Summaries

Synopsis

Nervy "New York Morning-Dispatch" reporter Walter 'Wichita' Garrett [Wayne Morris]has just scored an interview with prominent stage star Angela Merrova [Lya Lys], whohas invited him to her apartment in the Park Vista Hotel. When Walt getsthere, he finds to his horror that Miss Merrova has been murdered. Someonehas stabbed her right under the heart and left her body lying on herbedroom floor. With a scoop like this, Walt calls in the story to hisnewspaper even before he calls the police. Before Detective Lieutenant RoyKincaid [Charles Wilson] arrives on the scene, the Morning-Dispatch has headlined themurder in their extra edition. But, when Kincaid arrives at Miss Merrova'sapartment, the body has disappeared. The next day Merrova shows up at thenewspaper with the announcement that she's suing them for $100,000 for thedamage to her reputation due to false reports of her death. Not to mentionthat the Park Vista Hotel also intends to sue for defamation to theirreputation. To top it all off, Walt is called on the carpet by his angryboss and finds himself out of a job.

Trying to find answers to how a person can be stabbed to death andthen show up alive, Walt pays a visit to his friend, Doctor Mike Rhodes [Dennis Morgan], asurgeon at Jules Memorial Hospital. When Walt explains how he foundMerrova with a stab wound just under her heart, Mike admits that it'sunlikely she could survive. If the wound itself didn't kill her, she wouldquickly bleed to death. "That's it!" Walt exclaims, suddenly realizingthat Merrova's corpse was dead white, as if all the blood had been drainedfrom her body, but where was the blood? Extreme pallor couldn't set inthat quickly, says Mike. Walt remembers that when he saw Merrova thatmorning in the boss's office, she was as pale then as when he saw her as acorpse.

Mike offers to speak to Doctor Flegg [John Litel], the hospital's reknownhematologist, In the meantime, however, Mike has problems of his own.Stanley Rodgers [John Ridgely], the professional blood donor for Doctor Flegg's 10 AMsurgery has not shown up. Nurse Joan Vance [Rosemary Lane] has telephoned him and foundthat he overslept but would be right over. Time passes, however, andRodgers still doesn't show. Mike doesn't know it, but Rodgers is nevergoing to show...he's dead. Dr Flegg has arrived, and the surgery is readyto go. With no Rodgers, however, there is no blood donor. Furthermore,Rodgers has Type I blood; only one in 700 people have that blood type.Fortunately, nurse Joan is Type I and offers to step in for Rodgers.

The surgery goes well. When Mike checks on Joan's condition, she isstill feeling a bit weak, so Mike asks her for a date tomorrow night. Mikeis suddenly called by the police and asked to come immediately to 438 GoreStreet. Since Walt is standing next to him and overhears everything, hetags along. When they get there, they find Stanley Rodgers has beenstabbed near the heart and all the blood drained from his body...same asAngela Merrova. Furthermore, the wound is so clean and precise that itdoesn't look like a stab wound at all; in fact, it looks like it was madewith a surgical instrument. Oddly enough, the coroner has identified bloodstains on the carpet as being from Group IV, which is impossible, asRodgers was definitely Group I. Thinking the coroner might have made amistake, Mike takes a sample of the blood to re-analyze.

Back in the laboratory, Mike learns that the blood sample isdefinitely NOT from Rodgers...nor from any human. In fact, Mike's opinionis that it isn't even from an animal. Tired out from the day's activities,Mike says goodnight to Walt and heads home to sleep. First, however, hedecides to take the blood sample over to Dr. Flegg's house, not knowingthat Walt is tailing him. As Walt peeks in through an open window, Mikewaits for Flegg in his laboratory. where he is joined by a strange lookingman with a pasty complexion and a skunklike stripe of white hair down thecenter of his head. The man introduces himself as Flegg's assistant,Doctor Marshall Quesne [Humphrey Bogart]. As Quesne is just about to talk with Mike aboutthe study of blood composition, Flegg returns. Obeying Mike's request totake a look at the blood sample, Flegg pronounces it Type IV human bloodshowing "the usual chemical changes accompanying post-mortem coagulation."Mike wonders whether the blood has an artificial quality. Quesne, who hasbeen listening to the conversation, suddenly breaks a glass beaker thathe's been holding. Reiterating once again that the blood sample is TypeIV, Flegg shows Mike the door.

Just as Walt is about to leave his perch at the window, a taxi drivesup and Angela Merrova gets out. Wondering why Merrova would be visitingFlegg, Walt continues to peek in the window. He watches as Merrova entersFlegg's examination room and promptly faints. When she comes to, shecomplains of feeling cold, faint, and being unable to catch her breath."You're a failure," Quesne challenges Flegg. Flegg orders him out, thenprocedures to hook up Merrova for a blood transfusion.

The next day, Walt drops in on Mike and tells him what he saw throughthe window. Walt is certain that he's seen Quesne somewhere, but he can'tremember where. At that moment, Flegg walks into Mike's office and asks tospeak to him alone. After Walt has left, Flegg asks Mike to forgeteveryone he met and everything he saw last night at Flegg's house. He alsoasks for the name and address of the nurse that provided the Type I bloodfor yesterday's transfusion. When Flegg has exited, Walt returns. He tellsMike about seeing Angela Merrova last night at Flegg's house and watchinghim give her a blood transfusion. Mike suggests that they have a talk withMerrova and plan to meet at her apartment that night at 9 PM. Rememberinghis date with Joan, Mike agrees to bring her along; they can go to Club ElRay afterwards.

