Well paced and well plotted with an eccentric rich man's will and corpse as the focus. Jack Haley and Jean Parker were quite talented and just a pleasure to watch- they wear well and they work well together. Lugosi is great in one of his best creepy butler roles. He has a long running humorous gag involving, believe it or not, coffee.It all holds together, is not overly padded, the direction and editing are fine. If you think all of those dirt-cheap little 1940's b-movies are dull or poorly made, you could view "One Body Too Many" and might change your opinion at least as far as this one is concerned.Yes it is cheap but is a solidly made movie and not haphazard at all. "One Body Too Many" can be recommended. It is definitely in need of a good restoration, but at least one fairly good viewable copy is available out there.

This movie kind of reminds me of the board game Clue when I was a kid. An Insurance salesman goes to this spooky old mansion to sell a millionaire some life insurance,, well to his dismay he's too late, the man is already dead,, so when he gets there , we have a bunch of relatives waiting on the reading of the will, the catch is no one can leave the premises until the complete reading of the will is finished as stipulated by our millionaire, our insurance salesman is drawn into the plot,, a shady niece,, a missing body,, and murder,, Bela Lugosi, is great in this,, I really loved his acting,, he's almost at his spooky best in these old creepy movies, overall not a bad little movie,, above average, a decent watch.

Another winner here from Bela Lugosi, although to be fair he's more of a supporting character here. The film's main protagonist is the who plays hapless life insurance salesman Albert Tuttle, unwittingly drawn into a game of intrigue involving loads of benefactors awaiting the outcome of the will of some rich guy.This rich guy was well into astronomy, and wants to be buried in a glass casket so the stars can shine on him. However, it's stated in his will somewhere that if he gets buried underground, then his will is reversed, and those due very little will get the most. Tuttle doesn't even know the guy is dead, and at first is mistaken for a private detective hired to guard the body (and both the detective and the corpse have gone walkies).Tuttle teams up with the innocent granddaughter of the dead guy to find out who keeps moving the body, and killing off the benefactors. So you've got this Tuttle guy being bopped on the head, buried in a coffin, finding secret passageways, and being harassed for coffee by Bela, who plays the mysterious butler.It's a good laugh all the way as this Tuttle guy gets put through the grinder at every opportunity, having to run around naked to avoid the benefactors, being stalked by someone with a poker, and various other farces. Yep, this film is mainly a comedy with a killer, and who doesn't love a film set in a house with secret passageways. Bela doesn't have too much to do here, but between himself and the guy who played Tuttle (Jack Avery?) One Body Too Many is a good laugh with very few slow spots.

You know, this had some potential. There were some great character actors, including Bela Lugosi and Jack Haley (the Tin Man). He mugs for the camera and plays the star struck cowardly insurance salesman. The sad thing is that they set up all these relatively interesting characters and then didn't know what to do with them. The pacing is terrible. There are actually pauses in the film where nothing at all happens. I don't mean action; I mean nothing at all. At times there is a fade to black and we hear sounds and voices, and then nothing. A few close-ups would have helped. Sometimes in the drear of the black and white, it takes a few seconds to realize who is in the scene, especially during the frantic running around that takes place the second half.There is also the silliness of the conditions of the will which is to give the opposite share to everyone if the deceased were buried in the ground. Since we don't know what the specifics of the will are, it makes it hard to figure out who the potential murderer is. I agree with a previous reviewer. When Bela Lugosi is on the screen, I can't take my eyes off him. The business with the rat poison and the coffee is quite funny. He is so put off when people refuse to have a cup of coffee. His best line, "There are too many rats in this house."I love these old movies and relish the atmosphere. Maybe a better print or better sound would have helped, but this got pretty stale so I couldn't recommend it.