Semi-Farcical: ‘While the Patient Slept’

This is a fast B mystery starring long-faced character actress Aline McMahon as Mignon Eberhart’s detective Nurse Keating (later played by knockout Ann Sheridan in a couple of 1940s movies) and roly-poly Guy Kibbee as the police detective who’s sweet on her insults. Nurse Keating is minding a rich old duffer in a coma when one of the grasping relatives shoots the man’s ne’er-do-well son. Who could it be? And what’s the secret of the green elephant on the mantel? A very typical entertainment of its era, this mixes corpses and snappy byplay with many bits of business. It adds up to a pleasant, semi-farcical, and finally forgettable time-passer.