Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff (1949)

Everybody knows of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, and most also know of their meetups with the other Universal monsters, but in-between the movie that kicked off this little series and its true follow-ups is this much less conventional one where they instead specifically meet up with a well-known horror actor. Unlike their other monster-comedies, I first heard of this in both John Stanley's Creature Features and a book called The Amazing, Colossal Book of Horror Trivia, where it was mentioned in a chapter specifically on horror-comedies (which happened to have the same title as this year's October Fest, although I had completely forgotten about that and came up with the Screams of Laughter title purely out of thin air). That chapter featured an oft-used publicity photo of Boris Karloff standing behind Abbott and Costello, holding them up by the back of their suit collars, and one of the questions asked you to complete the movie's title. Not too long after first reading about it, I finally saw the film one day on AMC, although it didn't leave quite as much of an impression as their other horror-comedies. I remembered the scene where Karloff's character hypnotizes Costello and tries to get him to off himself, a scene where Costello is nearly killed in a steam-bath (after the movie, I can remember the presenter mentioning that he actually did almost die from that, though I can't remember how), and the climax that takes place in a big cavern, but little else about it stuck with me up to when I re-watched it for this review. Having now also seen Hold That Ghost, I can say that Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff is my least favorite of the duo's spooky flicks. It does have its moments, some of which are very funny, as well as surprisingly macabre, but the story can come off as messy and confusing, with plot-points that are never explained or given satisfactory conclusions, characters whom you expect to be significant but, instead, wind up being fairly pointless, and, worst of all, due to his being a last minute edition to the film, Karloff himself is woefully underutilized, not to mention that the title is a lie.

On a dark and stormy night, Amos Strickland, the country's number one criminal lawyer, arrives at the Lost Caverns Hotel. After demanding to see the hotel's owner, Lawrence Crandall, and refusing to see his niece, Betty, who wants to speak with him, he has an altercation with Freddie Phillips, a bellboy. When Freddie is fired as a result of this, he threatens to get even with Strickland. Later that night, he goes to Strickland's room to apologize, as well as see if he can use his clout to get his job back for him, but discovers he's been murdered. He tells hotel manager Melton, desk clerk Jeff Wilson, and the hotel's detective, Casey, and while they initially try to keep it quiet, it doesn't take long for the other guests to learn of it. Casey calls Inspector Wellman of the local police department, and because of his earlier quarrel with and threat towards Strickland, Freddie is fingered as a possible suspect. Casey, however, doesn't believe that Freddie is capable of committing murder, but when Wellman arrives on the scene, he orders Freddie to stay there as a guest of the state. During the time he remains at the hotel, Freddie becomes the target of a group of former clients of Strickland's who, in order to keep themselves from being seen as suspects, try to make him take the fall for the crime, as well as get him out of the way permanently. When two more people at the hotel are found dead in Freddie's room, suspicion falls all the more heavily on him, but his admission that he burned a blood-soaked handkerchief he found at the crime scene gives Wellman an idea to draw out the possible real killer. He tells Freddie to act as though he still has the handkerchief and make it known to the others at the hotel, knowing the killer will either try to buy it off him or kill him for it. This leads into a game of cat-and-mouse, as several attempts are made on Freddie's life, and as the police continue to look at him as a suspect, he's eventually forced to put himself into more danger in order to be cleared of all suspicion.

The film began life as a project meant for Bob Hope, but then Universal-International, eager to make another Abbott and Costello horror-comedy following the massive success of Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, bought the script and had it revamped for the duo. The studio also made sure to get Charles Barton back as director, making for both his seventh film with Abbott and Costello, and close to being his seventh in a row as director, period. Following Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Barton had directed them again in Mexican Hayride and Africa Screams, but after this film, he wouldn't work with them again until 1956's Dance With Me, Henry, their last movie as a comedy team. Following that, his feature directing career slowly petered out, with his last movie being a 1961 comedy called Swingin' Along, but he would go on to be a very prolific television director before retiring in the early 70's.

This is a film where Bud and Lou's characters start off separate from each other but quickly become a team and stay that way for the duration. Abbott's Casey is the house detective for the Lost Caverns Hotel and, at the end of the movie, it's revealed that he's cousins with Costello's hapless bellboy, Freddie Phillips, but they don't become tied together until Freddie is implicated in the murder of Amos Strickland following his altercation with him. Despite the evidence against him, including a guest's missing gun and the bodies of two other murder victims appearing in his room, Casey doesn't think Freddie is capable of such a crime, mainly because he thinks he's too dumb to pull it off. He tries to help Freddie by getting the gun back into its owner's room and also helping him dispose of the bodies, leading to a darkly funny moment where they have to make like the corpses are two guys they're playing cards with. At one point, Casey has to put up with Freddie taking the notion that he's a guest of the state at the hotel a bit too far, having to him wait on along with manicurists and a barber, but he gets some payback when he and Inspector Wellman believe one of Strickland's former clients may be trying to poison him. They burst into the room, and because it looks like Freddie did sip some champagne, Casey drags him into the bathroom and forces one disgusting antidote after another down his throat, to the point where he's about dead and reduced to a crying mess when he's finally able to tell them he didn't drink the champagne.

In his solo scenes, Casey is depicted as something of a hapless house detective who's not totally up on it. At the beginning of the movie, he doesn't even know who Strickland is, despite his being the most well-known criminal attorney in the country, and while he does come up with a reason why one of the guests, Mike Relia, a former client of Strickland's, could be the killer, given a telegram he found where Strickland told Relia he was going to include his case in his memoirs, Wellman

informs him there are six other people at the hotel with the same motive. As for Freddie, he gets into hijinks like pleading at Wellman's feet, randomly asking not to be beaten with a rubber hose; getting hypnotized by the swami, who attempts to make him commit suicide, only for his stupidity to keep him from doing so, and then almost stabbing the swami and Casey when an order from the former goes awry; trying to dispose of a couple of murdered bodies in a laundry cart while disguised

as a maid, and getting hit on by a night clerk; and putting the bodies in the elevator and trying to keep Wellman from seeing them. As if he didn't have enough problems, when he mentions having burned a blood-soaked handkerchief he found at the crime scene, Wellman decides to use that fact as a means of drawing out the killer by having Freddie go around saying he has it and wants to sell it for $5,000, counting on the killer to either buy it off or try to kill Freddie for it. Freddie has no luck getting any buyers and, sure enough,

someone starts trying to kill him, first by cooking him in the steam bath and then by shooting at him through his room's window. However, Wellman and Sergeant Stone believe he's trying to throw suspicion off himself, and when the bodies turn up in Freddie's room and, in trying to defend himself, he blurts out that he hid them in the elevator before, he's almost arrested for murder. That's when they hear a recorded message for him from the killer, telling him to meet him at the caverns that night, with the handkerchief. Freddie, naturally, is reluctant to go, but he's pressed into doing so by Casey and the cops, as it's one last chance for him to clear himself.

That night, they have Freddie go on ahead into the caverns to meet up with the killer, while Casey, Wellman, and Stone follow not far behind. But, at one point, Freddie's spooked by an owl, takes off running into the depths of the cave, and is separated from his protection. Casey also turns his ankle and has to go back to the hotel, leaving Wellman and Stone to search for Freddie themselves. While alone, Freddie nearly falls over a high ledge, almost gets blown up when the killer

switches a candle with a stick of dynamite, slips and slides over a ledge and lands on the other side, almost getting compromised by a stalagmite in the process (no joke, that actually happened to me one time, but that's another story), and is almost drowned when he gets stuck in a large hole in the floor, although Wellman and Stone save him. Having told the killer that the handkerchief was in his room, they rush back to the hotel, and when they enter the room, they find Casey, knocked out by one of Freddie's booby-traps.

Because of this, Freddie believes Casey is the killer, and throughout the final scene, continues to yammer on about it as Wellman goes through the facts about the case and deduces who the killer might be, annoying the inspector to death and prompting him to yell at him several times. When the killer is finally revealed, he grabs Freddie, puts a gun in his back, and tries to use him as a shield to escape, only to get knocked out by another of his booby traps. Once it's all over, Freddie claims he knew Casey wasn't the killer and was just using him as a decoy, while Wellman congratulates him on his booby-traps, only to fall for one Freddie completely forgot about.

For obvious reasons, Universal had wanted Boris Karloff to be involved with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, but he declined for two reasons: he'd long since retired from playing Frankenstein's monster and he didn't want to be involved with a movie that "mocked" the character, ultimately doing little more than helping them publicize the film. As for this film, he was a last minute addition to the cast and so, the screenwriters hastily replaced a female character named "Madame Switzer" with Karloff's swami character (in the credits, he's called Talpur, though he's never given a name in the actual movie). Since they now had him in an Abbott and Costello horror-comedy, they decided to play up Karloff's involvement by putting his name in the title, even though he's not the killer and, because of his late addition, isn't even in the film that much, a mistake they would later correct when they cast him in Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. However, even though Talpur isn't the killer, he's hardly an innocent character, as he's part of a group of people who were former clients of Strickland's and are all at the hotel because they were informed that Strickland was going to include their cases in his memoirs. Knowing this will make them suspects in Strickland's murder, they decide to let Freddie take the fall for it. After he's tricked into signing a phony confession, they decide to get rid of him permanently, which Talpur opts to see to himself. This leads to Karloff's biggest scene, as well as one of the best in the entire film, where Talpur uses his skills as a hypnotist to try to manipulate Freddie into committing suicide. But, no matter what method he attempts to employ, either something goes wrong or Freddie, even under hypnosis, refuses to do something that would endanger his life. It eventually leads to Freddie attempting to attack Talpur with a knife he gives him, and when he's unable to get him to stop, he flees the room, right before Casey shows up and gets chased by the knife-wielding Freddie. After that, Talpur is little more than another of the guests at the hotel, though at one point, Freddie tries to press him into buying the bloody handkerchief, only for Talpur to balk at the price of $5,000.

