Best Mystery Movies of 1948

Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor has to post-pone a vacation with his wife, again, when a glamorous blonde is murdered and he is assigned by his publishing boss Janoth to find the killer. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence (albeit wrong) that he is the killer.

Virginia Cunningham is confused upon finding herself in a mental hospital, with no memory of her arrival at the institution. Tormented by delusions and unable to even recognize her husband, Robert, she is treated by Dr. Mark Kik, who is determined to get to the root of her mental illness. As her treatment progresses, flashbacks depict events in Virginia's life that may have contributed to her instability.

A woman wakes up in the middle of the night on board a train, but she can't remember how she got there. Danger and suspense ensue.

When two US cavalrymen transporting a gold shipment get killed, US Army Intelligence investigator John Haven goes undercover to a mining and logging town to find the killers.

A young painter stumbles upon an assortment of odd characters at an English estate where he has been hired to give art lessons to beautiful Laura Fairlie. Among them are Anne Catherick, a strange young woman dressed in white whom he meets in the forest and who bears a striking resemblance to Laura; cunning Count Fosco, who hopes to obtain an inheritance for nobleman Sir Percival Glyde, whom he plans to have Laura marry; Mr. Fairlie, a hypochondriac who can't stand to have anyone make the slightest noise; and eccentric Countess Fosco who has her own dark secret. The artist also finds himself drawn to Marion Halcomb, a distant relation to Laura for whom the Count also has plans.

Detective Charlie Chan springs into action when top officials of a New Orleans chemical company begin dropping like flies.

A couple discovers that their friend has gone missing. Their investigation leads them to believe that anti-semites are behind the disappearance.

A killer hides out in a small-town boarding house.

Blackie is the natural suspect when an expensive pearl necklace is stolen while he is supposed to be guarding it.

Charlie attempts to solve a triple murder in which a dead man's finger prints show up at all three murder sites.

When a woman goes missing on the eve of her wedding, her fiancee hires a detective to track her down

A wealthy man hires a detective to investigate his wife's mysterious past.

A cheating husband is charged in the poisoning death of his invalid wife, in spite of other women and suicide also being suspected.

Penniless governess Blanche Fullerton takes a job at the estate of her rich relations, the Fury family. To better her position in life, Blanche marries her dull cousin, Laurence Fury, with whom she has a daughter. But before long, boredom sets in, and Blanche begins a tempestuous romance with stableman Philip Thorn. Together, they hatch a murderous plan to gain control of the estate.

A British army officer becomes fascinated by the portrait of a young woman. He travels to Germany to find her, only to discover that she is suffering from amnesia.

In order to learn the location of a fabled Aztec treasure, a professor kidnaps his colleague, the only man able to read the ancient Aztec script that is supposed to reveal the location of the treasure. Charlie Chan and his #1 and #2 sons journey to the jungles of Mexico to find the victim and bring the kidnapper and his gang to justice.

Paul Temple is called in to help Scotland Yard track down a serial killer who has murdered several wealthy women.

A crooked real estate tycoon tricks a trusting young woman out of her small candy store. When he is found dead, the girl is suspected of the crime.

A man falls in love with a beautiful young woman and begins to suspect that he may have also loved her in a previous life.

The Iron Curtain is based on the actual 1945 case of Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko, (Dana Andrews), who, after careful training, was assigned to the U.S.S.R. Embassy in Ottawa, Canada in the midst of World War II. Eventually, Gouzenko defected with 109 pages of material implicating several high level Canadian officials, outlined the steps taken to secure information about the the details of the nuclear bomb via numerous sleeper cells established throughout North America. The scandal that resulted when details of this case were publicized by American columnist Drew Pearson in early 1946 involved Canada, Britain and the United States.

A framed reporter (William Gargan) and the crooks on his trail scramble to locate a book containing the names of war profiteers and traitors.

John Payne is the no-good lowdown rat who tries to capitalize on postwar patriotism and grief. He finagles a war widow into giving up her savings for a nonexistent memorial. When Payne falls in love with the widow he has pangs of conscience, but he reckons without his con-artist boss, who tends to bolster his arguments with muscle and bullets.