When they arrive that evening at Merrova's suite, they find herlanguished on her settee, awaiting Dr Flegg. When she orders them out butcollapses in her chaise, Mike assumes his role as doctor, finding herhands as cold as ice. He instructs Walt to pour her a shot of whiskey. Thewhiskey seems to revive her, and she responds to Mike and Walt'squestions. She admits to being of Type I blood. She also tells them whathappened the morning she was murdered. After speaking on the telephonewith Walt, she became aware of someone in her room. Then a hand went overher mouth, and she felt a sharp pain in her chest. After that, she lostconsciousness and has no recollection of what happened to her until thenext morning when she awoke in her own bedroom. She agrees to meet Walttomorrow morning at 10 AM and talk more about it then. Just then, DrQuesne, acting in Flegg's stead, enters the room.

While on the way to drop Mike and Joan at the El Ray, Walt makes aquick stop at his boss's house to tell him about Merrova's admission thatshe was stabbed and to let him know that she plans to visit the paper inthe morning and tell them all about it. Excited at having his newspaperexhonerated, the boss telephones the paper and orders them to hold thepresses for a news bulletin. He is surprised to find that a news flash hasjust been issued...Merrova is dead, this time for sure. In fact, she's onher way to Bixby's Undertaking Parlor, screams the boss as he tosses Waltout the front door.

Not willing to believe that Merrova is truly dead without seeing herbody, Walt and Mike head over to the undertaker. While Walt keeps theundertaker busy, Mike examines Merrova. She's dead all right, he tellsWalt after they've left the parlor. Apparently, she died of naturalcauses, and it was Flegg who called the undertaker to pick up the body.Being as how it's after 1 AM by now and Joan is still sitting in the car,they all head over to Gus's for hamburgers.

The next morning Angela Merrova's death is in all the papers. Waltgoes over to the newspaper office and gets his buddy Pinky [Hunz Hall] to give himaccess to the clippings files. After searching everything from A-W, Waltstarts in on X, and there it is! Marshall Quesne is Dr. Maurice J. "X"Xavier, a prominent surgeon who was given the death penalty for hisexperiments in which he allowed a baby to starve to death. According tothe newspaper clippings, Dr X was electrocuted two years earlier. Just tobe sure that the execution actually took place, Walt contacts the wardenwho assures him that Dr X was indeed electrocuted, Dr Flegg claimed thebody, and Dr X now lies buried in Greenlawn Cemetery. Walt and Mike headover to the Cemetery where, with the help of the cemetery caretaker, theyfind Xavier's grave and dig it up. The coffin is empty.

Walt is convinced that Flegg is guilty, but Mike isn't; they agree togive Flegg a chance to explain. Flegg obliges, admitting that Quesne andXavier are the same person and that he has found a way to bring a dead manback to life. He demonstrates the procedure on a dead rabbit. First, it isnecessary to prepare the rabbit by electrocuting him and decoagulating theblood, something that the electric chair had already done for Dr X when hecame dead to Flegg. Next, he moves the rabbit over to another table wherehe begins to transfuse ordinary rabbit blood into the rabbit. Then he addshis special formula--"a compound ester in which essential blood salts havebeen precipitated." After charging it electrically, he injects it into thetransfusion tubing. Within a few moments, the rabbit has been revived.Mike and Walt are understandably astounded.

This is essentially the same thing that was done to Dr X followinghis death, explains Flegg. Although Dr X was a convicted murderer, he wasalso a medical genius, and Flegg admits that he needed Dr X's help forfurther research. However, after returning a person to life, there is thefurther problem of sustaining it. A second project Flegg has been workingon is to create synthetic blood. That's the blood I found in Merrova'sbody and in Rodger's apartment, exclaims Mike. The problem, Fleggexplains, is that the synthetic blood fails to recreate itself, whichmeans that Quesne stays alive by killing for human blood. And the blood heneeds is Type I. "May God forgive me," Flegg hangs his head. "I've createda monster."

No one has noticed that Dr. X has been listening at the window. WhenMike and Walt leave Flegg's house but are stopped outside by Lt Kincaid,Quesne shoots Flegg and steals his list of Type I blood donors. Justbefore he dies, Flegg tells Mike and Walt that Quesne has taken the list.Knowing that Joan's name is on that list, Mike, Walt, and Kincaid golooking for her, leaving Kincaid's assistant to care for Flegg.

Unfortunately for Joan, Dr X is faster. Quesne tracks her down andconvinces her that he's been sent by Mike to take her to Flegg's home.Joan goes willingly into a cab with him, until she realizes that theyaren't headed towards Flegg's house. Meanwhile, Mike and Walt havediscovered that Quesne went off in a cab with Joan and was overheardtelling the cabby to take them to Jersey. Walt remembers one of thenewspaper clippings that mentioned an abandoned duck club just outside ofNewark, the place where Dr X starved that baby. Walt, Mike, and Kincaidhead for Jersey.

As Dr X prepares to exsanguinate Joan, Mike, Walt, and the copsarrive. As Dr X comes at Joan with a scalpel, she screams, and the policeopen fire. Dr X tries to escape via the roof, but he is shot down by thepolice. As he lay dying, Dr X tells Walt to tell Dr Rhodes that they'llhave to postpone their talk on blood composition.

Epilogue: Walt has been reinstated at the Morning-Dispatch, and hisheroic efforts have been rewarded by the mayor and district attorney. Theboss [Joseph Crehan] is now begging Walt to stay with the newspaper, but Walt has decidedto return to Wichita and refuses to sign a contract...until the pretty newsecretary brings it into the office. [Original synopsis by bj_kuehl]