Who Done It? Is a 1942 mystery comedy film directed by Erle C. Kenton and starring Abbott and Costello along with Patric Knowles, William Gargan, Louise Allbritton, Jerome Cowan and William Bendix.
Writer Jimmy Turner (Knowles) turns down a job at a major radio station’s headquarters, despite producer Jane Little (Allbritton) and station owner Col. J.R. Andrews’ (Thomas Gomez) best attempts to keep him. Meanwhile, Chick Larkin (Abbott) and Mervyn Milgrim (Costello), two soda jerks working behind the counter in the drugstore at the base of the building, dream of being writers for a radio mystery show, and see their chance when they get tickets to attend the live broadcast of the station’s own mystery program, “Murder at Midnight”. After losing their tickets, they sneak in, but to their horror, Andrews mysteriously drops dead just before he can read a speech into the microphone. It seems someone electrocuted him by rerouting part of the station’s power into the metal chair he was sitting in. Chick realizes that if they can solve the mystery, they can become the only murder mystery writers for radio who have solved an actual murder mystery. They impersonate detectives, and start asking questions, but it isn’t long before two real police detectives, Moran (Gargan) and Brannigan (Bendix), show up and mistake the frauds for the killers. They flee the detectives on a long chase through the studio, helped by studio secretary Juliet Collins (Mary Wickes). Meanwhile, Jimmy and Jane start finding legitimate clues to the killer’s motivation. It seems Andrews may have known too much about some sinister goings-on at the studio, and things get even more confusing when the body of Andrews’ old friend Dr. Marek (Ludwig Stössel) is found in a closet. With the detectives busy pursuing the wannabes, it’s anyone’s guess as to who’s responsible as Hilarity Ensues.
Like Abbott and Costello’s later horror-themed comedies, Who Done It? takes the parodic elements of the genre, and mostly plays them dead straight alongside the boys’ usual antics. It’s also notable for being the first of the duo’s films to not feature a single musical number, and the inspiration for George Lucas’ The Radioland Murders.
This film provides examples of:
- All Part of the Show: There’s a live theater in the same building, and the detectives chase Chick and Mervyn into an acrobat act called the Flying Bordellos. Mervyn winds up as part of the act, and the audience takes his pratfalls and accidents as this trope.
- Appeal to Flattery: Chick and Mervyn try to butter Juliette up near the beginning to listen to their murder mystery script and tell it to her boss.
- Big Word Shout: When Mervyn and Chick have been collared by the detectives right after he wins Wheel of Fortune, and it looks like all hope is lost, Mervyn asks if he can say one word into the Wheel of Fortune radio mic. They oblige him.Mervyn: HEEEEEEELLLP!!
- Broadcast Live: The radio shows all seem to be, which is largely Truth in Television for 1940s radio.
- Chekhov's Gun: Near the beginning of the film, Chick and Mervyn find the killer dropped a rubber glove while rigging the fatal chair up, meaning whoever did it has a hand that fits the glove. They initially keep the glove as evidence, with the killer trying to retrieve it at one point. It’s forgotten about halfway through, until the very end, when Mervyn uses it as a slingshot to smash a neon sign’s letters “VOTE TOWNSEND PHELPS” into “SEND HELP” while he’s trapped on the roof with the killer.
- Clueless Detective: Chick and Mervyn try their best to solve the case, but are hopelessly out of their league.
- Con Man: The building’s doorman is a clever little chiseler who keeps scamming Mervyn whenever he can. First, he gets five glasses of orange juice for a nickel by betting Mervyn can't make it faster than he can drink it. Then, tricks him into giving up show tickets by telling him that they expired, then claiming he'll pay for them and asking Mervyn for "A nickel for two dimes". Finally, he claims that he witnessed the murder and he'll squeal for half a buck, then he literally makes loud squealing sounds after Mervin pays him half a dollar.
- Deadpan Snarker: The chiseling doorman mentioned above gets a good one in at the expense of the clueless Detective Moran when he first shows up. Warned that Bud and Lou are pretending to be police detectives, Moran growls that it's against the law to impersonate an officer. Leading to the following line:"So how do you get away with it?"
- Extremely Short Timespan: The entire film takes place over a single afternoon and night.
- Game Show: “Wheel of Fortune”, a radio show that gives a lucky winner a cash prize and a miniature radio if they win. Mervyn wins near the climax, which is why Chick and Mervyn bother sticking around the building.
- Harmless Electrocution: Mervyn is climbing across some wires on the rooftop to escape the killer, when some of the radio station’s unwitting employees try using the wires for a new shortwave radio system designed to contact Australia. Mervyn ends up conducting enough electricity to vaporize a person, but only suffers some cartoonish yelping and visibly flying sparks. Afterwards, he can turn on a lightbulb just by holding it. Even the other characters in-universe are baffled as to how he survived.
