Murder with Music

To get it out of the way at the beginning, the film was made in either late 1946 or early 1947, not 1941. We know this for two reasons: (1) In the scene in the secretary's office, there's a poster on the wall for Stepin Fetchit's movie "Big Timers", which was a 1945 film, and (2) there was no "Nellie Hill" (or "Nelle" as it's misspelled in the credits) in 1941; Nellie Harrell didn't marry Charles Wesley Hill until 1942. The acting is horrendous; fortunately, the music is really good. Not a spoiler, but ask yourself this: "how, exactly, do you know the piano player is dead?"

This movie was originally shot as "Mistaken Identity", although it's unclear if it was ever released at the time. It was then cut up, some new scenes filmed, and reassembled as "Murder With Music" (the scenes from "Mistaken Identity" were intercut as flashbacks).