The Great Hospital Mystery

In the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood must have made at least 16,302,380 B-murder mystery films. The formula was pretty much constant....with a stupid cop (or cops) and an amateur who actually helps them solve the mystery. However, while "The Great Hospital Mystery" generally follows this exact pattern, it's very different when it comes to who solves the crime. In this case, Jane Darwell plays the smarty pants...and it's rare to see a woman in this role, let alone a middle-aged female nurse!

There is a strange mystery at the hospital. A man was found dead in his bed in the hospital...and he was shot. But it gets much weirder. Later it turns out he already was dead...and he's not who he's supposed to be. In addition, the head of the hospital is an enigma--he's either completely incompetent or completely evil...or both. What is the dead man all about? Wait...the head nurse will eventually figure it out for us!

I liked Darwell. Her character was pretty neat...and it was nice seeing a competent and intelligent woman in an older film. Sadly, Joan Davis was NOT pretty neat...she was there for comic relief (part of the mystery movie formula) but her acting was simply annoying and over-the-top. She could be funny...here she was just bothersome. As for the rest, there were no problems and Sig Ruman was nice as the awful chief of staff. Not a brilliant film but worth seeing if you like the genre.