The Crime Doctor's Warning

Hardly likely to rank with an Agatha Christie type of mystery, these are fast paced, entertaining little items from Columbia starring WARNER BAXTER as the crime doctor/sleuth. He's always faced with a bunch of red herrings and a crime that baffles the police--as well as the viewer, at least until the last five minutes when everything is wrapped up with such rapidity that you barely have time to recover from trying to guess who done it.

And there are plenty of suspects in the murder of models (male and female) and an artist--but at the center of the story is a young man (COULTER IRWIN) who blacks out on a regular basis and seems to be framed for the murder of one of his models.

Supporting cast is dotted with well-known character actors from the '40s, including JOHN LITEL as a detective, ALMA KRUGER as Coulter's overbearing mother, JOHN ABBOTT as a shady sculptor, and MILES MANDER as an equally shady art dealer. There's also an outrageously hammy performance by EDUARDO CIANNELLI as a crazed artist who knows something about a painting beneath a painting.

The viewer is kept in the dark as to the identity of a man creeping about and committing the crimes until the last few minutes in time for the usual abrupt ending.

Summing up: Too many elements of the story are unbelievable, but it's still briskly produced and passes the time quickly.

The previous entry was a bit bizarre, although I liked it a great deal, with explanations that did not completely add up and a horror sideplot to boot. This time the Crime Doctor series goes back to the mental aspect of crime, the one for which Dr. Robert Ordway (Warner Baxter) is so well trained.

Two female artists' models are murdered in the bohemian district of the city, and Ordway is brought in on the case by Inspector Dawes (John Litel), because there seems to be no motive. There are a couple of woman haters among the male artists and models, but suspect number one is a young man, Clive Lake, who has lapses of memory, and who came to Ordway as a patient in the first place because he is scared he may be injuring others during this "lost time". Also, the second victim was Clive's fiancée and her body was found stuffed under his couch during one of those times when he was having a memory lapse. The origin of Clive's lapses comes from childhood when his mother locked him in a closet as punishment and then forgot about him for three hours. Did I mention Clive's wealthy mom really hates the idea of him marrying a model, thinking she is just after Clive's money? I'll let you watch and see how this all works out. There is also an odd bit of casting here. John Litel, who is a police inspector here, played a master criminal and enemy of Ordway in the original Crime Doctor film. It's funny when I see things like this in any of the Columbia B crime serials of the 40's, because, at the time, Columbia considered them just filler versus their prestige films. Plus, with WWII on at the time, and Columbia being a poverty row studio, it was hard to find any A-list male stars that were not in the service. Yet these B films from the 40's - Crime Doctor, Boston Blackie, Lone Wolf - are the Columbia films I really enjoy watching from that period.

Warner Baxter reprises his role as the "Crime Doctor" in "The Crime Doctor's Warning," one of the later entries into the series. The director this time is William Castle.

In this episode, Dr. Ordway is trying to help a young artist who has blackouts, during which one of his models is killed.

I have to disagree with those who found this fast-paced. For me, it moves slowly, though the story is interesting. These Crime Doctor films generally have off-beat stories, but not the budget or quality directors to bring them up a level. In this case, Castle is an effective director, all right, but some of the acting is awful particularly from Coulter Irwin, who apparently was told to act like a vegetable.

Warner Baxter, so frenetic in "42nd Street," is much more relaxed as Dr. Ordway, probably because he suffered a nervous breakdown. In any event, he's very natural and a likable character.

These movies aren't great, but they sure did come up with some wild plots.

One of the better films in the Crime Doctor series, this entry has enough variety to sustain interest, enough characters to keep one confused, and enough twists and turns to keep the viewer guessing as to the perpetrator right up towards the end.

But where has the luscious Dusty Anderson, who plays one of the artist models, been all my viewing career? A bit player for Columbia around the end of WW II, research reveals that she married director Jean Negulesco and became a painter, not too far distant a profession from the one she plays in this movie. I'd suggest to anybody wanting to see more of her, however briefly, to look for her in one of several Rita Hayworth movies. (Check her IMDb.com entry for a list.)

For me, however, this movie was stolen by J. M. Kerrigan and Miles Mander, both of whom play art dealers, and both highly credible in their parts, the former a Scotsman who "would swim to Glasgow for a farthing" (if I recall the quote correctly), and the latter a sophisticated high-end dealer who doesn't sell any painting for under $500 (no small sum in those days).

Crime Doctor's Warning (1945)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

William Castle steps in to direct this fifth film in Columbia's mystery series. This time out the Crime Doctor (Warner Baxter) is investigating a painter who suffers from blackouts, which leads to his models turning up dead. Castle brings quite a lot of energy to this film but it's not enough for me to call this a good movie. This entry is pretty much on par with the rest of the series in that it's decent time killers but the stories just aren't strong enough or interesting enough to make them work all the way around. Baxter is good once again but the supporting cast doesn't leave him too much to work with. Castle makes for some interesting scenes where the suspected killer is under hypnosis but that's about it.