La huella del asesino

Fair entry in the Crime Doctor series with some interesting plot twists by screenwriter Leigh Brackett and direction by future horror master William Castle. Plot involves Dr. Robert Ordway (Warner Baxter) taking on a walk-in patient with amnesia-type symptoms and the dread of an occultist's prediction of a violent death. There is a creaky abandoned house, a dysfunctional family with a meek sister that was engaged to the victim, and William Frawley as a credible police inspector.

Although sometimes billed as the best of the series, I found the acting somewhat dull and the short 61-minute film did not capture my imagination. I thought the Crime Doctor's Courage better. Menacing characters are presented and not developed – perhaps left on the cutting room floor. Interesting ending that is unlikely to be anticipated but explains all. Sixth in the series. Recommended.

Crime Doctor's Man Hunt (1946)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

William Castle returns as director in this sixth entry. A man returns home from the war suffering from amnesia so he goes to the Crime Doctor (Warner Baxter) for help. Within days the man is found dead and all fingers point to his fiancé but there might be more behind his death. Once again director Castle is able to build some nice atmosphere in some moody scenes but overall this is on par with the rest of the series. This one here manages to become one of the better entries due in large part to the screenplay giving Baxter some nice supporting characters and actors to play them. Ellen Drew, Frank Sully and William Frawley are all good in their roles. The mystery is also laid out pretty well as this film features a different screenwriter than the previous five films.

Building on the now well trammelled theme of these "Crime Doctor" films, this time "Dr. Ordway" (Warner Baxter) is engaged by a man who is finding himself in strange parts of town with no idea how he got there. It's whilst investigating that the doctor discovers that this fellow has been slain. Things get more complicated when he meets the despondent fiancée "Irene" (Ellen Drew) who is from a wealthy and dysfunctional family and who also proves to be somewhat enigmatic. Meantime, there are also two goons hanging around too. What can they want with her sister "Natalie"? Loads to challenge the little grey cells here and this largely spares us the psycho-babble and just presents us with a mystery that the audience knows about for most of the film, but it's still enjoyable enough watching Baxter pick up the clues and solve the conundrum. No, it's not great - it's procedural low-budget stuff, but Drew is rather better than most of the damsels in these films and it's amongst the best of the series,

With the title of Crime Doctor in the series and Warner Baxter playing a psychiatrist in the role, the mental health issues of the criminal are what Baxter delves into in order to solve a given case. He's pretty respected by law enforcement and the police as personified here by William Frawley have no problem in asking for his assistance. I've always been surprised that the Crime Doctor was never taken up as a television series. The closest we've seen is recently is Jeff Goldblum on Criminal Intent who has and used that background to solve his cases when the show was still running.

Dr. Ordway after meeting a young veteran with amnesia issues tries to keep an appointment and finds him shot to death with a pair of toughs trying to dispose of the body. Baxter does a beautiful drunk act to keep from ending up the same way. Later on Baxter meets Ellen Drew who was the fiancé of the deceased John Foster. She's a girl with a lot of issues herself and gives a dandy performance in this film.

This was a good series for Warner Baxter and the episodes were always competently made although some were better than others. This one's a good prototype.

... because they usually have nothing to do with the actual subject of the film. You also have to make sure you don't blink during these short fast-paced films or else you'll miss something important. Here the film opens on a young man stumbling around an amusement park in a fog of amnesia. He's had several of these spells lately and goes to Dr. Robert Ordway (Warner Baxter in the title role) for help. Ordway goes to the place where the young man says he found himself stumbling about. After walking around awhile what does he see but a couple of men coming out of a boarding house carrying the body of the young amnesiac man who came to see him that day, a bullet wound to his head. The bad guys spot Ordway so he has to feign drunkenness and pretend that he thinks the dead body they are carrying is actually another drunk or he's afraid that he'll share the young man's fate. The henchmen buy the act and let Ordway go. Ordway goes straight to the police and together they raid the boarding house. Nobody has ever seen the men Ordway saw, nobody every heard a shot, and no sign of violence is to be found anywhere in the boarding house. Police Inspector Harry B. Manning (William Frawley) obviously respects Ordway from his past help in solving crimes, but this time thinks maybe the good doctor is imagining things.

Ordway knows that he saw what he thought he saw, so he first has to prove there was a crime then find the criminals. In the process Ordway runs across the young man's fiancée, a mousy and wealthy girl who's so meek she's almost invisible, a boarded up old mansion that for some reason has a master bedroom that is still completely furnished, and the dead bodies of the two henchmen Ordway saw carrying the young man's body. They've been asphyxiated in their sleep by gas, only they're not in their own apartment at the time of their deaths. Who is going about causing all of this mayhem? Watch and find out.

William Castle directed several Crime Doctor films, and they always have that touch of the macabre. Thus this film has not only the well constructed mystery typical of the Crime Doctor films, it has lots of atmosphere as well. Highly recommended.