After playing Sandra Mornay in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, Lenore Aubert is back again as Angela Gordon, another of Strickland's former clients who tries to see to it that Freddie is blamed for his murder. Like in that movie, Aubert's character comes onto Costello's for an ulterior motive, this time tricking him into writing and signing a phony confession, telling him he has to sign it as a witness for when the real killer does so. You then find out that Angela

was accused of trying to kill her husband with poisoned champagne, right after she has some champagne delivered to Freddie's room. Realizing what she might be trying to do, Casey and Inspector Wellman rush up to the room and get there after she's been trying to force champagne down Freddie's throat. While Casey forces him to take one antidote after another, Angela insists the champagne isn't poisoned and it turns out, she was telling the truth and was just trying to get Freddie drunk so she could put him on a train or boat to

somewhere else. The other members of this little group of conspirators don't do much other than snoop around the hotel and act suspicious. A notable one is Brooks (Roland Winters), who, right after Strickland's body is found, tries to walk off with a briefcase in the room, only for Freddie to catch him. Brooks, however, turns it around and tells Melton that he caught Freddie trying to make off with the briefcase. Later, when Freddie is trying to drum up interest in the handkerchief, he joins Brooks in a steam bath to try to bait him into buying it, but like everyone else, he's aghast at the $5,000 price and refuses. Finally, there's two women, Mrs. Grimsby (Claire Du Brey) and Mrs. Hargreave (Victoria Horne), who never do any of the dirty work, although the former is the one who suggests that they need to kill Freddie in order to be totally safe.

Another client of Strickland's who doesn't live long enough to get caught up in the mayhem is Mike Relia (Vincent Renno), who shows up shortly after the murder to inform Casey and Inspector Wellman that his gun was stolen from his room, suggesting a bellboy might have taken it. Although he's never seen with the group of conspirators, it's obvious they're already trying to implicate Freddie in the murder when he makes that suggestion. Relia himself briefly becomes a

suspect when Casey finds a telegram in his room supposedly from Strickland, saying he's going to put his story in his memoirs, but then Wellman reveals that many of the people at the hotel are in that same boat. Some more suspicion is thrown on Relia when he mysteriously disappears, but then his body turns up in Freddie's room and he and Casey desperately try to put him back in his own room. After all that, not only does the body end up back in Freddie's room through dumb luck, it's joined by the corpse of Milford (Morgan Farley), Strickland's secretary, who arrives after the murder and is questioned by the police. All he does is admit that, being a criminal attorney, Strickland made a lot of enemies, though he doesn't know anyone who would have resorted to killing him. He also gives the police information on all the former clients at the hotel. At the end of the movie, Wellman reveals he's learned Strickland was killed to keep him from finding out that Milford was blackmailing the place's owner, Lawrence Crandall. Also, Milford arranged for the group of Strickland's former clients to be at the hotel in order to throw suspicion on all of them, making up the memoirs to ensure they would come. But, Milford himself was far away when Strickland was murdered (he managed to get there pretty fast after it happened, though), meaning he had an accomplice at the hotel who did it and then killed Milford to cover it up, along with Relia, whose gun was used to shoot Strickland.

That accomplice, and the actual killer, turns out to be Melton (Alan Mowbray), the hotel's manager. Besides having been the one who committed the murders, throughout the entire movie, he continually throws suspicion on Freddie, bringing up his fight with Strickland that led to his being fired and his threatening to get even with him. He also tries to frame Freddie, first by hiding Relia's gun in his room and then by depositing Relia and Milford's bodies in it. Later, when Freddie seems to

have been cleared of suspicion, Melton then tries to frame Crandall by putting the bodies in his room, and also tries to get the handkerchief from the crime scene Freddie claims to have. When killing him in the steam room doesn't work, Melton plays a phonograph recording that tells him to come to the Lost Caverns with the handkerchief. There, Melton, dressed in a slicker and a mask (and looking like a cross between the killer in an Italian giallo movie and the Elephant Man), stalks him throughout the caverns, attempting to off him and get the handkerchief. It culminates in a moment where Freddie gets stuck in a hole in the ground and, when Melton demands to know where the handkerchief is, he lies and tells him it's in his room. With that, Melton leaves Freddie to die by being drowned in a rush of water he lets loose by smashing through a section of wall, but he's saved by Wellman and Sergeant Stone. At the end of the movie, when Melton's shoes are found caked with mud from the cave, he realizes the jig is up and pulls a gun while taking Freddie hostage. He uses him as a means of escaping the hotel, only to be caught by a booby trap Freddie set up at the French doors in the back of his room.

Two very minor characters whose roles in the plot are vague and confusing are Lawrence Crandall's niece, Betty (Donna Martell), and Jeff Wilson (Gar Moore), the desk clerk. Specifically, Betty's role is the one that's confusing, as she acts suspicious from the start, seeming more upset that Strickland had no interest in speaking with her like she wanted than his having gotten Freddie fired. She's also seen leaving Strickland's room when Freddie brings Casey, Melton, and Jeff upstairs to show them he's been murdered, and later, when Wellman is demanding to know where everyone's been lately when he finds evidence of another murder, Betty is quick to provide an alibi for her uncle's whereabouts, saying she was with him, even though she was really with Jeff. As for Jeff, he's totally in the dark about what Betty is up to, as she refuses to tell him what it is. Her only other noteworthy scene after that is when Crandall confesses to having hid the bodies of Relia and Milford in Freddie's room when he found them in his own, vouching for him and saying he had nothing to do with the murders. It's likely Betty knew about the blackmail her uncle was receiving and wanted to talk with Strickland about it, and after he was murdered, her main concern was ensuring her uncle didn't become a suspect, but exactly what she was doing while sneaking around the place and coming out of Strickland's room after the murder is never completely explained.

Despite Melton's constant insisting that Freddie is the murderer, Inspector Wellman (James Flavin) goes about his investigation the old-fashioned way, dealing with all of the suspects and not just focusing on Freddie. As such, Wellman, who quickly grows to find Freddie really annoying with his constant yammering and hysterical yelling, puts him into Casey's custody and orders him not to leave the hotel. But, after the ashes of a linen handkerchief that had blood on it are found in Freddie's room, both Wellman and his sergeant, Stone (Mikel Conrad), begin to view him as the prime suspect. Following the discovery of a patch of blood on the floor in Milford's room, in conjunction with the apparent disappearance of Relia and all of Strickland's former clients being up and dressed in the middle of the night, Wellman decides to give Freddie a chance to clear himself by going around the hotel, claiming he has the handkerchief. Despite this leading to Freddie nearly dying in the steam bath, Wellman and Stone believe he could be trying to divert attention from himself, and Wellman threatens to place him under arrest if he doesn't clear himself by 9:00 that night, which is when the clients are leaving. When they find Relia and Milford's bodies in Freddie's room, and Freddie blurts out that he hid them in the elevator the night before, Wellman proceeds to arrest him, only for them to hear the killer's message for Freddie to meet him at the Lost Caverns. Once again, Wellman gives Freddie a chance to clear himself and he, Stone, and Casey follow him into the caverns. Though they lose him for a long while, Wellman and Stone manage to save Freddie from being drowned and, no longer thinking he's guilty, rush back to the hotel to catch the killer. There, in Freddie's room, Wellman gathers everybody together and lays out the facts about the case, revealing that he's long since learned that Milford and an unnamed accomplice were blackmailing Lawrence Crandall, and becomes increasingly annoyed by how Freddie walks right behind him and constantly interrupts his telling everyone what he knows. Once Melton is revealed as the killer and is knocked unconscious by one of Freddie's booby traps, Wellman congratulates Freddie on said traps, only to get knocked out by one Freddie forgot he installed.

Though he only lasts for one scene before being murdered, Amos Strickland (Nicholas Joy) leaves an impression as a very tightly wound, easily agitated man who's hounded by reporters when he arrives at the hotel (he smashes the camera of one of them), immediately demands to see Crandall and has no interest in talking with Betty, and becomes enraged at Freddie over his clumsy mishandling of his baggage, demanding that Melton fire him. That night, after Freddie threatens to get even with him,

Strickland is, of course, found dead in his room, kicking off the plot that eventually reveals he came to the hotel to find out why Crandall, a client, was no longer paying him, unaware of the blackmailing being done by his own secretary. And finally, I have to mention Abernathy (Percy Helton), a night clerk who, when Freddie is disguised as a maid while he and Casey are attempting to dispose of the bodies, hits on him, thinking he's kind of cute. He also sits in on a "card game" between Freddie, Casey, and Relia and Milford's corpses, looking over their shoulders at their cards and continuing to hit on Freddie in ways that can be described as sexual harassment, much to his growing irritation. However, Freddie has to quickly get him out of the room before he discovers the other two are dead, and when Abernathy asks for "a little smack," he's more than happy to give it to him.

