The Murder of Dr. Harrigan

A Warner's "Clue Club" presentation, this short (just over one hour) murder mystery will satisfy the hidden sleuths in the audience. As with so many murder thrillers then and now, "The Murder of Dr. Harrigan" is set in a hospital where nurses compete for recognition, advancement, and romance with the handsome physicians, especially Dr. Harrigan (John Eldredge) and Dr. Lambert (Ricardo Cortez, being groomed by the studio as a Latin lover). The popularity of this type film led to the highly successful Dr. Kildare series later in the decade and much later to TV's popular "Marcus Welby, M.D." Countless other imitations have appeared and are still popping up from time to time.

The mystery is extremely complex for its day and time. Suffice it to say that a medicinal sleeping formula is being touted by several members of the hospital staff including the administrator, Peter Melady. That he has the completed formula works to his disadvantage since his rivals are determined to claim it for their own. Melady is preparing himself for an operation while his wife, Agnes (Anita Kerry), is in the same hospital with a broken arm. She is surreptitiously being entertained by her paramour, Kenneth Martin (Gordon "William" Elliott--maybe this is how he got his epithet "Wild Bill"). Peter Melady asks his arch rival, Dr. Harrigan, to perform the operation. This is like asking Jack the Ripper to perform an appendectomy on a lady of the evening. To make a long synopsis short, Dr. Harrigan ends up stabbed to death, Dr. Melady ends up missing in action, and an African-American winds up being taken to the morgue, leaving a covey of suspects lurking in the corridors.

The romantic angle is almost as confusing. Dr. Lambert is lusting after vivacious nurse, Sally Keating (Kay Linaker), who in turn is lusting after him. Nurse Lillian Cooper (Mary Astor) is lusting after one of the suspects in the case, plus is burdened with a secret revealed at the end of the flick. Nurse Brody (Mary Treen) lusts after a funny line. And Agnes Melady, needless to say, is still lusting after Wild Bill.

Besides Nurse Brody, humor is provided by the patients, particularly Wentworth (Johnny Arthur) as a whiner with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder who is staying in the hospital for a much-needed rest but keeps being bothered by nurses, doctors, plumbers, the police, and other patients; and by Jackson (Don Barclay), a harmless dipsomaniac who drinks rubbing alcohol and runs amok.

"The Murder of Dr. Harrigan" is worthwhile for those of us who love a good mystery. This is a short entertaining programmer in the Warner's "Clue Club" series, which included the popular "While the Patient Slept."

Hospital administrator Peter Melady, self-proclaimed developer of a new wonder anaesthetic, is about to undergo a delicate operation to be performed by the disliked Dr. Leo Harrigan, Melady's longtime mutual adversary. Police are called when the murdered body of Harrigan is found in an elevator, and Melady, last seen being wheeled on a gurney to surgery by Harrigan, has disappeared.

Well made mystery with some clear question methods, some good red herrings and a good hospital atmosphere which adds to the drama and suspense. It's formulaic but a fast paced mystery with some good suspects and a smart hero in Ricardo Cortez.

This picture was on TCM the other morning and the best that can be said is that it is over quickly. That, and the fact that if you are a 'movie sleuth' you have to figure out who the murderer is. But you can do that about halfway through the picture.

Two things strike you while watching this potboiler; first, the script is loaded with dialogue that is clichéd, trite and hackneyed - a great many lines that are cornball or just plain lame, no matter the time period. Second, the number of hospital practices that wouldn't pass muster today, for instance, a doctor wheeling his patient alone to the OR late at night for an operation he rescheduled, while wearing a suit and tie. Or people smoking all over the hospital, mostly in patients rooms.

The plot itself isn't too bad but the picture has a lot of nondescript, unattractive actors, the exception being the chipper, good-natured presence of Ricardo Cortez. But he, like everybody else, seems unaffected and unfazed by the murders occurring throughout the hospital. Check out the stiff and go about your business, nothing to see here.

But after all, it is a B picture. Maybe I was expecting too much but I can't get excited about this one. I would recommend it only to hardcore mystery fans who aren't too particular.

"The Murder of Dr. Harrigan" is a glorious example of the sort of low-cost quickies Hollywood churned out in the 30s to satisfy the double feature pipeline. It is almost entirely set in what has to be the sloppiest hospital in America. Here, a doctor reschedules an operation for midnight without bothering to assemble a surgical team. Nurses haphazardly wander in and out of patients' rooms. And when the only elevator in the place stops running, nobody's much concerned until it starts up again -- and a dead body turns up inside. For comedy relief, the orderlies stomach pump the wrong patient. Oh, those wacky hospital staffers! The plot centers on an eccentric millionaire who arranges for a doctor who hates his guts to perform a delicate operation on him, using a new anesthetic that's better than ether; it puts patients out for three days so they can heal painlessly. Somewhere in this melange of mayhem and malpractice, there's Ricardo Cortez trying to save the nurse he loves from being charged with murder by the usual myopic cop. But the mystery zips along and as a throwback to a bygone era, it's at least entertaining. And for trivia buffs, there's Mary Astor in a relatively small, thankless role, purportedly her punishment for bucking the studio system.

"The Murder of Dr. Harrigan" is a short film in the Crime Club series, based on a story by Mignon G. Eberhart. Eberhart was a prolific mystery novelist, but I think this story made better reading than it did a film. This film stars Ricardo Cortez, Kay Linkater, John Eldredge, and Mary Astor.

The plot concerns a formula for a new anesthetic - I never did get the name - it sounded like Slaypen - and a Dr. Melady lays claim as the primary owner, though others, like Dr. Harrigan, had helped to develop it. Melady wants Harrigan to operate on him and use the Slaypen, However, Harrigan is murdered, and Dr. Melady disappears.

Most of the film revolves around the hospital elevator. For awhile, I couldn't figure out why the doctors and nurses kept manually closing the doors, and then I realized that although the elevator was automatic, apparently closing the doors was not yet automatic in 1936. Rather than use the elevator operator with that big wheel often seen in department stores years ago, they were just pulling the doors shut.

Even coming in at just over an hour, this movie seems long because it's so talky, and most of the action is described rather than seen, The star, Ricardo Cortez, lays out the whole solution to the murder to the detective in charge at the end - but we didn't see much of it.

The most entertaining things about this film are the old things: the elevator doors, the nurses' uniforms and caps, the rotary phones. As far as the acting, Cortez is an amiable presence, and Astor is very good. Mary Treen, a very familiar television face, has a small but showy role.