Scared Stiff (1945 film)
| Scared Stiff | |
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| Directed by | Frank McDonald |
| Produced by |
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| Written by | |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Alexander Laszlo |
| Cinematography | Fred Jackman Jr. |
| Edited by | Henry Adams |
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Production
company |
Pine-Thomas Productions
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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65 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Scared Stiff (also known as Treasure of Fear (American reissue title) and You'll Be The Death Of Me Yet) is a 1945 American comedic murder mystery directed by Frank McDonald for Pine-Thomas Productions and released by Paramount Pictures. The film stars Jack Haley, Ann Savage and Barton MacLane.
At his uncle's newspaper where Larry Elliot (Jack Haley) works as a reporter specializing in chess, he is known to miss out on bigger stories to cover more trivial events of minor interest. Confronted with an ultimatum if he wants to keep his job, Larry is assigned to cover a big harvest festival held at a winery in Grape City.
Larry begins with getting off the bus at the wrong stop, Grape Center instead of Grape City. He has brought along his girlfriend Sally Warren (Ann Savage), who deals in antiques. Accidents rarely come alone, and the man sitting next to Larry on the bus is found murdered, holding a chess piece in his hand when the police find him. Of course Larry, who is a chess expert, is blamed for the killing.
All the bus passengers are held in custody at Grape Center awaiting the sheriff to start the murder investigation. Before he arrives, Sally finds an set of antique chess pieces she wants to acquire, and involves Larry in her quest to buy them. The set is said to have been the property of Kublai Khan in the 13th century, and brought to the West by Marco Polo. Unfortunately, the set is divided between Charles and Preston Waldeck (Lucien Littlefield), twins owning the winery, who have not spoken to each other in 10 years.
Sally manages to acquire the white set pieces from Preston. When Larry is about to get the black pieces from Charles, both he and Charles are knocked out by an unknown attacker, who also steals the black set pieces.
The sheriff arrives, and starts conducting his investigation. The prime suspect is convicted murderer Deacon Markham (Barton MacLane), who first sold the antique chess set to the Waldeck brothers, after stealing it from its rightful owner. The theory is that Markham now wants the set back to sell it back to the first owner and get the money he needs to escape the country.
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Wikipedia