At this point, I must confess that I'm kind of cheating in calling this a "horror-comedy," as it's more of a comedy based in a whodunit murder mystery, which is where most of my issues with it lie. There are so many characters in the film, and so few of them are given any real nuance or distinguishing personalities, that you can very easily lose track of who's who. As well, who among them is considered a suspect and who isn't can be very confusing, and why any of them would have a motive is explained so quickly that you

could miss it. My first couple of watches, the point about so many of the people at the hotel being former clients of Strickland's completely went over my head, as did their motivation for wanting to stop Strickland's memoirs from being published. It also doesn't help that the two characters whose corpses becoming a recurring plotpoint each only have one notable scene while alive, making it easy to forget who they were to begin with. Even worse, the two blackmailers have very

identical names: Milford and Melton, again, making it easy to get confused. Moreover, why they were blackmailing Lawrence Crandell and their exact methods of doing so are never revealed. I guess the filmmakers figured it didn't matter in the end but I, for one, would love to know what was so important that it would make Melton go through all this trouble to keep his plot from being revealed. Like I said earlier, you never find out exactly why Betty Crandell was seen leaving

Strickland's room after he was murdered, and you can only speculate that she's trying to help her uncle and keep him from becoming a suspect. And finally, also to reiterate something I've mentioned before, the fact that Boris Karloff's character is not only not the killer but also has very little screentime is a major letdown and makes you wish the studio hadn't even bothered casting him. Obviously, after failing to have him involved with Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, they

weren't going to miss the opportunity, especially since they didn't know if they would get another one, but I think the movie would have been so much better if he were plainly the villain and Bud and Lou were having to go up against him. Also, am I the only one who's a bit bothered by the fact that Talpur and the other conspirators get away scot-free with trying to frame Freddie and have him kill himself?

Comedy-wise, the movie recreates some routines previously used in Abbott and Costello's past horror-comedies, like a moment where Freddie tries to show Casey that Relia and Milford's bodies are, again, in his room, but they keep disappearing, and a reconfiguration of the moving candle from Hold That Ghost, this time with Freddie putting a candle on a rock that turns out to be a turtle and walks away with it, much to his confusion. But what's really surprising is just how black and morbid the humor gets, with the scene where

Freddie first discovers Strickland's body and it taking him a while to realize he's dead, not to mention how big chunks of the movie concentrate on Casey and Freddie discovering and trying to hide the dead bodies. In fact, the movie has something of a macabre edge to it overall. While it's certainly not graphic, you see the gunshot wound in Strickland's body, learn exactly how that one of the other victims was stabbed, and you even see a blood spot

on the floor in one room. Also, you have the scene where Freddie may have been poisoned, the one where Talpur repeatedly tries to have him kill himself, and the couple of dead serious moments where Freddie is left to die in ways that would be slow and horrific, like being cooked in a steam bath or drowned. And finally, there's the moment where Casey and Freddie pretend Relia and Milford's corpses are still alive and they're playing cards with them (that led to the movie getting banned in Denmark), a prolonged scene that stems from their trying to leave the bodies in that room and goes on with Freddie having to put them in an elevator.

Save for the climax in the Lost Caverns themselves, the film is set entirely within the nearby resort hotel, which makes for a good location for a murder mystery, given how familiar and ordinary a place it is, contrasting nicely with the ghoulish turn of events, as well as because of the many places for the killer to hide himself or the bodies. There's not much to say about the production design, as there's nothing that exotic about the place and you don't see much of it besides the lobby, the hallways, and the rooms, but

it can be complimented on how well it simulates the feel of such a resort. The most memorable part of the place for me is the steam bath where you have those old-fashioned stalls that someone literally locks you into while you sit there and sweat bullets (those always came off like potential deathtraps to me anyway, so it's not surprising that Freddie almost

meets his end in one). Far more memorable are the sets meant to simulate the interior of the Lost Caverns, with these big, dark tunnels and rooms full of stalactites and stalagmites, steaming and bubbling puddles of sulfur on the floor, a section where a big gate comes down to separate Freddie from the others, and enormous caverns with ledges that lead to big drops, some of which go down into bubbling pools of sulfur, the latter of which are obviously accomplished by combining the sets with visual effects and matte paintings.

Cinematographer Charles Van Enger also returns from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and he brings that same glossy, stark black-and-white look to this film, even if it's maybe a bit murkier and not quite as sophisticated. Like before, he's able to make the scenes where nothing spooky or macabre is happening look ordinary enough, but there are also numerous scenes which are very dark and shadowy, chief among them the scene where Talpur tries to manipulate Freddie into killing himself (doesn't that look very noirish?) and a

scene in a hotel room later on where Inspector Wellman informs everyone there that they're all suspects and are to remain there until he says otherwise. The scenes inside the Lost Caverns are also well-shot, especially a moment where Freddie sees a pair of glowing eyes in the dark, only to see it's an owl, and when he's wandering around a dark cavern by himself, using a match to light his way.

The matte paintings and miniatures used to create the enormous caverns Freddie bungles into are among the small handful of effects work found in the movie. Like I said, you can tell those shots were done either by compositing Lou Costello and part of a real set into a shot of a miniature or shooting him in front of a screen with footage of the miniatures and paintings, but the work on them is nicely done, especially the details seen in the boiling sulfur down below in some shots. Where the effects work gets truly clunky is a moment

where Freddie slips across a ledge and flies over to one on the opposite side, as the herky-jerky movements of him when he lands on that ledge indicate the shot is being played in reverse. Speaking of clunky effects, there are some moments with fake animals in the cave that come off as very archaic. The owl that Freddie sees sitting on a ledge at one point is obviously a mechanical prop with glowing eyes, but you see it in the light for only a second and I kind of find it

endearing in a way. But, not too long afterward, there's a moment where an explosion sends a bear stumbling into the cavern with Freddie, and it's a very fake-looking bear suit. It's so blatantly fake-looking, in fact, that I was waiting for the revelation that it's another disguise of the killer's but, no, it's meant to be real. You may criticize me for expecting them to use a real bear, but that makes it all the more egregious when you know a real bear was used before in an Abbott and Costello movie, The Naughty Nineties. Moreover, that bear got quite a bit of work, so I don't know why they couldn't use it for one brief shot here, even if they filmed it separately from Costello and edited them together (yeah, I'm being really nitpicky).

Like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the movie starts with an animated opening credits sequence, where cartoon caricatures of Abbott and Costello are painting their names on the side of a building (and according to the paint can they're using, they're writing in blood), when they hear the sound of a car driving by. Abbott looks and runs off, while Costello nearly gets shot up by someone blasting the wall full of bullet-holes to spell out more of the title. Costello comes back in

and laughs, points to the word "killer" in the title, and mockingly says, "You didn't dot the 'i!'" The shooter corrects that mistake by tossing a knife right above the i, to which Costello responds with, "Whoo!" The blood in the paint can drips down on the wall below and spells out Boris Karloff's name, leading into the rest of the opening credits, which are much less dramatic. After the credits, you see a car drive by a sign pointing the way to the Lost Caverns Hotel, as a rainstorm rages in the night.

You then see an establishing shot of the hotel in the pouring rain, and inside, Casey is introduced as he talks with some reporters about Amos Strickland, the man they're waiting for. One reporter, Joe, tells him he's the biggest criminal attorney in the country and that it's big news for him to postpone a very important case in order to come to the hotel. Strickland arrives and walks through the door, only to be mobbed by the reporters. He tells them he has no time to give a statement or pictures, making his point by smashing the camera of one who snaps

a photo anyway. Casey intervenes and leads Strickland away from the reporters and to the front desk, as Angela Gordon watches from nearby. Meeting with the desk clerk, Jeff Wilson, Strickland asks to see Lawrence Crandall, the hotel's owner, and when Jeff says Crandall's niece, Betty, wants to talk with him, Strickland says he has no interest in speaking with her. That's when Freddie is introduced when he walks in and Jeff tells him to take Strickland's baggage up to his room. In rapid succession, Freddie clumsily whacks Strickland in the back of the leg with his golf bag, drops the bag onto his foot, and absentmindedly slams his umbrella on the desk, smashing Strickland's glasses.

Strickland declares, "I'll have your job for this!", to which Freddie says, "Aren't you a little too old for this type of work?" Strickland angrily clarifies that he's going to have Freddie fired and again yells at him to pick up his bag, only for Freddie to turn the golf bag upside down and dump all of the clubs onto the floor. Melton, the manager, shows up and asks what's going on. Much to Strickland's shock, Freddie blames him for breaking his glasses, rationalizing, "Well, if he hadn't come here, he'd

never broke 'em." Strickland demands Melton fire Freddie and Melton obliges, telling Freddie to get out of his uniform and leave the hotel. Freddie drops the golf bag and points his finger at Strickland, telling him, "I'll get even with you for this! Every dog has his day, and I'll have mine! I'm gonna make you pay for this." Strickland asks if he should take that as a threat and Freddie snarls, "In words of one syllable, yes!", before making a distinctive, "pa!" noise at both him and Melton (a recurring verbal tic of his here). He

proceeds to trip over Strickland's luggage and Casey helps him up, joking about how he got fired. Freddie isn't in a joking mood, and reiterates that "every dog has his day" before barking at Casey and storming off. Melton then has Casey take the bags up, while he shows Strickland to his room. Jeff helps Casey get the bags organized, when Betty comes in and asks what's going on. Jeff tells her that Strickland has arrived but wasn't interested in speaking with her, and that he got Freddie fired. Betty is so upset by not

getting to talk with Strickland that it takes her a moment to process that Freddie got fired (Jeff says he was fired "again," meaning Freddie isn't that great of a bellhop in general) and when she does, she says she'll talk to her uncle. Jeff can tell she's preoccupied with something else but she denies that there's anything wrong. After she walks away, Mrs. Grimsby comes by and asks for the key to her room, glancing at the registry when Jeff has his back turned to her.

