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| George Brent |
Beautiful actress Mona Harrison (Adele Jergens) gets a big crate delivered to her, postage due, and discovers that there's a dead body inside it! The corpse belongs to Hector Rose (Cosmo Sardo), a fashion designer for the studio. As handsome Lt. Wilson (Jim Bannon of Unknown World) tries to solve the case, he is helped and hampered by two rival reporters -- Joe (George Brent) and Rosemary (Joan Blondell) -- who are fighting their attraction to one another. Then there's another murder, and a mysterious cache of diamonds. You want to like The Corpse Came C.O.D., because of its premise and its cast -- Adele Jergens [The Fuller Brush Man] in particular is a Great Old Movies favorite -- but this sinks into tiresome mediocrity almost from the first, although the identity of the killer is a mild surprise. The leads do their best to enliven the somewhat leaden proceedings. Adele looks great -- she puts poor Blondell [We're in the Money] in the shade -- but this is not one of her more memorable performances. Such reliable actors as Una O'Connor and Grant Mitchell do their bit and there are quite a few familiar faces, including famous columnists such as Hedda and Louella, who are featured in a prologue about Hollywood. The producers obviously wanted to hedge their bets by using the columnists/critics in the movie, but it doesn't make the picture any better.
Verdict: Dead nearly on arrival. **.
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