While the Patient Slept

This is among the better entries in the comedy/mystery genre popular in the 1940s. No one liked the person murdered. Many people had reason to do him or her in. All are assembled in creepy surroundings.

Apart from a plot that's easy and logical, what sets this apart is Aline MacMahon. She plays a nurse who happens to be in the house and who helps the police solve the crime.

MacMahon was unique in Hollywood history. Though only in her thirties here, she was already playing an old maid. Yet she had an occasional fling at glamor roles. And she was an exceptionally good actress, with a haunting beauty.

Her rather heavy-lidded eyes seem to bore right through her co-players, here as elsewhere. ZaSu Pitts had a somewhat parallel career. But at least Erich Von Stroheim saw her as a beauty and a great actress.

Maybe MacMahon really couldn't have done it. But I think she had the potential for far greater roles than she was given. As strange as this probably sounds, I can see her, decades later, as the tragic Mary Tyrone in "Long Day's Journey Into Night." (She would surely have been better than Katharine Hepburn, an actress, I often liked, in that role.)

When is a Nurse Keating film not a Nurse Keating film? When it's a Hildegarde Withers film. If you liked this one, you'll love the first four of the Hildegarde flicks from RKO. 'While the Patient Slept' is taken from the first Hildegarde story, 'Penguin Pool Murder'. Penguin Pool's plot is different (except for being a humorous murder mystery, but the main characters are the same, and while penguins are the trademark of author Stuart Palmer, here they've substituted a green elephant.

I now have a copy of this movie, and that completes both my Nurse Keate and Hildegarde Withers collections. Speaking of rip-offs, if you like the 'Thin Man' Series, try "The Ex-Mrs. Bradford" and "Star Of Midnight," both with William Powell, Bradford with Jean Arthur and Midnight with Ginger Rogers. RKO got Powell on a loan-out and took full advantage of it.

I am a fan of Aline MacMahon, and consider her to be one the unsung actresses of the era. She is always worth watching.

This is probably the first entry in the "Lance O'Leary/Nurse Keat" detective series; in subsequent O'Leary films, he was played by much younger actors than Guy Kibbee.

A group of relatives (all played by well-known character actors) gathers in an old house (on a rainy nite, of course!) to speak to a wealthy relative, who goes into a coma.

While they wait for him to recover, all sorts of mysterious goings-on happen, including a couple of murders.

A creepy film; worth seeing!

MacMahon never disappoints and that's true here again. This movie is terrific... funny, with clever repartee, and fast paced! MacMahon and Kibbee have great chemistry.

To other reviewers who complained that this film is "derivative" or that the plot and setting are "unoriginal," I'd like to remind you that this movie was made in 1935...just how many times have these scenarios been played out before and after this particular film? As Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) said about storytelling: "There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations. We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely; but they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages."

This film is highly entertaining and absolutely worth 66 minutes of your time!