The Missing Corpse

Last updated

The Missing Corpse
The Missing Corpse FilmPoster.jpeg
Directed by Albert Herman
Written by Harry O. Hoyt (story)
Raymond L. Schrock (writer)
Produced by Leon Fromkess (producer)
Martin Mooney (associate producer)
StarringSee below
Cinematography James S. Brown Jr.
Edited by W. Donn Hayes
Music by Karl Hajos
Production
company
Distributed byProducers Releasing Corporation
Release date
  • 1 June 1945 (1945-06-01)
Running time
62 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

The Missing Corpse is a 1945 American comedy mystery film directed by Albert Herman.

Contents

Plot summary

The publisher of The Tribune newspaper, Henry Kruger, who is used to ordering his staff around, finds that he is ignored by everyone in his own home. He is shocked when he discovers a scandalous picture of his own daughter, Phyllis, on the front page of the competing paper, The Daily Argus. Henry pays a visit to the dubious publisher of the competing paper, Andy McDonald, and warns him not to ever publish a picture like that again, or Henry will kill him. Henry is unaware of the fact that a man named "Slippery" Joe Clary has overheard his conversation with Andy, which Joe later reveals to him, threatening to expose him. Henry counters by claiming that Andy was the one who got Joe sentenced with his testimony, and that Andy dated Joe's girlfriend while he was in prison.

To avoid further complications, Henry takes a long vacation, following the suggestion of his chauffeur. While Henry is away, without his family, Slippery Joe murders publisher Andy and hides the body in the trunk of Henry's parked roadster car. Slippery Joe also breaks into Andy's safe, trying to get back a written confession of a previous murder, but finds out the document is missing from the safe and must have been hidden on the publisher Andy's body. Henry has brought his car on the vacation and finds Andy's dead body in the trunk when he arrives at his hunting lodge. Panicking, he decides to dump the body to not be accused of murder, but his chauffeur sees the body before he has a chance to carry out his plan. The chauffeur, eager to protect his employer, removes the body from the car's trunk and hides it inside the lodge.

Visitor's come and go at the lodge during the vacation, and the body is moved and hidden several times by the two men to avoid discovery. Soon enough, Slippery Joe also comes looking for the body to retrieve the document. When Henry's family one day discovers that he has left on vacation, they also come up to the lodge to visit. Other family members also arrive at the lodge, and even a news reporter from The Daily Argus, trying to get another scandalous story to publish in the paper, shows up as well.

The body is discovered by every visitor at the lodge at some point, and the chauffeur has to move it constantly to confuse the guests. Henry convinces them all that they have hallucinated. The local police officer, Constable Trigg, discovers Andy's car hidden not far from the cabin, left there by Slippery Joe. Trigg immediately suspects Henry of murdering Andy and arrests him.

James, Henry's son, falsely claims to have murdered Andy to protect Henry from arrest, but then Andy's body is found, with the confession in one of his pockets. Slippery Joe is arrested for Andy's murder and the murder related to the confession. Slippery Joe admits his guilt when he learns that Trigg has the confession, and Henry is cleared of all suspicion. After the commotion, Henry's family promises to not ignore him anymore. Despite this, Henry finds himself sitting alone at breakfast the next day. [1]

Cast

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">H. H. Holmes</span> American con artist and serial killer (1861–1896)

Herman Webster Mudgett, better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes or H. H. Holmes, was an American con artist and serial killer active between 1891 and 1894. By the time of his execution in 1896, Holmes had engaged in a lengthy criminal career that included insurance fraud, forgery, swindling, three to four bigamous marriages, horse theft and murder. His most notorious crimes took place in Chicago around the time of the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Lee Lucas</span> American murderer (1936–2001)

Henry Lee Lucas, also known as The Confession Killer, was an American convicted murderer. Lucas was convicted of murdering his mother in 1960 and two others in 1983. He rose to infamy as a claimed serial killer while incarcerated for these crimes when he falsely confessed to approximately six hundred other murders to Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officials. Many unsolved cases were closed based on the confessions and the murders officially attributed to Lucas. Lucas was convicted of murdering eleven people and condemned to death for a single case with a then-unidentified victim, later identified as Debra Jackson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas DeSimone</span> American mobster

Thomas DeSimone was an American criminal associated with New York City's Lucchese crime family who is alleged to have participated in both the Air France robbery and the Lufthansa heist. He also committed numerous murders, including killing William "Billy Batts" Bentvena in 1970. DeSimone went missing in 1979 and is believed to have been murdered.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Kuklinski</span> American criminal (1935–2006)

Richard Leonard Kuklinski, also known as "The Iceman", was an American criminal and a convicted murderer. He was engaged in criminal activities for most of his adult life; he ran a burglary ring and distributed pirated pornography. Kuklinski committed at least five murders between 1980 and 1984. Prosecutors described him as killing for profit. Kuklinski was nicknamed "the Iceman" by authorities after they discovered that he had frozen the body of one of his victims in an attempt to disguise the time of death.

