Larry Elliot (Jack Haley) is a reporter for his Uncle Joshua Elliot’s (Edward Earle) newspaper. Larry specializes in reporting and writing articles on chess. Other than knowing a lot about chess, Larry knows nothing about being a reporter and is somewhat of a screw up. A big story is happening and all the reporters are out covering all angles of it. When another story comes in, Larry is the only reporter around.
The editor, Mr. Richardson (Roger Pryor) sends Larry to Grape City to cover the Grape City Harvest Festival being run by the owner of the Grape City Winery. Larry screws up and gets a ticket for Grape Center instead. On board the bus for Grape Center is a young genius, Oliver Waldeck (Buddy Swan), his chaperone, Emerson Cooke (Arthur Aylesworth), Professor Wisner (Robert Emmett Keane) and a young woman the Larry knows and has a crush on, Sally Warren (Ann Savage).
At Grape Center several people get off the bus, including Larry. When the bus takes off again the bus driver (Dick Curtis) realizes that the person who was sitting next to Larry is dead and has a knife sticking out of him. The bus driver raises the alarm. Larry is accused of killing the man. When the crowd of onlookers rushes back to the bus they find that the dead man’s body has disappeared. Everyone gets stuck in Grape Center waiting for the police.
In the meantime, a criminal named George “Deacon” Markham (Barton MacLane) breaks out of prison and, with his sidekick, Mink (George E. Stone), is looking for some jewel encrusted chessmen that he stole before he was captured. The chessmen are in the hands of two elderly twins, Charles and Preston Waldeck (Lucien Littlefield), owners of the Grape Center Tavern and Winery, one of which is young Oliver’s grandfather.
Markham and Mink slither around the tavern looking for the chessmen as some mysterious villain begins his own sneaking around looking to steal the chess set for himself.
“Scared Stiff” AKA “Treasure of Fear” AKA “You’ll be the Death of Me” was released in 1945 and was directed by Frank McDonald. It is an American murder mystery comedy with some old dark house elements. The name of the film had been changed to “Treasure of Fear” when it was syndicated for television. These are the only copies of the film I could find. Supposedly, the name change is to distinguish it from the 1953 Dick Martin and Jerry Lewis comedy film of the same name.
It’s mostly slapstick and quite dark from age. Since the film is old and there hasn’t been any restoration on it, it can be a little difficult to see what’s going on. It doesn’t really matter since the comedy is just as dated. The mystery is weak and only used to move the movie forwards enough to get it to another farcical skit. The plot is a bit contrived but pretty much standard for comedy mysteries of the forties.
I watched this movie from beginning to end and some parts more than once and the only reference I could find on whom the murdered man on the bus was, is that he was part of Markham’s gang. That revelation is from Flo Rosson, played by Veda Ann Borg. She turns out to be an insurance investigator looking for the chessmen. Most of the characters are red herrings. The whole film is scattered and silly. The cast was good, but the story was a bit lame.