The Crime Doctor's Diary (1949)

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From my favorite movies..

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Think of the highly energetic Warner Baxter in "42nd Street" and then watch the lethargic Baxter here in "Crime Doctor," and you'll swear it's two different people. After the actor suffered a breakdown, he came back in these kinder, gentler roles such as Crime Doctor where he projects a naturalness before the camera and also warmth."Crime Doctor's Diary" is the last of the series, as Baxter approached the end of his life. It's actually quite an interesting film. The premise is around a sort of early Itunes, where people call into a place and a requested song is played. Really fascinating! Here, Dr. Ordway attempts to help a parolee (Stephen Carter) who is suspected of murder.As others have mentioned, Whit Bissell gives an excellent performance as a disturbed songwriter. Broadway performer Adele Jergens is on hand as Inez, and she's quite beautiful as the femme fatale, and Lois Maxwell plays the ingénue. Both of them are interested in Stephen, but he's in love with Inez.Imagine calling a business today, requesting a song, and a person puts a record on a turntable. Sort of a human jukebox. Times have changed.

**SPOILERS** Released from prison after serving three years of a ten year sentence for the arson fire that burned down his boss' music studios Steve Carter, Stephen Dunne, is determined to find out who the real arsonist was who also ended up framing him for the crime. Carter's girlfriend at the music studio Jane Darrin, Louis Maxwell, whom he two-timed before he was sent up the river is still crazy about him. Jane wants Dr. Robert Ordway, Warner Baxter, who testified to Carters sanity at his trial to talk some sense into his hot head before he does something foolish. Like killing the person whom he thinks famed him co-worker Carl Anson, George Meeker, and end up in the Sign Sing electric chair.Given his job back by a grateful Phillip Bellem, Dan Deddoe, who's business he was convicted in burning down but who always felt that he was innocent Carter make it a point to confront Anson and Bellems rival in the music business jukebox king George "Goldie" Harrigan, Robert Armstrong. Carter feels their the two persons most responsible for burning down the Bellem Stuidos.Carter going to see Harrigan for a job, even though he already has one, so he can find out if he, an ex-gangster, was the one who had Bellem's place torched. Later when Carter plans to meet with Anson a his place of business at the Bellem Studios things go a bit screwy for him: Anson is found found shot death with Harrigan, who Carter asked for a job, mad as hell at him for sealing his lover and private secretary Inez Gray, Adele Jergens, from under his nose and out of his office.On the run for almost half of the movie Carter now wanted for Anson's murder knows that he's been framed for a second time by whoever framed him in the Bellem Studio arson. Carter now more then ever needs Dr.Ordway, who always felt that he's innocent, to come to his aid. Shot by the cops in an escape attempt from Jane's apartment Carter is left in limbo and on the run with all the evidence pointing to him as being Anson's murderer. It turns out that Anson's killer overlooked a record being recorded by Bellems brother Pete, Whit Bissell,a engineer at his business establishment. Pete was thrown out of the studio by Anson, for playing his personal insipid and annoying record, just before he was murdered. The record not only exposed who murdered Anson but also exonerated Carter of the earlier Bellem Studio arson.The last of the "Crime Doctor" series that had a very tired Warner Baxter looking as if he wanted to retire, which he was in the movie. Baxter died two years later in 1951 at the age of 62, in peace and quite and away from all the stress and demands as both a crime fighter and crime solver.

WARNER BAXTER was approaching the end of his life by the time he did THE CRIME DOCTOR'S DIARY, the last film in the Crime Doctor series.This above average programmer is slickly produced, written and acted in true "Crime Doctor" style with some nice performing by LOIS MAXWELL and a good role at the center for STEPHEN DUNNE as an innocent man released from prison and, as it turns out, wrongly framed for arson.The plot has to do with a record music company delivering call-in juke-box service where patrons could request certain records to be played by request, a forerunner of disc jockeys. Haven't been aware of the existence of this sort of thing until I saw MY DREAM IS YOURS (same year) wherein Doris Day worked in such a record establishment where she could be heard by bar patrons.WHIT BISSELL, who turns up in so many films from the '40s and '50s, does a neat job as a mentally deficient but good-humored man trying to get the music industry interested in his foolish folk song. ADELE JERGENS is the girlfriend of Dunne who has the courage to help him when he's on the lam after being hurt by a police bullet, and ROBERT ARMSTRONG is her jealous boss.It's noticeable that there's no strenuous action staged for Baxter, as there usually is in a "Crime Doctor" movie, since the actor was obviously not well during filming. He gets to comment briefly on things and hasn't much of a role at all while others get to hold center stage.But it makes a good crime doctor story and unfolds in a crisply efficient sort of way to make pleasing entertainment. STEPHEN DUNNE and LOIS MAXWELL are both seen to advantage here.Summing up: Not bad at all. One of the more interesting in the series.

In his final case Dr. Ordway (Warner Baxter) attempts to solve a murder in a highly interesting place: a sort of call-in jukebox where bar customers may request a particular record to be played. (The same gimmick, incidentally, used in the 1945 Republic serial "Federal Operator 99.") Although Baxter looks near exhausted (the veteran actor died less than 2 years later), the whodunit zips along nicely and the solution to the puzzle is not telegraphed too far in advance. Acting honors this time go to Whit Bissell as a slightly demented song-writer and, especially, future Miss Moneypenny of 007 fame, Lois Maxwell, as the decidedly active ingénue. Based on a popular radio show by Max Marcin, the 1943-1949 "Crime Doctor" thrillers were typical of series-happy Columbia, produced with economy but generally well-written and peopled by the studio's great (and very busy) stock company.