During a robbery at the Triborough Savings Bank a guard is killed. The driver of the getaway car, Allen Tracy (George Walcott), is upset that one of his cohorts shot someone so he crashes the car on purpose and runs away. The other crooks scatter. Dr. David McKerry (Thomas Beck), from Samaritan Hospital, is called in to pronounce the guard dead. One of the witnesses at the bank happens to be his fiancé Ann Smith (Sally Blane).
Tracy sneaks into Samaritan Hospital looking for his friend, Tom Kirby (Howard Phillips). Kirby comes up with an idea on how to save Tracy from retribution from his gang. To do it, he needs the help of Tracy’s sister. Ann, the witness at the bank, is Tracy’s sister. She agrees to help. Tracy is secretly put into room 708. The attending physician is listed on his chart as Dr. Triggert (Sig Rumann). Ann then reports that the man in room 708 died of a heart attack. The plan is to move into Tracy’s room the body of a transient that died earlier that day and pretend he is Tracy. In the meantime, Tracy is supposed to slip out of the hospital and away from the gang trying to hunt him down.
When Ann reports the death of the patient labeled as Allen Tracy the body is inspected, and it is revealed that the corpse was shot. Detective Mattoon (Wade Boteler) is called to investigate why the man was shot after he already died. The police are now looking to question the morgue attendant, Kirby, but he is missing. His body is found later by bumbling nurse’s aide, Flossie Duffy (Joan Davis). Observing all of this is head nurse, Miss Sarah Keats (Jane Darwell). Using common sense, she sorts through all the clutter and finds the clues as to who is responsible for the murder of Kirby and the attempted murder of Tracy.
“The Great Hospital Mystery” was released in 1937 and was directed by James Tinling. It is an American murder mystery comedy. The movie is based on Mignon G. Eberhart’s short story “Dead Yesterday”. It is the third movie based on the Sarah Keate character. There were seven movies done based on Eberhart’s mystery loving nurse. The last film was a British quota quickie, “The Dark Stairway”, which is now being classified as a “lost” film.
By the time you get to the actual murder, things are slightly confusing. It has the usual “B” mystery tropes, a stupid cop, and a romantic couple, comic relief, in the form of Joan Davis as the nitwit nurses’ aide, a couple red herrings and a bit of farce with dead bodies being moved around along with some leaps of logic, not to mention the thunderstorm outside that makes the hospital seem like an old dark house.
If you ignore the camp and comedy it ends up being a rather decent little mystery, although slightly cramped. The best part of the film is Jane Darwell as the no nonsense, smart and capable Nurse Keats.