That night, Freddie stops by Strickland's room and knocks on his door, although a glimpse inside shows Strickland isn't doing so good, as he's dead from a bullet-hole in his chest. Freddie stumbles into the room due to the door being unlocked and walks over to Strickland's body as it sits in a chair. Unaware that he's dead, Freddie proceeds to apologize for what happened earlier, although he stifles a snicker when he apologizes for dropping the golf bag on his foot. Having finished his

apology by saying he's sorry about the glasses, he pats Strickland on the shoulder and the corpse falls into the floor. Freddie is about to leave, when he turns back around and asks Strickland to speak with Melton about it. Seeing Strickland lying in the floor, he suggests he go into his bedroom to lay down, and when he gets no response, he walks over to the body, the lightning outside illuminating the silhouette of a figure behind the French doors' curtain. He checks for Strickland's pulse, only

to stupidly check his own and declare, "This guy's plenty sick!" While he's preoccupied, the person on the other side of the curtain sticks an umbrella, trying to snag a handkerchief lying beside the body. Still feeling his own pulse, Freddie then goes, "Whew, he made it!", and starts fanning the corpse, as the umbrella retreats back behind the curtain. Freddie grabs the handkerchief and starts using it to fan him, then opens the French doors to let more air in. He doesn't see the person hiding behind the curtain, who retreats out through the

doors while Freddie continues trying to revive Strickland by fanning him. He lifts the body up to try something else, when he finally spots the bloody bullet wound in his chest. Realizing Strickland's dead, he lays the body back down on the floor, asks him who did it, and calmly walks towards the door, remarking on how he's not afraid, despite being in a room alone with a dead person. He laughs casually, only to then panic and run downstairs, yelling for Casey. At the front desk, he grabs Melton, pointing back the way he came and

mumbling incoherently. Casey comes running and Melton tells him to remove Freddie from the premises, when he starts babbling about having found the body and that Strickland's been murdered. Melton declares, "That's impossible! We don't permit murders in this hotel!", but Freddie, at one point mispronouncing Melton's name as "Smelton," frantically insists that Strickland is dead and motions for them to follow him back to the room.

Jeff, who ran ahead of the others, enters the hallway leading to Strickland's room in time to see Betty exit the room and run off. Freddie comes running, followed by Casey and Melton, and they enter the room, where he shows them Strickland's body. Casey confirms that he's dead and tells nobody to leave the room or touch the body (Freddie covers his face, saying he doesn't even want to look at the body), while Melton says they mustn't let the other guests find out what's

happened. That quickly goes out the window when a maid comes in and Freddie tells her to leave an extra sheet to cover up the body. She starts screaming and Freddie tries to shut her up and get her out of the room, while Casey calls the police department. Though Freddie does get the maid out, her screaming attracts more people, including Lawrence Crandall himself, and Freddie says there's been an "accident." Crandall asks if it's serious and Freddie blurts out, "Murder," panicking

the man and causing him to rush into the room, followed by Betty and Angela Gordon, while Brooks stands by the door. Betty feigns surprise at seeing Strickland's body (her reaction is so forced it's amazing nobody other than Jeff thinks it's suspicious) and Jeff takes her to her room. Angela acts as if she's crying and asks Freddie for a handkerchief. He almost gives her the handkerchief he picked up next to the body but instead gives her one from his breast pocket. She heads out the door, Freddie taking back his handkerchief before she

leaves, and she and Brooks exchange glances. Out in the hall, Angela tells Talpur of Strickland's death and does the same when Mrs. Grismby and Mrs. Hargreave come by. While everyone's distracted, Brooks tries to steal Strickland's briefcase but Freddie catches him, only for Brooks to accuse him of trying to steal it when Melton asks what's going on. Freddie calls him out on his lie but Melton demands he apologize to Brooks. He does, saying, "I'm sorry you're a crook," and Brooks yells, "Pighead!" in his face, spitting in his eye as a

result. Crandall takes the briefcase and puts it in a safe, while Casey manages to get a hold of Inspector Wellman and inform him of what's happened. When he hangs up, a man named Mike Relia comes in and tells him of a gun missing from his room. He suggests a maid or a bellboy could've taken it and Freddie mentions how that's true, saying he could get in every room in the place, automatically putting suspicion on himself. Melton orders Casey to search him for the gun and, while Casey doesn't find the gun, he does find a tiny object akin to a kaleidoscope that apparently shows something naughty. Seeing it, Casey smacks Freddie's shoulder, while he snickers and takes the thing back. Melton tells Casey not to let him out of sight until the police get there.

Freddie and Casey go back to his room and, while Casey doesn't think he killed Strickland, he tells him it doesn't look too good for him. He says, on the plus side, he wasn't found with bloodstains on him, only for Freddie to take out the bloodstained handkerchief and quickly put it back in his pocket. Casey also tells him the gun is still missing and Freddie breathes a sigh of relief over that, only to pull back his bedspread and find a gun lying there. Casey goes on to list the bad points,

while Freddie tries to hide the gun by bundling it up in the bedspread and sheets. Seeing this, Casey asks what he's doing and Freddie nervously says he's taking it down to the laundry. He walks with the bundle to the door, only for the gun to tumble out onto the floor when Casey grabs his shoulder. Casey demands to know where he got the gun and Freddie tells him twice that he doesn't know where it came from. Figuring it's Relia's gun, he tells Freddie they need to get it back to

Relia's room or he's dead. They walk out of the room and head down the hall, only to hide in a corner to keep from being seen by Angela. Casey mentions that there's something suspicious about her and Freddie tries to go "question" her, but Casey grabs him and pulls him around the corner. They reach Relia's room and, after knocking, try to open it, only for Casey to realize he has the wrong key. Freddie gives him a skeleton key and they manage to get in, only to find that someone had already been in there, searching for something. While

Freddie is anxious to plant the gun and leave, Casey finds a telegram on the desk that reads, "I'm including your case in my memoirs. Imperative you be at the Lost Caverns Hotel this weekend," and has Strickland's signature. Thinking it may be a clue, Casey puts the telegram in his pocket, intending to do a background check on Relia. He then tells Freddie to see if the coast is clear, while he plants the gun in one of Relia's suits. Freddie opens the door and comes face to face with Talpur, who quickly moves his hand in front of his face in

a hypnotic manner, repeating, "You didn't see me," and, "I wasn't here," before ducking back into the hall. Casey comes out and tries to get Freddie to come on, when he just stands there in the doorway. He mumbles, "I didn't see him," and when Casey asks who he's talking about, he answers, "The man who wasn't here... All I did was open up the door, see if the coast was clear. My mind went blank." Casey tells him his mind's always been blank and orders him to come on, adding, "Close the door." Freddie does close the door, but remains in the room. Casey comes back and, again, tells him to come on, and Freddie just repeats, "I didn't see him," before walking out into the hallway and closing the door behind him. He literally turns his head with his hand and walks after Casey.

Inspector Wellman, after questioning Milford, Strickland's secretary, tells Sergeant Stone to bring in Freddie. On their way in, Casey tells Freddie to be firm and Freddie assures him he can handle himself. But, as soon as he gets into the room, he drops to his knees and grabs Wellman by the edge of his suit jacket, pleading with him. He exclaims that he didn't do it, yelling, "Don't hit me! Don't hit me! Don't twist my arm! Don't twist my arm! I'm innocent, I tell ya! I'm innocent! Don't hit me

on the head with a rubber hose! Don't hit me on the head with a rubber hose!" Casey pulls him up, saying Wellman didn't touch him, and Freddie asks, "What kind of third degree is this?" Wellman says he doesn't give third degrees and Freddie replies, "Stingy." Casey yanks him away, telling Wellman it's just the way Freddie is, adding that he's too dumb to commit a murder. On Freddie's prompting, he then shows the inspector the telegram they found in Relia's room. Wellman tells Casey he's putting Freddie into his custody

and that he's to remain at the hotel as a guest of the state. When told that means the state will pay for everything, Freddie obviously intends to take full advantage of it and, after suggesting Wellman come up and see him some time, walks out with Casey. Once they're out of the room, Stone, on a hunch, opens the door to find Freddie eavesdropping on the other side and he quickly excuses himself and leaves for real.

