Shadows in the Night

This film is the tenth and last of the Crime Doctor films that I've tracked down. It's the hardest to see for reasons I don't know. The other films have screened on TCM over the past few years since TCM picked up the old Columbia catalog, but this one stubbornly refuses to show up.

Well, I'm glad to say Dr. Ordway saved the best for last for me. The film's generic-sounding title is a little off-putting. It has plenty of shadows and in fact, even has a little bit of a horror film feel in a few moments. That's helped out by the presence of George Zucco, most welcome here as a mysterious chemist. Warner Baxter is terrific in his role as the Crime Doctor. I used to not like him so much based on some of his early films that I had seen, but he has totally won me over as Dr. Ordway. His extremely calm and unassuming manner is always relaxing to see and in this one (the third out of ten) he clearly has his character down and is able to get away with a few rather rude moments (such as throwing the chemical bottle at Zucco's feet) with barely a rise out of the other characters due to his otherwise professional demeanor.

The plot is very exciting in this entry - a young woman comes to Ordway's home in the middle of a rain-stormy night to beg for his help with her sleepwalking nightmares. At her home, Ordway encounters a dead body after suffering a similar such sleepwalking nightmare. Yet, all of the characters, including the young woman (an excellent Nina Foch) think their friend died of natural causes. Ordway's persistence proves otherwise.

As usual with classic Hollywood detective films there are always some plot holes, but this film easily overcomes them by succeeding with terrific atmosphere, steady pacing and by simply being a fun whodunit. Cheers to Dr. Ordway!

Nina Foch comes to see psychiatrist Warner Baxter. She''s been sleepwalking onto the beach from her house by the shore, and having threatening, incoherent dreams. Eventually, Baxter comes to visit her. Miss Foch's family is decayed gentry. Although she has the house, she earns a living as a textile designer. She also runs a perpetual house party for family and friends, including mildly nutty chemist George Zucco, her sister and brother-in-law, and so forth. To see if there is something about her bedroom, she sleeps in one of the guest rooms and has Baxter take hers for the night.... and he has threatening, incoherent dreams and goes sleepwalking onto the beach. Then Zucco turns up dead.....and everyone in the house seems intent on the inquest declaring it an accident.

It's a pretty good mystery, although there's a fake-science edge to it, but the cast of capable performers do nicely with the material under high-speed director Eugene Forde. The result is an excellent B picture, one of the series that occupied Bater for most of the last decade of his life.

There are reminders here both of Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie, in the mystic gloom of the environment with secret corridors and caves and even hypnotic gas, which would have interested Agatha Christie, who was the expert on chemistry in crime; but here the intrigue is just as intricate and complicated as any intrigues of hers, and like in her stories, it is impossible to figure out who the murderer is, although he has time to commit a number of murders in the course of the film, which is just for about 70 minutes. Warner Baxter's cases are always interesting, since he is both a psychiatrist with a criminal past who knows how to use his knuckles while at the same time he is an expert psychologist and doctor, so you can always rely on him, even when he gets into trouble himself and starts sleepwalking finding strange dead bodies in strange places. This is criminal entertainment and almost as good as any Sherlock Holmes adventure, while you will not be the only one to be surprised at the end.

Having seen most of the series over the decades there's a couple of Crime Doctor films I've still to see, this was one of them until last night. Was it worth it the wait? Like the previous commenter, as a fan of b movie detective films (especially from the Golden Age): Yes! This was no. 3 and Columbia were well into their stride by now – and with Boston Blackie, the Lone Wolf and the Whistler – churning out 10 films in 6 years until everyone ran out of steam in 1949.

A mysterious woman visits Dr. Ordway (always played by the ever dependable Warner Baxter) at 3 am in the pouring rain for his psychiatric help because she doesn't know whether the bad dreams she's having tempting her to suicide are actually real. This leads him to stay at her spooky but extremely scenic house and grounds by the ocean containing a motley assemblage of strange guests and staff with secrets galore – when one of them gets murdered the game is afoot to unmask the culprit. The usual stuff in other words, but expertly handled with high production values and a nice brooding smoky atmosphere. George Zucco helps the film but hinders Ordway as a fairly mad scientist – a brilliant stroke to put him in! Distracted Nina Foch plays the woman apparently having nightmares; just about the only film you see her in over here nowadays is An American In Paris. Favourite bits: Ordway's sleepwalking adventure; searching the cellars and the dark underground journey. It's all reasonably cogent and it all fits neatly together by the end.

A nice entry in the series, one I can recommend to fans of the genre as usual and encourage non-fans to save their time as usual.

When the young "Lois" (Nina Foch) starts having nightmares at her seaside home, she calls in the help of renowned psycho-sleuth "Ordway" (Warner Baxter) to help her out. He duly arrives at her rambling pile and finds on his first night that he has become a sleepwalker. Luckily he is found by "Uncle George" (George Zucco) on the beach and escorted back to the house where he discovers a body. Rousing "Lois" they return to discover it's gone! What is going on here? What's with the eerie smoke that hovers around the rooms at times? Is "Lois" just not quite the full shilling or is George Zucco up to his usual nefarious acting tricks? I quite liked this - it's dark and coastal scenario, bodies there then not and just a little chemistry do rather point us to the conclusion, but the whodunit element is still a little left field. It's production is basic, as is just about everything else - but it passes an hour enjoyably enough.