Cover Up (1949)

Barbara Britton is coming home to a small town from a shopping trip. Dennis O'Keefe is also on the train, and helps her with her packages. A man named Phillips has shot himself, and O'Keefe is investigating the case for the insurance company. He stops in to see the sheriff, William Bendix, playing a rare serious role. Dan White is his taciturn deputy. He learns that no report has been filed, the gun has not been found, and the bullet was not recovered. He threatens to get a court order, and lo and behold, Bendix does have the bullets. He begins asking questions of the citizenry and gets little help, but does learn that there were no powder burns. Phillips' niece insists that he was not murdered, even though it would mean that she would get double indemnity, but it becomes obvious that he was killed.

It being the holidays, O'Keefe accepts an invitation to drop by Britton's family's home. (Their maid, Hilda, played by Doro Merande, is an eternal pessimist.) He and Britton go to a movie. It develops that Phillips was generally disliked in the town. He learns from Britton that her father (Art Baker) owns a Luger, the type gun that killed Phillips. He gave the gun to the local doctor. At the annual tree lighting they learn that the doctor has been killed. And the romance is heating up. Then Britton discovers her father's gun in a hidden spot in a desk. She manages to put it into the doctor's gun collection just before O'Keefe reaches the house, but she puts it in backward.

O'Keefe puts a note in the paper that he is bringing in an expert to examine the evidence. Merande burns Baker's coat, assuming it would be evidence against him. O'Keefe camps out at the murder house to await the culprit. The sheriff is the first one that shows up. Their conversation makes it sound like he is the man. In the meantime Baker gets ready to leave the house, and his conversation with her sounds like he did it. Britton runs out of the house. Things are happening fast. Baker arrives at the house, and O'Keefe begins to line out the cast against him, only to discover that a lefthanded man had to be the one that did it. The doctor was lefthanded. Baker and Bendix have both been covering for him, who had killed a blight on the community. But the doctor is dead, so no charges will be filed. Bendix asks O'Keefe to somehow cover up the fact that Gerow did it for the sake of his reputation.




O'Keefe and Britton


Merande