Freddie is then seen being absolutely pampered in his room, with a man doing his hair, women giving him a manicure on each hand, and another man shining his shoes. When the phone rings, he makes Casey bring it over to him, as well as stand there and hold it while he talks. Hanging up, he has Casey order a bunch of fancy foods and drink, saying he's going to have a guest. Casey asks him if he doesn't think he's carrying his being a guest of the state too far but Freddie says, "After all,

California's a big state; if it was Rhode Island, it'd be different." He also has Casey sign the check for the services and tells him to give everyone a big tip. When they're all gone, Casey informs Freddie that, come the next day, he'll be an average Joe again when he gives Wellman his report on Mike Relia. Freddie isn't concerned, declaring he has a date with Angela Gordon, a claim Casey refuses to believe. There's a knock at the door and Freddie dreamily answers it, expecting Angela and saying,

"Come in, darling," only to find it's a bellboy with his suit-jacket. Casey laughs at this, but then, Angela shows up and Freddie not very subtly indicates for Casey to leave, shoving the door into his back on his way out. Freddie acts all sappy, fawning over Angela as the two of them sit on the couch. He tells her, "Gee, you're pretty," and when she says, "I bet you say that to all the girls," he responds, "Yes. It don't go over so good with the boys." She brings up his being a suspect in Strickland's murder and Freddie says he's innocent,

leading to this confusing exchange: "Have you any idea who the real murderer is?" "Yes." "Who?" "The culprit." "But who is the culprit?" Freddie gets up and, appearing to check to make sure they're alone, answers, "The murderer. Casey has a full report on him. He has to find out only one thing before he can put him in jail." Angela asks, "What's that?", Freddie answers, "If he did it," and Angela asks, "If who did it?", with him answering, "The culprit." Angela, again, asks who the culprit is and Freddie answers, "The murderer! Don't you understand?" Angela tells him he'd be a hero if he could catch the killer, suggesting, "Why don't you get him to sign a confession?" Inevitably, that leads to another exchange of confusion: "Get who to sign a confession?" "The murderer." "Who's the murderer?" "The culprit! Don't you understand?!"

Despite the confusion, Freddie does understand and says he wishes he had a pencil and paper, both of which Angela instantly produces. She offers to dictate while he writes and says, "I hereby confess," which makes Freddie briefly think she did it for a second. He goes back to writing, scribbling, "I hereby confess to the murder of Amos Strickland." She then tells him to sign his name, which confuses Freddie, but she tells him it's so everyone will know he was a witness to the real

killer signing his name and he goes along with it. He hands the confession back to her, when there's a knock at the door. When he answers it, someone pushes in a cart with a bottle of champagne, and Angela explains she was the one who ordered it. Meanwhile, as Wellman gets nowhere with Strickland's former clients, he tells Casey, who believes Mike Relia may be the murderer, that Relia happens to be missing at the moment. He also informs him that all of Strickland's other

clients have the same motive for wanting him dead as Relia and goes back to his questioning, wanting to talk with Angela Gordon next. Casey becomes horrified when Wellman tells him how Angela was accused of giving her husband some poisoned champagne, as he saw the champagne wagon heading up to Freddie's room. He, Wellman, and Stone rush to Freddie's room, while Crandall goes to fetch a poison antidote from the doctor's office. Up in Freddie's room, Angela is trying to force some champagne down his throat, but he says he

doesn't trick that kind of stuff. Regardless, she keeps pushing the rim of the glass into his mouth. At first, he snickers because the bubbles are tickling his nose, but grows aggravated when she almost gets it in his mouth. That's when Casey and the others burst in and, thinking he's drunk some of the possibly poisoned champagne, they drag him to the bathroom. Casey is handed a bottle of "mustard and milk" and pulls the yelling and complaining Freddie into the bathroom. That doesn't work, so Casey comes back out, is given

another bottle, and pushes Freddie back in when he tries to come out. This goes on twice more, and by the fourth time, Freddie is almost dead on his feet but Casey pushes him back in the bathroom for more. During the madness, Wellman questions Angela about her possible role in Strickland's death but she denies any involvement. She also insists the drink isn't poisoned, when Casey comes back out, saying he gives up. He's followed by Freddie, who's crying over all the noxious crap that was forced down his throat. When he's told they thought the champagne might have been poisoned, he becomes all the more upset, exclaiming that he never drank any of the champagne. Casey asks him why he didn't tell him and Freddie whines, "Every time I opened my mouth, you kept pourin' somethin' down it!"

When Angela meets with the other conspirators and they decide Freddie must be dealt with permanently, Talpur decides to take matters into his own hands, saying Freddie will be found dead from a suicide with the confession next to his body. That night, in Freddie's room, Talpur, after having rigged a hangman's noose, mesmerizes Freddie while he sleeps. He tells him, "Freddie, your future is black. A terrible fate awaits you. You have nothing to live for. You have one escape...

Eternal sleep. The sleep that brings peace. Sleep that goes on forever." Entranced, Freddie says, "I may as well be dead," and Talpur gets Freddie to stand up on his bed. He orders him to walk over to where the noose is hanging, stand on the foot of the bed, and put the noose around his neck. When he does, Talpur orders him to jump when he counts to three, but when he gets to three, Freddie loses his balance and falls back onto the bed, pulling the light fixture the noose is tied to out of the ceiling.

Talpur gets him to stand up on the floor and remove the noose from his neck, deciding they must try something else. He asks Freddie if he has a gun and when he nods in response, he orders him to go get it. He follows Freddie out into the living room (he walks right into the mirror on the door before opening it), and watches him pull something out of a desk drawer. He asks Freddie if he has the gun and when he nods, he tells him to put it to his head and use it. Freddie does so and turns around, revealing that what he has is an

old-fashioned sprayer, which Talpur knocks out of his hands. Figuring Freddie may want to choose his own means of suicide, he asks him how he'd like to die and he answers, "Old age." Talpur goes to the window and opens it. Looking down at the long drop to the grounds below, he has Freddie climb up onto the sill and tells him to jump. Freddie does jump, but hops backwards off the sill and onto the floor. Talpur commands him to jump out the window but Freddie shakes his head. Frustrated, Talpur grabs a knife from the desk and tells him, "You're going to commit suicide if it's the last thing you do!" He backs Freddie up and tells him to take the knife, which he does. He then orders him to use it, and Freddie starts filing his nails with it. Talpur takes the knife back and backs Freddie into the bedroom, telling him he will do as he tells him.

He orders Freddie to take the knife and plunge it into his heart but, despite his hypnotized state, Freddie refuses to do as he says. Talpur can't help but be amazed, noting, "Even under hypnosis, the will of an idiot to cling to life." He glances at the mirror and asks Freddie if he would stab the person who's reflected in it. However, while Talpur sees Freddie's reflection, from where Freddie's standing, he only sees Talpur, and he eagerly nods his head yes in response to that question. Talpur gives him

the knife and, again, repeats his orders, only for Freddie to start walking towards him, the knife raised in his hand. Talpur frantically tries to snap him out of it, when there's a knock at the other door leading into the bedroom and he ducks into the living room. Casey enters the bedroom and, since he's now reflected in the mirror, Freddie starts menacing him. Casey quickly manages to snap him out of his trance and take the knife away from him. Now back to his senses, Freddie has no explanation for

why he's out of bed, and when they see that the fixture has been yanked out of the ceiling, Freddie mumbles, "I must've walked on the ceiling till..." Casey tells him that Mike Relia's gone and they have to find him and make him talk. While Casey goes to wash his hands, Freddie, still wondering how he could have gotten on the ceiling, walks to the closet to get his clothes. Inside, he takes a suit off the rack, revealing Relia's hanging body. He doesn't see it at first, and when he goes to fetch his hat, he quietly says, "Hi," to the body, only for

everything to hit him while he's standing in the doorway. He closes the door and yells for Casey. He points to the door in terror, unable to speak, and when Casey checks, he sees the body. Checking the body, he finds Relia was killed by a stabbing, and after asking Freddie if he did that while he was "sleepwalking," he says they need to get his body back into his own room. Casey goes to get a laundry cart and tells Freddie to get Relia down. Freddie hesitates, and when Casey yells, "Well, come on! Get some life into it!", Freddie asks, "Don't you think that's askin' a little too much?"

After Casey gets the body into the laundry cart, Freddie joins him, dressed up as a maid so no one will recognize him. On their way out, Freddie stops to admire himself in the mirror and also rips the tassels off a mat on a desk and shoves them up under the front of the hat he's wearing to make it look as if he has bangs. On their way down the hall, they pass by Wellman's room just as he walks out into the hall. Not recognizing Freddie, he asks him to get him a bath towel. While Casey makes

conversation with Wellman, Freddie tries to find a towel, unknowingly pulling Relia's arm up into view. Casey, having seen this, is asked by Wellman if he's keeping an eye on Freddie and tries to signal Freddie by saying, "Everything's in hand." He then has to yell it to make Freddie realize what he means and he drops the arm. Freddie goes to the cart's other end and finally pulls out a towel, although only after pulling Relia's leg up into view. He gives Wellman his towel, and when the inspector ducks

back into his room to answer his phone, they quickly push the cart on down the hall. They reach Relia's room and Casey decides they'd best put him in his closet. They push the cart into the closet and pull the body up out of it and onto a shelf on the wall. On the way out, they slam the closet door, the impact of which causes the body to fall back into the cart, and turn out the light. At the room's door, Casey figures they'd better not leave the cart, as it may tie things to Freddie, and has him go get the cart. Due to the light being off and his

tossing a sheet into the cart, he doesn't see that Relia's body fell back in. They leave the room, quickly put the cart behind the door where Casey first got it, and sneak back into Freddie's room. Thinking they've gotten away with it, Freddie starts taking off his maid disguise while Casey prepares to go lie down, telling him not to disturb him. He walks into the next room and Freddie goes to hang up his suit jacket in the closet, only to now find Milford's body hanging in there. Stunned, he walks out of the closet, closes

the door behind him, calmly walks across the hall and brings the laundry cart back into the room, and yells for Casey after closing the room's door. Casey comes storming out and yells at Freddie for not hanging up his coat and hat. He goes to do it himself, but when he opens the closet and sees Milford's body, he runs out of the room, yelling. Coming back in, he frantically asks for the cart and Freddie shows him it's right there. He asks, "Scared ya, didn't it?", and Casey answers, "I'll confess," making Freddie briefly think he's admitting to

doing it. Once more, Casey says they need to remove the body and tells him to prepare the cart, when Freddie pulls back a sheet in there to see Relia's body. Freddie lets out a panicked yell, and when Casey sees why he's yelling, he wonders how he got back in the cart, commenting, "Dead men can't walk." Casey wonders what they're going to do, as he's worried they'll run into Wellman again on the way to Relia's room, but Freddie suggests they take the bodies down to the card room, since nobody will be playing cards so late at night. Though it's a good idea, Freddie then says, "Maybe they don't play cards," much to Casey's annoyance.