- He Knows Too Much: Why Col. Andrews and Dr. Marek were killed. The murderer was a spy who was transmitting messages in code during the station’s broadcast news reports. Col. Andrews, who worked as a codebreaker in WWI, had been contacted by Washington to identify and decipher the code. He cracked the code, and was about to tell the world before he was killed.
- High-Voltage Death: Col. Andrews’ fate; the killer wired his metal chair to the station’s electrical grid. When his microphone was turned on, Andrews was electrocuted to death on the spot.
- Honor Before Reason: Jimmy hates the idea of getting the writers’ job through connections so much, he quits right off the bat even when Andrew and Jane assure him it was purely his abilities that got him the job.
- Impact Silhouette: After getting spooked by Dr. Marek’s corpse, Mervyn bolts out of the room through a window so fast he leaves one behind… then a second one… and then gets embedded in a Mervyn-shaped crater in a solid concrete wall.
- Inspector Lestrade: Moran and Brannigan are certainly more competent than Chick and Mervyn, but they’re a little too quick to arrest the latter two and accuse them of the murder, and almost let the real killer get away.
- It Was Here, I Swear!: Chick and Mervyn come across Dr. Marek’s body in a closet, and run to grab the detectives. The body’s been moved by the time they return, and what’s more, a frightened Juliette is now hiding in the same closet.
- Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: Juliette is affable and friendly, but is somewhat obsessed with the murder mystery shows her company puts on, and carries a book around in her handbag titled “57 ways to kill a man and get away with it”.
- Old Flame: Jimmy and Jane were writers together in their college years, and Jane still carries a torch for him.
- The Operators Must Be Crazy: While desperately trying to call the studio from a pay phone to win a ten thousand dollar prize, Mervyn gets an operator who is insistent that “The Line is Busy”… in between people all around him making calls on the same phone to Brazil, Alaska, and Europe.
- Not just to Europe, but to Stalinist Russia. Which was at war at the time if you'll recall.
- Parental Bonus: The boys hide from the cops by temporarily joining an Italian performing circus act called "the Flying Bordellos".
- Peek-a-Boo Corpse: Mervyn discovers the body of Dr. Merreck in a closet this way.
- Perp Sweating: How the killer is outed: everyone who had access to the room where the electricity was routed from is put in the same studio. Then the events of the previous week – which saw the spy’s messages intercepted, Col. Andrews cracking the code used, and finally Col. Andrews being murdered – are read live on the air. However, the actual killer remains silent, until Mervyn plugs his portable radio into the wall behind him, turns it on, it short-circuits with a loud bang, and the killer leaps to his feet in terror, frantically denying everything.
- Questioning Title?: "Who Done It?" (As in, who killed J.R. Andrews?)
- Race Against the Clock: Mervyn has five minutes to collect a sweepstakes reward by either calling the studio or picking up the check in person.
- Radio Voice: As the entire film takes place in and near a radio station, this is used a few times to distinguish recorded or electronic voices from human ones.
- Rooftop Confrontation: The climax takes place on the building’s roof, between Chick and Mervyn, and the spy. The latter went to the roof to hide from the police, while the former two went up there to hide from the latter, ironically.
- Self-Deprecation: After Mervyn wins a portable radio, he turns it on and hears the famed “Who’s on First” routine… made famous, of course, by Abbott and Costello. He promptly turns it off, and he and Chick agree they can’t stand “those two guys”.
- Signs of Disrepair: An intentional example Mervyn smashes an illuminated sign reading "VOTE FOR TOWNSENDPHELPS" so it reads "SEND HELP" while they're trapped on the roof of the radio station with the killer. Later, it gets smashed again to read "END".
- Sting: Parodied. After Jimmy announces Col. Andrews was murdered, Mervyn staggers backwards into the studio’s pipe organ, which lets out a loud, discordant, ominous tone that goes on a little too long.
- Stylistic Suck: Chick and Mervyn’s hilariously awful murder mystery script: "The Midget gets the Chair; or, Short Fry". The title is easily the best thing about it.
- Those Wacky Nazis: The spy’s nationality and allegiances are never explicitly stated… but between his victims being an American codebreaker and a Czechoslovakian doctor, plus the film taking place in 1942, it’s not hard to piece it together.
- Who's on First?: The trope namers never actually recite the routine on-screen, but it’s referenced twice: When talking about the station’s power grid, they get into an argument about what Col. Andrews was hit with, “Watts” or Volts (“Next thing, you’ll tell me Watt’s on second base!”). Later on, we hear part of the routine through a portable radio.
