Thu 27 Aug 2015
Reviewed: A Pair of CRIME DOCTOR Films (1943/45).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Old Time Radio , Reviews[8] Comments
CRIME DOCTOR. Columbia, 1943. Warner Baxter, Margaret Lindsay, John Litel, Ray Collins, Harold Huber, Don Costello, Leon Ames. Based on the Crime Doctor radio series created by Max Marcin. Director: Michael Gordon.
THE CRIME DOCTOR’S COURAGE. Columbia, 1945. Warner Baxter, Hillary Brooke, Jerome Cowan, Robert Scott, Lloyd Corrigan, Emory Parnell, Stephen Crane, Anthony Caruso, Lupita Tovar. Director: George Sherman.
Crime Doctor began as a radio program, running on Mutual from 1940 to 1947. Four of them are available online on the archive.org website. Listening to the first of them, “Eddie Brooklief’s Money,” I was not impressed.
After twenty minutes of story in which the killer is completely identified to the listeners, Benjamin Ordway, the Crime Doctor, comes on to give the police the evidence they need to close the case, in only a couple of minutes of airtime. Frankly, I heard nothing in this episode to explain how the series managed to stay on the air for as long as it did.
This may or may not have been the pattern of the other three shows, however, nor for that matter, all eight years the program was on the air. The original premise, as I understand it, was that before he became a prominent psychiatrist and a rehabilitator of criminals, Dr. Ordway was a criminal mastermind who somehow came down with amnesia and became a figure of good on the other side of the law.
Crime Doctor was the first in a series of ten movies starring an aging (and ailing) Warner Baxter as Robert Ordway, and in retelling the basic premise as I outlined it above, once again I was less than impressed. In the film, Ordway’s former colleagues in crime had a falling out with him, and tried unsuccessfully to bump him off, without, however, knowing where their $200,000 in stolen money is.
But, hence the amnesia, which the aforesaid former colleagues do not know whether to swallow or not, even after ten years have gone by and Ordway is head of the state parole board. It all sounds kind of silly, and it did even as I was watching it. Perhaps they tried to squeeze too much story in only 65 minutes of running time, as large gaps of story are sometimes skipped over between scenes.
The Crime Doctor’s Courage, the fourth of the movies, has a serious case of split personality. In the first half the new wife of a man whose first two marriages ended in tragedy during their honeymoons asks Dr. Ordway for help. She would like to know if she should be worried.
Compounding her concern is the brother of the first wife, who accuses Gordon Carson outright of murder. After a confrontation, Carson goes into his room, locks the door, and is shot to death. Suicide? The Crime Doctor proves it couldn’t have been.
At which point the brother-in-law disappears (as far I could tell), and the focus of the story becomes the Braggas, a mysterious brother and sister, the highlight of whose dancing act consists of the sister vanishing into thin air during a portion of it.
There are also hints that they may be vampires. They sleep in coffin-shaped beds, stay away from mirrors and are never seen in the daytime. After some confusing transition scenes and lot of action in an old dark mansion, the real killer is caught. How he manged to carry out the locked room gimmick, I’ll never know.
Keep me in the Still Not Impressed column.
August 27th, 2015 at 11:02 pm
I know this series (radio and film) only by reputation. You make it sound like something to skip or at least add to the “life is too short” column.
August 27th, 2015 at 11:13 pm
On the other hand, the radio program was on for eight years and there were ten movies. Maybe I was just in a bad mood.
For those interested in continuity between films in a series as well as books, or the lack thereof, I see I forgot to point out that Margaret Lindsay, whose character Dr. Ordway was madly in love with in the first film, was not in any of the later movies, nor was her character.
Ellery Queen fans will know her best as Nikki Porter in the seven EQ movies made in the early 40s.
August 28th, 2015 at 12:05 am
I think the reason that the Crime Doctor was popular was because it was such a great idea. Unfortunately they did not develop it properly and listeners and viewers ended up disappointed. I always wanted to like the movies but they were just not quality productions.
August 28th, 2015 at 1:14 am
The radio series, at least the ones I have heard, was nothing to write home about and the film series was one of the worst such with unimaginative plots and a tired ailing Baxter looking twice his age and lumbering through often incomprehensible plots.
I have seen them all and they never got better.
The Crime Doctor title was used for a couple of books including one by E. W. Hornung, none of them related to the film series. Hornung’s CD uses photographs to solve crimes.
Easily the least of the crime series done on a shoe string by Columbia who did better by The Whistler and Boston Blackie despite the studios infamous cheapness
August 28th, 2015 at 7:27 am
The old typewriter-sales-and-repair store where I bought my first typewriter had an autographed picture of Warner Baxter on the wall, with a typewritten note to the effect that the founder of the enterprise once loaned employee Baxter $50 to go out to Hollywood and get his start.
I guess back in the 1930s and 40s that would have been impressive, but by the time I saw the photo in the 1970s it was gathering dust in a corner.
August 28th, 2015 at 10:55 am
Still no convincing reason to pursue this series in any incarnation. If it lasted for eight years on radio and there were 10 films suggests there was little competition, but I suspect someone can make a list of 10 better things in both categories.
August 28th, 2015 at 6:22 pm
I’m a big fan of CRIME DOCTOR’s COURAGE.
Mainly because it is so visually stylish.
August 28th, 2015 at 9:16 pm
I’ve been thinking about this. I think that director George Sherman managed to do a lot with what he had to work with, which wasn’t only a limited budget, but also a limited amount to time to put a rather complicated story across. The final result is only half-baked, but Mike, I wouldn’t disagree with your characterization of your use of the phrase visual stylish. If they’d have put me in charge of the story aspect, and I had 15 minutes more to work with, I’m sure there’d have been a 100% improvement.