Freddie uses the elevator to get the laundry cart down to the lobby, when a hand brandishing a knife pops up behind the desk. It's revealed to be a night clerk, Abernathy, preparing to peel an apple. Spotting Freddie, who's still wearing his maid outfit, he walks up and strikes a conversation with him, noting the amount of laundry in the cart. He reaches in to touch it for emphasis but Freddie stops him, acting as if he's stopping him from doing something naughty and gently smacks his

hand. This leads to Abernathy becoming all the more taken with him, as he pinches his cheek and describes him as cute. Freddie then pinches Abernathy's nose, goes to punch him when he briefly turns his head, and then Abernathy asks him to keep him company, saying, "Things have been awfully dead around here tonight." Freddie adds, "Much deader than you think," when Abernathy puts his arms around him. Becoming uncomfortable, Freddie tells him to knock it off, but when he does it again,

he goes to slap his hand, only to whack himself in the stomach when he moves his hand at the last minute. Casey comes downstairs and Abernathy goes to answer the telephone. Freddie and Casey push the cart into the card room and prepare to get rid of the bodies, when Freddie inexplicably talks in the girly voice he's been using while in his disguise, saying he's all mixed up. Outside, Abernathy tells Wellman on the phone that he hasn't seen Freddie but that Casey is down there. Speaking of which, Freddie and Casey are about to

leave the card room, when the latter sees Abernathy coming and they quickly put up a charade. When Abernathy enters the card, after taking a moment to comb what little hair he has, he finds Casey and Freddie apparently playing cards with Relia and Milford. Abernathy becomes confused when they say they're playing bridge, despite having two open hands, and Freddie says they're playing with "two dummies." Abernathy then picks up a card on the floor and puts it on the table. Motioning to Milford, he says, "His hand's

dead," and Freddie says, "They're both dead." Milford's corpse slumps over and Freddie grabs him and pushes him back, acting as if he were trying to peek at his cards. Abernathy asks Milford for a match, and Freddie almost gives himself away by reaching under his dress to go for his pocket, but Casey quickly gives Abernathy a match. Lighting a cigarette, Abernathy asks who got the bid, and when Casey says it was Freddie and that "she" bid a grand slam, he looks over Freddie's shoulder and asks, "You bid a grand slam on that hand?!"

Abernathy then tells him, "You know what?... You're going to get murdered." That causes Freddie to nervously fling some of his cards up into the air. Then, Abernathy tells him, "You ought to have me for a partner. The one you got's a stiff." That doubly freaks him out and causes him to send more cards flying. Once again, Abernathy, apologizing for what he did, gets too touchy-feely, putting his arm around Freddie and tickling his chin with his finger. Freddie loses his patience, yells for

Abernathy to get his hands off him, and stands up, yelling at him, "I am partially engaged! Now, you leave me alone!" He smacks the table for emphasis, causing Milford's corpse to fall forward onto his hand, with Relia's corpse falling on top of his. Panicking, Freddie blocks Abernathy's view, yanks his hand out from under the bodies, and puts Abernathy in a headlock, yanking him out into the lobby. Once out there, Freddie remarks on Abernathy's "strength" and asks why "he" dragged

him out there. Abernathy asks for a "little smack" and Freddie takes advantage of his choice of words. In the card room, Casey hears a loud bang, and when Freddie walks in, he tells him he just gave Abernathy what he asked for. Casey tells him to get out of the maid's outfit and get rid of the cart; Freddie tells the bodies, who are sitting back up in the chairs, "Sorry, fellas, but you'll have to play two-handed." When Casey looks out into the lobby, he sees Wellman and Stone coming. He quickly warns Freddie of this and attempts to stall the two

cops by feigning ignorance of Freddie's whereabouts. Wellman, however, is in no mood for it and pushes his way into the card room, which he, Stone, and Casey see is completely empty. In the basement, Freddie disposes of the bodies and changes out of his maid's outfit, while Wellman is about ready to throw out a dragnet for him. Freddie heads back up to the lobby and goes for the elevator, only for it to come up from the basement and open to reveal the bodies lying in it. Freddie's shock turns to terror when

Wellman comes stomping towards him. He quickly closes the elevator door, when Wellman begins questioning him about the murder. Trying to keep the elevator closed so they don't see the bodies, Freddie is shocked when Stone bluntly asks why he killed Strickland. Despite Casey reiterating that he's too dumb to kill someone, Wellman shows him some ashes from a linen handkerchief, which they found in Freddie's room and have analyzed to find it once had blood on it. Freddie admits he burned the handkerchief, babbling incoherently about how he found it, while Casey tells him it could've led them to the killer. Stone, motioning at Freddie, says he thinks it has anyway.

Wellman asks Freddie if he were working with Relia and he says, "The last time I saw Relia, he didn't talk to me." Wellman comments, "If we could only find Relia, I could make him talk," and Freddie says, "If you could, it'd be a good trick." Stone comments, "He can make him talk. You don't know Wellman," but Freddie counters, "You don't know Relia." As the elevator, which has gone all the way to the top, comes back down, Casey suggests, for the second time, they should go up to

Freddie's room and motions for the elevator. Freddie tries to stop him but Wellman goes for it, as does Stone, and Freddie prepares to be handcuffed. He puts his hands together and turns around in the elevator, when a woman's scream sends them running down a nearby hall. Freddie lingers behind, surprised that the bodies are gone, before being dragged along by Casey. They come to a room where a maid is screaming and she points at a stain on the carpet. When Wellman checks it, he

finds it's blood, and the maid screams again, this time drawing a crowd of people into the room. Wellman and the others learn it's Milford's room, and after he sends the maid away, he questions everyone about whether they've seen Milford lately. He becomes suspicious about how all of Strickland's former clients are fully dressed in the middle of the night, with a convenient alibi of having been together for the past few hours. After Betty Crandall tells Wellman that she was with her uncle when he went for a walk, he lets

them, Jeff, and the others not involved with Strickland go back to their rooms. Wellman tells them they're all suspects and that they might be linked with whatever has happened to Milford. Freddie almost screws himself over by saying he knows Milford's dead, covering up by pointing to the bloodstain as an obvious clue to that fact. Melton, again, tries to throw suspicion on Freddie but Wellman says he has an alibi. Telling them they can't leave without his permission, Wellman sends everyone but Casey and Freddie to their rooms. He

tells Freddie he's going to give him a chance to clear himself by trying to sell the handkerchief, as no one but them knows he burned it. He asks him if he's smart enough to pull this off and Freddie talks himself up as being smart, saying he's going up to his hotel room to figure it all out. Wellman asks him where his key is and Freddie realizes he doesn't have it on him. Wellman hands him the key and points at his badge, saying, "I didn't get this for nothin', you know." But, he then sees he's pointing to where his badge should be and Freddie hands it to him before heading out the door, nearly sending the inspector into a rage.

Outside, Freddie tells Casey where he put the bodies and they rush to the elevator. Having overheard them, Mrs. Grimsby looks out from her doorway and then ducks back into her room. When they reach the elevators, Freddie shows Casey that the bodies have disappeared. Figuring that, if nothing else, they don't have to worry about them anymore, Casey talks about trying to find someone to buy the handkerchief. When Freddie asks what would happen if the murderer doesn't have the money to buy it, Casey figures they'll try to murder him for it, saying, "Either way, they'll show their hand." Freddie says, "Well, if they murder me, I'm apt to be killed!", and Casey says, "That's right, but at least you're proving your innocence." For a second, Freddie figures it's a win-win, saying, "Ain't I a lucky stiff?", then remarks, "Lucky stiff? I should've never left Paterson."