Good and bad characters are stuck in a ski chalet near buried Nazi gold in the Alps.

Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond is called in to solve the murder of a man from whom two lead soldiers were stolen. Drummond learns that the two soldiers were part of a set of thirteen which formed the key to a hidden vault of treasure. Following some clever sleuthing and set-up on Drummond's part, the guilty man is trapped in the vault,which is hidden behind the fireplace.

A glamour model helps Scotland Yard to catch a criminal gang.

Milton Haskins, a math genius known for his infallibility with numbers, quits his job with an insurance company when he discovers he made a mistake, and hooks up with a traveling carnival. His knowledge of mathematics makes him a natural as an assistant at the wheel of fortune. His fiancée begs him to return to his job but he refuses, so she joins the carnival and becomes a striptease artist. When Milton attempts to drag her off the stage, a brawling mêlée breaks out and the entire troupe is arrested by the local police. The carnival is sold but Milton reveals that the new owner has conspired to defraud the insurance company. The insurance company has to accept the carnival in lieu of the money owed, and they allow Milton and his fiancée, Vivian, to stay with and help run the carnival.

Insurance detective Steve Hastings is sent by his company to investigate the disappearance of a fellow agent. His first lead is the agent's fetching sister, Victoria, whom he trails to Mexico City. After charming his way into her confidence, Steve helps Vicki unravel the mystery.

Around Christmas time, a woman tries to prove the innocence of her dancer husband jailed for a crime she just knows he didn't commit.

A gold mine in Arizona, that was formerly losing a lot of money, suddenly turns into a veritable money-making machine. However, the owner, instead of being happy about his now profitable business, insists to Charlie that something is fishy and that someone is out to murder him. Charlie and his "crew" travel to the mine, pretending to be tourists staying at a nearby dude ranch so as not to arouse suspicion, and discover that the owner may well be right--it looks like the mine is being used as a cover for criminal activities, and that someone is indeed out to murder him.

John Calvert takes over as the Falcon in this Poverty-Row continuation of the film series.

While on shore leave to celebrate his first anniversary, Lt. Peter Duluth (Warren Douglas) takes his wife, Iris (Audrey Long), to a Los Angeles hotel but is turned away. When mysterious Colette (Stephanie Bachelor) offers them her suite, the young couple becomes entangled in a murder plot. Aided by two PIs, Peter and Iris find two corpses and are desperate to locate Colette before she becomes the next victim, but the killers are one step ahead.

The second Falcon film to feature actor/magician John Calvert sees the Falcon dealing with art thieves.

Hart and Moore are grave-robbers who provide cadavers to the medical students of 19th-century Edinburgh. When the supply becomes low and demand still great, the two decide to create their own supply, a plan that proves profitable when they stick to vagrants, prostitutes and drunkards. But when they poison likable Jamie, the townsfolk retaliate. NB: This film was originally written to be about Burke and Hare, but after it was completed, the British censors refused to allow its release on the grounds those names themselves were offensive; thus the entire soundtrack was recut so that new names - Hart and Moore - recorded by the film's actors, were cut into the previously recorded lines, replacing the offending "Burke" or "Hare", sentence by sentence.

A photographer is choked to death just outside of where a college dance is being held. The body is discovered by Lee Watson, but promptly disappears, as it is being whisked from one point to another on the campus by a night watchman, who is an ex-convict.

Bulldog Drummond investigates the murder of a sea captain who died before revealing the location of his hidden gold.

A couple's (Richard Denning, Frances Rafferty) adopted daughter (Lora Lee Michel) has an inheritance someone else wants.

In this mystery, a detective encounters a woman in a nightclub. He finds that she is being blackmailed by a dancer who is murdered that very night. Of course, the woman becomes the main suspect. She and the gumshoe team up and begin searching for the real killer.

A newspaper reporter investigates the near-fatal shooting of a medical scientist.

In this detective drama, a gumshoe must find a priceless hunk of jade. His several leads evaporate when the police succeed in killing all of the suspects.