Production Starts on MGM's 'Murder at Harvard' Drama

On-location shooting for a full-length crime film dealing with the University's Department of Legal Medicine will begin next week in the Yard, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer producer Frank Taylor announced yesterday in Hollywood.

The movie, originally titled "Murder at Harvard" and now called "Mystery Street," is a semi-documentary drama with a setting laid in Boston, Cape Cod, and Harvard. Twelve college students will be "extras" in the one-day Yard shooting the early part of next week.

Preliminary arrangements for the picture were concluded in Hollywood in August, when MGM studio representatives sat down with Alan R. Morits, formerly Lee Professor of Legal Medicine at Harvard and director of the Department of Legal Medicine, which aids police in the investigation of Massachusetts crimes.

Moritz Left Harvard

In September, Morits accepted a post as professor of Pathology at Western Reserve University, but he is continuing to check on factual details of the picture for Harvard. Moritz will be in Hollywood to assist in the filming of interior shots when the production crew returns from its week's stay in the Boston area.

The story of "Mystery Street" concerns efforts of Massachusetts police to investigate a Cape Cod death. Police in the plot ask Harvard's Department of Legal Medicine to examine the body for clues. The scenes in the Yard show investigators asking College students for directions to the Legal Medicine Department.

The idea of the picture was first conceived by MGM early in 1949 when two investigators for the studio discovered the work of the Legal Medicine Depart- ment and thought it would be a good subject for a semi-documentary crime film.

Moritz and his Legal Medicine group were ready to co-operate with the film almost immediately, but the Universe was at first hold to the project. Have approval, naming Vice-President Edwin Reynolds '15 and Moritz to approve details of the picture