The next day, after Freddie fails to get almost everyone, including Talpur, interested in the handkerchief, Casey mentions that he wishes the killer would go ahead and start trying to kill him. At that moment, a flowerpot comes crashing down and smashes at Freddie's feet. He exclaims, "They're gettin' around to it, alright!", when Casey sees it was knocked over by a cat up on a balcony. Then, an arrow hits the side of a trellis right next to where Freddie's standing, but it was just a kid

playing cowboys and Indians who misfired; that doesn't stop Freddie from commenting, "Now they've got the Indians after me." The kid stomps up and demands Freddie give him his arrow. Freddie tries to pull the arrow out of the trellis, but it appears to be really jammed in there... and the kid yanks it out with no problem at all. Casey comments, "Another false alarm. I wish somebody'd do something to you. I'm becoming a nervous wreck." Freddie mentions that the only person he hasn't approached yet is Brooks, whom Casey says he

saw going into the steam bath in the hotel's health club. He tells him, "If he's the killer, you'll be vindicated," and Freddie adds, "If he's the killer, I'll be perforated, assassinated, exterminated, and marinated!" Regardless, he heads to the steam bath, where he's placed in a stall next to the one Brooks is in. When they're left alone, Freddie tries to make small-talk with Brooks, then offers him the handkerchief, but like everyone else, he balks at the price of $5,000. He's then let out of his stall and goes to have a rubdown, ignoring Freddie's

continuing sales pitch regarding the handkerchief. Left alone in the room, Freddie laments his failure, when he turns and sees a hand reach around the corner and turn the lever on the stall's valve. The temperature soars, steam billows out of the hole in the lid like smoke, and Freddie yells for Casey, unable to get out of the stall due to the lock. Meanwhile, Casey is talking with Wellman and Stone, the former telling Casey that, if the handkerchief ploy doesn't work, he's going to let

Stone try to get a confession out of Freddie. A woman screams and the three of them go running to her. She yells about the hotel burning and Casey sees that the apparent smoke is coming from the health club. They make their way inside, through the thick steam that's now covering the room, and while Casey turns it off, Wellman and Stone get Freddie out of the stall. They all go out into the hall, where Freddie guzzles down all of the water in a cooler straight through the nozzle. Freddie tells them what

happened, but Wellman and Stone believe he may be trying to throw suspicion off himself. Angry, Freddie tells Wellman to lay off, saying that, because he's a citizen and a taxpayer, he's working for him. He also tells him to get him another bottle of water, which Wellman actually goes to do before realizing and yells, "What?!", backing Freddie against the wall.

Freddie and Casey head up to the former's room, Casey telling Freddie of Wellman's plan to arrest him at 9:00 that night if nothing else develops. That news makes Freddie too nervous to unlock his door, forcing Casey to do it for him. When Casey goes to open the door, he stops him, then reaches in and unloops a cord from around the doorknob. Freddie carefully steps into the room, then yanks Casey in and closes the door. Casey sees an enormous dresser rigged right above the door, which Freddie explains is a booby trap in case someone

tries to sneak in and murder him. Thinking it's stupid, Casey then asks about the French doors in the back of the room, only for Freddie to demonstrate another trap, this one involving a croquet mallet that comes swinging down from above. Again, Casey ridicules the trap, but Freddie says, "If the murderer comes in this room by himself, somebody else is gonna carry him out!" Casey says, "Why, you dirty double-crosser. Here we've got it all arranged for somebody to try and

kill you, and you're trying to prevent it!" He drags Freddie over to another window by a desk, which he says he didn't have to booby-trap, saying, "We're three stories up." At that moment, bullets shoot through the glass, sending them both to the floor, with Freddie crawling for safety elsewhere in the room. Casey, however, is overjoyed, telling Freddie he's lucky that someone's trying to kill him, and phones Wellman, laughing at the bullet-holes in the window. Freddie becomes distraught at how everyone seems happy that people are out to get him and actually starts crying. Still happy about the turn of events, Casey sends Freddie into the bedroom to lie down.

In the bedroom, Freddie goes to the closet to put his suit-coat away, only to quickly close the door, remembering how he keeps finding dead bodies behind them. He knocks lightly, asks if anyone is in there, and opens it to find nothing but hangers. He quickly hangs up his coat, gets out, and heads to the bed, unaware that there's a human form underneath the covers. He lies down next to it and only realizes it's there when his arm touches it. Thinking it's Casey, he admonishes him for not being outside, talking to Wellman, and smacks him

with his hat. He throws back the covers, only to discover Milford's body, and though it takes a second for him to realize it, he jumps out of bed and runs out the door. He grabs Casey, who ends his phone-call, and drags him into the bedroom. When they get there, the body's gone, and Freddie tries to tell him it was there, but seems to start choking on his own spit. Casey sends him into the bathroom to get a drink of water. When he does, he gargles as well, but when he sees Milford's body is now in the tub, he does a spit take and runs out. He drags

Casey into the bathroom and, like before, there's nothing there now. Casey drags him back out into the bedroom and tells him to shut up. He sends him out to go check if Wellman's on his way up, while he searches the bedroom thoroughly. Freddie mopes over to the desk with the phone, mumbling to himself that he knows what he saw, and picks up the phone. He tries to get a dial tone, yells hello, and says the same to Milford's body, which is now sitting in the chair. Once more, he runs

and brings Casey in, only for the body to have disappeared. Losing his patience, Casey asks how Milford's body could show up in so many places, given that he's dead, and Freddie says, "For a dead man, he's sure gettin' around." In an attempt to prove to him that Milford's body isn't there, Casey drags him around the suite, to all the spots where he saw him. While he's not sitting at the desk or in the bathtub, when they go into the bedroom, they find the body is back under the

covers. They hear a knock at the door and, knowing it's Wellman, Casey tells Freddie they need to get rid of him before he finds the body. They go out into the living room, close the bedroom door, and let Wellman in. Casey tells the inspector that what he phoned him for was a mistake but Freddie stupidly points out the bullet-holes in the window, saying they're only his imagination. While Wellman goes to look at the holes, Freddie tries to slip out but Stone marches him back into the room.

Examining the holes and asking Freddie where he was sitting when they were fired, Wellman looks at some holes in the wall across from the window. While doing so, he pushes back the couch, revealing Mike Relia's body. Making sure he's dead, Wellman sends Stone into the bedroom to get a sheet. Freddie tries to stop him but Stone tells him to be quiet, and Wellman and Casey say the same thing to his babbling. Wellman questions him about this new murder, when Stone comes out of the bedroom and tells him there's a third one to add

to the list, too. Following him in there and seeing Milford's body, Wellman is set to arrest Freddie but Casey tells him the bodies were planted there. Freddie then shows the cops his booby traps, like the one above the door, showing how it works and how he manages to get in and out of the room without getting clobbered. He points out the other booby trap, as well as a door in the corner of the room he says leads to Crandall's apartment. Crandall, along with Betty, walks into the room and admits that he brought the

bodies into the room, saying he found them in his own room and panicked at the sight of them, though he denies having been the one who was moving Milford's body around the room. Freddie, wondering how they could have gotten into Crandall's room, blurts out that he put them in the elevator, giving Wellman enough cause to book him for murder. Crandall and Betty duck out of the room, while Freddie, again, swears to the police that he's innocent. But, knowing he can't do anything to

save himself, he agrees to go without a fight. Just as they're about to head out, they hear a voice repeatedly calling Freddie's name. They search the room, Freddie looking behind the couch and asking Relia if he's the one who called. Stone finds the source of the voice is a ventilator under the window sill. The voice says, "Listen carefully: if you don't want to die, come to the caverns at 7:30 tonight. Bring the handkerchief. I'll be on the west end of the Bottomless Pit. Tell nobody, and come alone." The

voice repeats the instruction to come alone again and again, and Wellman says it's a phonograph record that's likely in the basement. Casey, seeing this as a perfect opportunity to catch the killer, says Freddie will go to the caverns and confront him. Freddie isn't too keen, though, and when Casey asks, "Would you rather die a hero or live like a rat?", he answers, "Get the cheese ready."

They arrive at the caverns that night, when Freddie tries to use a sign outside the entrance that says "DO NOT ENTER" as an excuse not to go in, but Casey and Wellman drag him inside. There, they send him ahead by himself, as it's almost 7:30, and Casey tells him to yell when he meets the man who wants the handkerchief. Again, Freddie is hesitant and Casey and Wellman have to prod him into going on ahead. Walking a little bit, Freddie sees a glowing pair of eyes watching him from the darkness and asks if they belong to the person who

wants the handkerchief. He gets a "Who?" in response and he lights a match to reveal it's just an owl sitting on a ledge. When the owl spreads its wings at him, Freddie freaks out and runs off into the cave. The others follow not far behind and also find the owl. Just up ahead, a gate comes down, preventing them from walking through a passage. Casey is about to lead them to another entrance to the Bottomless Pit, when he stops on a large rock and badly turns his ankle. Unable to go on with them, he gives Wellman and Stone directions to

the other entrance and heads back to the hotel. Elsewhere, Freddie wanders around a chamber, unaware that the killer, dressed in a mask and a slicker, is watching him from above. He rips off a stalagmite and throws it down at Freddie. It sticks into the ground right in front of him, sending him running off while yelling for Casey in a panic. He hears his yells for Casey echo throughout the chamber and stops and plays around with it, humming into each passage and listening to the

sound reverberate, only for them all to echo back at him at once. He then yells, "Inspector Wellman, Sergeant Stone, Casey, are you still behind me?!", and it, again, echoes all around him, nearly deafening him. He then murmurs, "I'm all alone," when a voice somewhere else in the cavern says, "Oh, no, you're not!" That sends Freddie running again, almost over the edge of a ledge high up over an enormous chamber that has a stream of bubbling sulfur running through it. He stumbles back into the

chamber and lights another match in order to see better. He illuminates a sign and finds a ledge behind it full of candles. He lights one of them and finds that the sign warns that anyone who's lost is to call for their guide. Freddie dumbly yells, "Mr. Guide! Mr. Guide!", then sits down on a stone to wait for someone to respond. He also sets the candle on a "rock," only for it to start crawling away, revealing itself to be a turtle, though Freddie thinks it's a rock that can move by itself.

