The Crime Doctor's Courage

The Crime Doctor (Warner Baxter) has his vacation interrupted by Hillary Brooke (Lorelei from the "Big Town" series). She's just married a wealthy man, only to find out his first two wives died mysteriously on their honeymoons. At a party, her husband his confronted by his former brother-in-law. He dies in a locked room of an apparent suicide. The Doctor isn't so sure. He enlists the help of a fellow party guest, mystery novelist Jerome Cowan. Lupita Tovar (from the excellent Spanish language version of DRACULA) and Anthony Caruso are a brother and sister dance team who just might be vampires.

There's some outlandish ideas, a foray into the supernatural, however the plot is all over the place, and it loses some steam after a good 30 minute start which grabs you. The denouement is weakly explained. But the vampire angle, some action and Warner Baxter performance keeps things watchable.

... might be a better title than the vague "Crime Doctor's Courage".

The film starts by showing a young couple on their honeymoon. The new bride insists on going to the edge of a rocky cliff. Her husband (Stephen Crane as Gordon Carson) wants her to move away from the edge because his first wife died in an accident during the first week of their marriage just a year ago. She hit her head while swimming, it was ruled an accident, but the deceased bride's brother still thought it was murder.

The couple argue. During the argument, Gordon's new wife pulls away from him, loses her footing and falls off of the cliff to her death. The sheriff calls it an accident, but the brother of the first wife believes that now Gordon is some kind of maniac that enjoys marrying women and then killing them in ways that look like accidents. His parting words to the sheriff are "Who will it be next year?".

The answer to that question is Hillary Brooke as Kathleen Carson. She interrupts Dr. Robert Ordway (Warner Baxter) the psychiatrist on a vacation to sunny California that he is taking on doctor's orders. Kathleen has only been married one day and believes her husband could be insane. She asks Ordway to dinner to observe her husband. There are quite a few people at the dinner besides Ordway and the Carsons, and one of the servants is actually the first bride's brother who apparently has been popping up all over the place for the last year urging Gordon to either commit himself to an asylum or commit suicide before he kills someone else. Gordon is obviously troubled, retires to his study alone, and a shot rings out. Ordway and crime novelist Jeff Jerome (Jerome Cowan) burst in and find a gun near the body of Gordon, but the gun is cold. Somebody has tried to cover the murder of Gordon Carson with a fake suicide. But who could murder Gordon when he is locked inside his study and there are bars on the only window?

Ordway finds his help unwanted by the local police, but he can't help coming across clue after clue. For one, the newly widowed Kathleen disappears right after the murder, hiding at the castle like home of the mysterious Braggas. A new will leaving everything of Gordon's to Kathleen was made out the day before Gordon's death. As for the mysterious Braggas, nobody has ever seen them out after dark, there is a portrait of them that is apparently 300 years old, they keep coffins in their basement, and they perform a dancing act at a local club in which one family member disappears and then just as mysteriously reappears. Did I mention that Miguel Bragga is in love with Kathleen? Could a vampire that can disappear and reappear at will possibly be the murderer? Watch and find out in this atmospheric entry to the crime doctor series. There are more suspects than I mention here, so it is not so cut and dried as you might think and remember, this is the crime doctor we're talking about, a man of science and reason, not Kolchak the night stalker! Highly recommended.

I saw this on TCM recently and, through the IMDb I found that there were seven "Crime Doctor" movies with Warner Baxter as the psychiatrist-detective. Baxter is a bit long in the tooth compared to his stolid performance in 42nd Street a decade earlier. Not noir, and a bit campy today, the movie also has a touch of the possible supernatural. The plot, black and white cinematography and characters are far more complex than those of the Mr. Moto and Charlie Chan series. There are subplots, unexpected twists and appearances by a number of B movie stalwartly we all should recognize immediately (none ever made it to the A status). It is a wonderfully unpredictable 70 minutes.

I would love to see a boxed DVD series of these films.

I reckon that this is my favourite of these Warner Baxter outings as the sleuthing psychiatrist "Ordway". A man posing as a waiter at an swanky dinner accuses their host of being a wife-murderer. Not just one wife, mind - but two. Anyway he retires to his study where he seemingly commits suicide. "Ordway" is drafted in to investigate at the behest of the puzzled "Capt. Birch" (Emory Parnell) and is soon caught up with the antics of a cabaret act whom people are gradually beginning to believe are three hundred year old vampires! Of course there's no such thing - but the act are never seen in the dark and have papers signed in Madrid by none other than King Philip IV in the 1640s! The doc is bamboozled, but we just know he will use science and common sense to unravel the mystery and that there is a common sense - most likely venal - reason behind it all. There's quite a fun dynamic between Parnell and Baxter and a solid contribution from Hillary Brooke's "Kathleen" as well as a few rope-spinning performances from the seemingly immortal "Bragga" magicians. It's even got it's own butler - and does raise a smile now and again.

Crime Doctor's Courage, The (1945)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Strange fourth entry into Columbia's series is your typical detective film until half way through when it turns into a horror film. The Crime Doctor (Warner Baxter) is asked to check out a husband who is on his third wife. The guy's previous two wives all suffered accidental deaths days after the wedding but there's a subplot with vampires thrown in. This is the third in the series that I've seen and it works the best because of how strange it actually is. I'm really not sure what made the writer turn to vampires but it makes for some interesting plot twists, although none of them really add up in the end. Baxter also seemed to do his best work here and the supporting cast is interesting if not totally successful.