constructed on the roof to house the deceased millionaire. Rutherford was a fanatic star gazer and wanted to do so after death. Should anyone leave before his crypt is complete and he is interred they will forfeit their share of the inheritance. The amounts will not be disclosed until the crypt is complete and his body has been placed in it.
When Tuttle first gets to the mansion he is mistaken for a private detective sent to guard the body. The real detective, having been assaulted and trussed-up, never showed. Tuttle is convinced by Rutherford’s niece Carol to remain and be the body guard for the dead man. The heirs fear that the body will be stolen and buried in the ground instead of being interred on the roof.
Should that happen, the terms of the will would change and the heirs that were to get the bigger portion of the estate will then get the smaller portion and vice versa. Not knowing who gets what there are potential heirs that want to reverse the will and those that don’t. At least one of the potential heirs plans to reverse the will, hopefully in their favor. To do that they need to hide the body and if necessary kill anyone who gets in their way. Unfortunately for Mr. Tuttle, he is directly in the way.
“One Body Too Many” was released in 1944 and was directed by Frank McDonald. It is a comedy/mystery film and probably one of my favorite, “Old Dark House”, mysteries. I’m not sure if it’s Jack Haley or seeing Bela Lugosi in a comedic venue or what.
Haley played the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz”. He is just as goofy here. He stumbles and bumbles in and out of hazards. He is the main comic. Bela is Bela. His dialogue is delivered straight, yet he is one of the funniest characters in the movie. Even more so than Haley who can be a little much at times. It’s reminiscent of “The Cat and the Canary” but I found Haley a little less grating than Bob Hope.