As the killer watches from nearby, Freddie follows after the turtle and watches it slide down a slippery ledge and into the gigantic chamber he stumbled across earlier. Heading back where he was, Freddie grabs another candle and tries to light it, while behind him, the killer reaches around the corner and plants a stick of dynamite on the shelf. Unable to light the one candle, Freddie tosses it away and goes for another one, grabbing the dynamite. When he lights it, he's put off by the sparks that come off the fuse, blowing at them and

knocking the stick to try to get rid of them, before tossing the stick around the corner ahead of him. He goes to get another candle, when the dynamite explodes, nearly knocking him off his feet. Walking back around to the corner, a figure emerges from the billowing smoke and he asks what happened. He then sees that the figure is a bear and runs, sliding down the slippery ledge from before but managing to grab onto a stalagmite at the end of the ledge, dangling above the sulfur. The killer emerges on a ledge above him and watches

him pull himself back up. Freddie tries to walk back up the ledge but it's so steep and slick that it makes for a very dangerous trek. The killer yells for him to be careful, telling him to hang on as he grabs for other stalagmites and that he'll help when he gets up to him. When he does, Freddie reaches for him, asking him to take his hand, but the killer tells him to give him the handkerchief and then, he'll save his life. Freddie, however, tells him to save him first if he wants the handkerchief, but the

killer refuses. Freddie loses his balance and slides down the ledge, flying across to another ledge on the opposite side and landing with a stalagmite between his legs. Tapping the stalagmite's point, he notes, "This could've been serious." As the killer walks out of the chamber, Freddie yells for Casey and looks down at the bubbling sulfur below his ledge. The killer makes his way up to a chamber in the ceiling above Freddie and finds a hole in the floor leading down. He grabs a rope from nearby and,

after getting Freddie's attention, throws it down to him. When it extends down into the chamber, it keeps swinging back and forth out of his reach, and Freddie gets frustrated when he won't keep it still. He climbs over to a spot closer to the ledge, only for the rope to then swing over to the spot he was just at, and then, while maneuvering back around, his coat gets caught on a stalagmite. He unbuttons it and then finally grabs onto the rope, only to swing precariously over the sulfur. When he gets back over to the ledge, the killer tells him to tie it around his waist and he does, signaling for when he's ready.

While Wellman and Stone continue searching for Freddie elsewhere in the caverns, he's hoisted up to the chamber's ceiling and through the hole. But, the killer only pulls him through halfway, tying the other end of the rope onto a stalagmite. He asks for the handkerchief but Freddie tells him it's in his hotel room, adding that he'll taking him to its supposed hiding spot. The killer has heard everything he needs to know, grabs a pickaxe, and smashes into a section of wall that has water streaming through it.

This sends a torrent of water rushing right at Freddie, and the killer tells him it will be over his head in two minutes before leaving him to die. As the water starts rapidly filling up the hole around him, he yells for help, and Wellman and Stone hear him and follow the sound. He futilely tries to pull himself out, commenting, "Fine way to end up: a drain plug." The water then covers his head just as Wellman and Stone enter the room. At first, they see no sign of him, but when Stone sees his hat

floating in the water, along with the rope, they pull on it and manage to get him out. He asks where Casey is but Wellman asks him if he saw who the killer was. He tells them about the slicker and mask he was wearing, as well as that he told him the handkerchief was in his bedroom. They rush back to the hotel, hoping to catch the killer before it's too late.

Walking down the hall to Freddie's room, he sees that the trap he installed over his door has been triggered and someone is lying unconscious on the floor, with the dresser lying on top of him. They get the thing off him and Wellman and Stone pull the man to his feet, revealing him to be Casey. Casey admonishes him for resetting that trap without warning him but Freddie figures his falling for it means Casey is the killer. Wellman does ask him why he's in Freddie's room and Casey says he came in to lie down because of his ankle, but Freddie

thinks he was after the handkerchief and also believes he was the one moving Milford's body around earlier. On top of that, he blames him for the voice they heard instructing him to go to the caverns, despite his having been right next to him, believing it's proof he's a ventriloquist. All the other suspects, as well as Melton, Betty, and Jeff, show up at the door, having heard everything, and Wellman lets them all in. As they come through the door, Freddie keeps telling them that Casey's the killer. Wellman starts going over the facts of the case, revealing how Milford was

blackmailing Lawrence Crandall and that he had an accomplice that murdered Strickland. Hearing this, Freddie accuses Casey of being the other blackmailer, saying it's how he could afford all those cigars he smokes. Wellman starts walking around the room, his hands in his pockets, laying out more facts, saying that Milford saw to it that Strickland's former clients arrived at the hotel in order to cast suspicion on them, having made up the idea of Strickland writing memoirs about them to ensure

they'd be there; while he's doing this, Freddie walks behind him with his hands behind his back, acting all smug and authoritative, only to run into Wellman when he turns back around. Once more, Freddie goes back to accusing Casey, who grabs him by his coat collar, telling him to be quiet. Freddie, in turn, tells everyone he's trying to choke him. Wellman mentions how he thought Mike Relia was the accomplice when he disappeared, but knew he was wrong when he also turned up dead. Freddie really starts to get on the inspector's nerves when he blames Casey again, and when Casey says he's innocent, Freddie goes up to him and is about to say something, only to say, "Forgot what I was gonna say, you lucky boy."

Wellman admits he still doesn't know why Relia was murdered, and Melton suggests it was because Relia learned his gun was used to kill Strickland. Freddie, again, blames Casey, saying he put the gun in his room, and when Betty asks why the killer put Relia and Milford's bodies in her uncle's room, Wellman, after screaming at Freddie to be quiet when he starts to talk over him, says it was to make Crandall a suspect once Freddie was initially cleared of suspicion. Getting to the handkerchief, Freddie says it's why Casey came in the room, but

Wellman notes that Casey was among the few of them who knew the handkerchief had been burned. Stone comes in with a pair of shoes and Wellman tells everyone that he kept them there so he could go through their luggage, adding that whoever was in the caves earlier would have that type of mud on their shoes. Realizing he's about to be found out, Melton pulls out a gun, grabs Freddie, sticks it into his back, and orders everyone else up against the wall, while he walks backwards towards the French doors. Of course, when he opens them, he

activates Freddie's booby trap with the croquet mallet, which whacks him in the head. He falls to his knees but isn't knocked totally unconscious. Freddie takes care of that by taking out a small mallet and bopping Melton on the head, commenting, "That's in case the big one didn't work." As Wellman and Stone go to take Melton away, Freddie sends everyone down to the champagne room in order to have some lemonade on him. Crandall tells him he can have his job back

and Freddie also tells Casey that he never really thought he was the killer, claiming to have been using him as a decoy. Casey says he knew it all the time, but it's obvious they're both full of it. Wellman then congratulates Freddie on his booby-traps and Freddie opens up the closet in order to get some dry clothes, when a boxing glove comes out and bops the inspector right in the face. Freddie cringes when he realizes what just happened and, looking at the trap, comments, "This one I completely forgot about."

The music score is credited to Milton Schwarzwald, who mainly worked as a musical director and as an actual director of many short subjects, there's a good deal of Frank Skinner's music from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein recycled here. The first part of the opening title music is reused virtually in its entirety, although it transitions to original music, and a softer, moodier version of it is often heard throughout the movie. Also, the distinctive, monstrous music that served as the Wolf Man's leitmotif before is often heard here, notably when Freddie is nearly killed in the steam bath and when the stick of dynamite blows up in the cave. Unfortunately, that recycled music is what stuck with me the most, as much of the original music Schwarzwald came up with here isn't that memorable to me, save for the really silly music that plays at the very end when Wellman gets clobbered by one of Freddie's traps, a slow, swinging bit for the booby trap at the French doors, and some okay atmospheric music here and there.

I've not seen an Abbott and Costello movie yet that I thought was bad, and Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff is no exception, but I still maintain that it's my least favorite of their horror-comedies. Make no mistake, there are certainly reasons to recommend the movie: Bud and Lou, as usual, are on point and very funny, Boris Karloff is also a joy to watch in his brief role, there are more than enough funny gags, routines, and word play to keep you laughing, the settings of the hotel and the

caverns prove ideal for a murder mystery, there are some great instances of visual effect used to make the caverns seem bigger, and the film has a surprisingly macabre slant to it that you don't often get with Abbott and Costello. However, it suffers from a very messy plot that feels like it was hastily put together, as there are some notable loose ends, many of the characters are so unmemorable that it can be difficult to keep them straight, as well as remember who's a suspect and who isn't, and the mystery has so many twists and turns and the facts are delivered in such a quick manner that you could easily miss important details the first time out. Also, Karloff's name in the title is little more than a publicity gimmick, as he's not in the movie that much and is not even the killer, and when it's not reusing cues from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the film's music score is pretty forgettable. In the end, it's enjoyable, but I wouldn't call it a classic.