RADIUM, RADIUM, WHO'S GOT THE RADIUM?

Hard to believe that it took two directors (Bobby Connolly and Crane Wilbur) and three screenwriters (Eugene Solow, Robertson White and Joseph Santley) to adapt Mignon G. Eberhart's mystery novel THE PATIENT IN ROOM 18 for the screen. 

This 1938 mystery/romantic comedy checks all the boxes in this by-the-numbers exercise in sleuthing. Patric Knowles stars as private detective Lance O'Leary. While convalescing in a private hospital, a wealthy donor is murdered and the radium that was used to treat him (by placing a block of radium, about the size of a cigarette case, on his chest), goes missing. The radium is actually hidden in a flower pot until the killer can retrieve it later. The stuff is potent enough to kill a dozen flowers over night. One wonders what it would have done to the old man if someone didn't already kill him. Two more murders are committed by the time the 59 minutes of running time are over.

O'Leary is aided in his investigation by the lovely nurse Sara Keate and there's a bevy of potential suspects. And of course, there's an inept police detective, Inspector Foley (Cliff Clark), who seems unable to solve any crime without O'Leary's help. 

True to the formula for these types of films, all of the suspects are gathered in one room for the big reveal by O'Leary but one of the murder victims appears very much alive and well to bring things to a end. 

Knowles appeared in many films over the course of his career but he's best remembered by genre film fans for his roles in THE WOLF MAN (1941) and FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943). Sheridan was under contract at Warner Brothers at the time and does well here but better days were ahead for her. 

THE PATIENT IN ROOM 18 isn't a very complicated whodunnit. In fact, I correctly guessed the identity of the killer. Still it's a breezy little murder mystery with a good cast and a quick pace. 

But I still can't figure out why it took five people to write and direct a movie that runs less than hour.