<i>A Man Apart</i> 2003 American film

A Man Apart is a 2003 American vigilante action thriller film directed by F. Gary Gray and co-produced by and starring Vin Diesel as Sean Vetter, an undercover DEA agent who is on a vendetta to take down a mysterious drug lord named Diablo after his wife is murdered. The film also stars Larenz Tate with Timothy Olyphant, Geno Silva, and Steve Eastin. Released by New Line Cinema in the United States on April 4, 2003, it received generally negative reviews from critics and performed poorly at the box office.

"Autopsy" is a television series of HBO's America Undercover documentary series. Dr. Michael Baden, a real-life forensic pathologist, is the primary analyst, and has been personally involved in many of the cases that are reviewed.

<i>Talking God</i> 1989 novel by Tony Hillerman

Talking God is a crime novel by American writer Tony Hillerman, the ninth in the Joe Leaphorn/Jim Chee Navajo Tribal Police series, published in 1989.

<i>Chasing the Dime</i> 2002 crime novel by Michael Connelly

Chasing the Dime is a 2002 novel by American crime-writer Michael Connelly. It is his twelfth novel overall, and the only one to feature protagonist Henry Pierce.

Özgür Dengiz is a Turkish serial killer and cannibal. Captured on September 14, 2007 in Ankara, he admitted killing two men, attempting to murder another man and cannibalising one of his victims. He is nicknamed the "Cannibal of Ankara".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Atkins</span> American serial killer

Benjamin Thomas Atkins , also known as The Woodward Corridor Killer, was an American serial killer and rapist who murdered, tortured, and raped 11 women in Highland Park and Detroit, Michigan, during a period of eight months between December 1991 and August 1992. He was apprehended after being arrested for rape charges and soon after he confessed to the murders. He was ultimately found guilty and given several life sentences in April 1994. He died from AIDS in 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sean Vincent Gillis</span> American serial killer, rapist, cannibal, stalker and kidnapper

Sean Vincent Gillis is an American serial killer and sex offender who murdered eight women in and around Baton Rouge, Louisiana, from 1994 until his arrest in April 2004. In his initial arrest, he was charged with three counts of first degree murder and three counts of ritualistic acts in the murders of 29-year-old Katherine Hall, 45-year-old Johnnie Mae Williams and 43-year-old Donna Bennett Johnston. Gillis confessed to the murders with little coercion and then informed investigators about five other women whom he had murdered.

<i>Mystery House</i> (film) 1938 film by Noel M. Smith

Mystery House is a 1938 American mystery crime film directed by Noel M. Smith and starring Dick Purcell and Ann Sheridan as nurse Sarah Keate, and is based on the 1930 novel The Mystery of Hunting's End by Mignon G. Eberhart. Sheridan also played the same character in The Patient in Room 18, released in January 1938, while Aline MacMahon played her in While the Patient Slept in 1935.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Freddie Roscoe</span> UK soap opera character (created 2013)

Freddie Roscoe is a fictional character from the British Channel 4 soap opera, Hollyoaks. He is played by Charlie Clapham, and made his first screen appearance on 6 May 2013. Freddie's notable storylines have including learning Darren Osborne is his half-brother; murdering his stepfather Fraser Black, his affair with and eventual marriage to his brother Joe Roscoe's fiancée Lindsey Butterfield, his relationships with Mercedes McQueen and Sinead O'Connor, his feud with Joe, being framed for the fake murder of Mercedes by Grace Black, nearly being murdered by Lindsey, his on/off relationships with Marnie and Ellie Nightingale, having a daughter named Lexi Roscoe with Lindsey and allowing Joe and Mercedes to adopt Lexi.

Claude Neal was a 23-year-old African-American farmhand who was arrested in Jackson County, Florida, on October 19, 1934, for allegedly raping and killing Lola Cannady, a 19-year-old white woman missing since the preceding night. Circumstantial evidence was collected against him, but nothing directly linked him to the crime. When the news got out about his arrest, white lynch mobs began to form. In order to keep Neal safe, County Sheriff Flake Chambliss moved him between multiple jails, including the county jail at Brewton, Alabama, 100 miles (160 km) away. But a lynch mob of about 100 white men from Jackson County heard where he was, and brought him back to Jackson County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esmail Rangraz</span>

Esmail Jafarzadeh, known professionally as Esmail Rangraz, was an Iranian serial killer.

William Joseph Pierce Jr. was an American serial killer who committed a series of at least nine murders in three states from June 1970 to January 1971. After his capture, he admitted his guilt, was convicted and sentenced to several terms of life imprisonment. In 1974, Pierce renounced his confession, but all of his subsequent appeals for a retrial were denied.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Barr</span> Executed American serial killer

Charles Barr, known as The Petting Party Bandit, was an American serial killer who attacked couples at lovers' lanes in Memphis, Tennessee from January to May 1923, killing three and wounding one. For his crimes, he was convicted, sentenced to death and subsequently executed at the Tennessee State Prison in 1926.

The bra murders were a series of murders committed against five sex workers from 1967 to 1971 in Stamford, Connecticut. Most of the victims were black sex workers or in active addiction, each had been strangled, sometimes with their own bras, from which the murders' moniker originated.

Carl Millard Patton, Jr. is an American serial killer who committed five murders across Georgia from 1973 to 1977 with multiple accomplices. He was linked to them with the help of DNA in 2003, subsequently pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

References

  1. Film profile; accessed 10 March 2014.