Click for larger image

In the 1890's, the small New England funeral business of Hinchley and Trumbull is in difficulty because of the laziness and drunkenness of Trumbull, who married the 92-year-old Hinchley's daughter, Amaryllis, to gain control of the business.  Trumbull works only at moments of financial crisis, "creating" new customers with the help of Felix Gillie, whom Trumbull blackmails into being his assistant.

Amaryllis is unhappy about her husband's abusiveness, his destruction of her hopes of becoming an opera singer, and his threats to kill her senile father with poison kept in a bottle which the old man thinks contains medicine.  She and the sympathetic, tone-deaf Felix fall in love.  Trumbull's landlord, John F. Black, threatens to evict him unless he pays a year's back rent, and Trumbull decides to get the money by providing an expensive funeral for a wealthy man whom he and Felix murder.  Their plan backfires when the man's widow skips town without paying for the funeral.

Trumbull next decides to kill Black.  During the attempted murder, Black, a catalepsy victim, has what appears to be a fatal stroke.  When his "corpse" stirs just before the funeral, Trumbull knocks him out and ties and gags him.  According to the terms of Black's will, he is interred in a mausoleum, where he revives once again.  The cemetery keeper, hearing his pounding, releases him; the now-maddened Black goes to the funeral parlor seeking revenge; but Trumbull finally kills him.  Trumbull then turns on Amaryllis and Felix, rendering them unconscious.

When the police arrive, Trumbull feigns unconsciousness to escape the blame for Black's death.  Hinchley sees him and, thinking him ill, pours the poisoned medicine down his throat, killing him.  Felix and Amaryllis find love together, and Hinchley goes on his merry, innocent way.