The Crime Doctor’s Strangest Case (1943)

Very Cool!!!

good back-story, and good acting

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

... and by complex I mean that everybody is a possible suspect EXCEPT Dr. Ordway, his nurse, and the police. And up to the end I'm not that sure about Ordway's nurse! The film opens on a young couple seeking Ordway's (Warner Baxter's) advice on whether or not to marry. Jimmy Trotter (Lloyd Bridges) is a young man who was convicted of murdering his employer with poison. Ordway helped him get a new trial, and he was acquitted. Ordway's advice is to wait until Jimmy can get a job with a large company. Ordway does not like the fact that Jimmy is currently working for a wealthy individual as a personal secretary, which is exactly the same job he had when he was accused of murdering his employer before.Soon thereafter Ordway decides to visit Jimmy at his place of employment. However, the maid thinks Ordway is either the coroner or with the police. You see, Jimmy's employer has just suddenly died and it looks like poison again. Ordway goes along with the ruse to get access to the crime scene and yes, it appears that Walter Burns drank poisoned coffee.Next, the real police arrive, and this is where things get strange. The police go all "Boston Blackie" on Dr. Ordway. In spite of the fact that he has been a welcome help in other cases, they get tough with him, like he is in the way and completely unwelcome. They even imply he is helping Jimmy - who they try to arrest but escapes - evade arrest.Well Jimmy did at least one thing he probably should not have done, he went ahead and married his fiancée Ellen against Dr. Ordway's advice. It doesn't help Ordway that the Burns mansion is filled with suspects - the young widow, the victim's brother and nephew who both circle like sharks, a maid who has been carrying a torch for the dead Mr. Burns for 30 years to the point that her mind has become effected, and a cook who turns out to be an imposter and flees the Burns household when Ordway calls her on her impersonation. The point is, by the end of the film you are suspecting all of these people including Jimmy and his wife.The one odd thing in this film - Jimmy and Ellen have just gotten married a day or two earlier, yet their house looks like the set of "I Love Lucy" - it is completely decorated with frilly curtains, comfy couch, and well stocked kitchen as Ellen parades around in stylish house-dress and frilly apron like she has been a housewife for five years, not five days! Highly recommended as a good entry in the Crime Doctor series.

***SPOILERS*** Going against his good friend Dr. Robert Ordway, Warren Baxter, advice the just found innocent accused murderer Jimmy Trotter,Llyod Briges, gets a job as the private secretary to Walter Burns, George Lynn! That's the same kind of job he had where he was accused of murdering his former employer Mr. Goulding that he stood on trial for . Wanting to marry his girlfriend Ellen Monroe, Lynn Merrick, Jimmy needed the income working from Burns to make the marriage a go.Dr. Ordway dropping into the Burns estate to check out how Timmy is doing he shocked to find out from the places housekeeper Patricia Cornwell, Virginia Brissac, that the man of the house, Mr. Burns, has just been found dead in his bed after having a sip of his evening coffee! Jimmy who's in the basement working on the Burns finances is totally in the dark to what happened to his boss but is soon to become the #1 suspect in his murder! That in the eyes of everyone,including the local police, in that Jimmy murdered before even though he was found innocent of the crime it's no stretch of the imagination that he murdered again! In fact it was Jimmy who was she last person to see Mr.Burns alive when he brought him the coffee that ended up killing him!On the run from the law Jimmy gets in touch with his just married wife Ellen begging her to keep him hidden until the storm blows over and the real killer of Mr. Burns is found! Dr. Ordway knowing in his gut that Jimmy is innocent goes out on his own to track down Mr.Burns' killer. This leads Dr. Ordway to the now shuttered down "Golden Nights Cafe" that Burns still owns after he relinquished all his real estate proprieties. It's at the "Golden Nights Cafe" that the truth is to be found to what lead up to Burns murder that involved the murder of the late Walter Burns' partner in the establishment George Fenton, Ray Walker, 30 years ago in 1912!It's doesn't take that long for Dr. Ordway to figure that there's a fly in the ointment in Burns murder and that being the Burns in house cook Mrs. Keppler, Gloria Dickson. Mrs. Keppler got her Job at the Burns estate with the help of housekeeper Mrs. Cornwall who in fact used to work at the "Golden Nights Cafe" and knew ****SPOILERS*** Mrs. Keppler's father George Fenton! It was Fenton who disappeared the very night together with $50,000.00 is cash belonging to Walter burns that Mrs. Keppler, who's really Evelyn Fenton Cartwright, his daughter was born!****SPOILERS*** As things soon turned out Dr.Ordway almost ended up getting murdered himself but with the help of his bloodhound like intuition soon tracked down who not only murdered Walter Burns but his brother Addison, Sam Flint, whom the killer strangled and made to look like a suicide. That's by Dr. Ordway tricking him into thinking that he's on to where the $50,000.00 is hidden and thus having him expos himself! That by trying to gun down Dr.Ordway with the doctor's gun that he purposely left for him to do it with that wasn't loaded!

Dapper yet avuncular Warner Baxter, one of cinema's earliest Oscar winners (Best Actor in 1928's IN OLD ARIZONA), is put through his paces in this second entry in Columbia Pictures' CRIME DOCTOR series, based on the hit radio series. Baxter plays the title character, a.k.a. Dr. Ordway, an amnesiac who learned (in the first CRIME DOCTOR movie) he used to be a gang leader. Since then, Dr. Ordway's been using his knowledge of the criminal mind to become an in-demand psychiatrist. (My husband wondered if he was able to psych out his rival gangsters in his hoodlum life.) Baxter's testimony had helped acquit Jimmy Trotter (a young Lloyd Bridges), who'd been accused of poisoning his previous employer. Jimmy finds that even when you're proved innocent, it's tough to find a job when you've got "Accused Poisoner" on your resume. But does Jimmy follow Dr. Ordway's advice and get a fresh start with his new wife in a new town? No-o-o-o! Jimmy grabs the first job he can get, as assistant to a Realtor, only to find himself jobless and the prime suspect when the Realtor dies of poisoning. Dr. Ordway gets involved, and before you can say "It's old Mr. Withers! He wanted to get the land cheap!", he's up to his fedora in wily blondes disguised as brunette cooks, family skullduggery, a would-be George Gershwin who's careless with matches (played for comic relief by Jerome Cowan, best known in our household as Miles Archer in the classic 1941 version of THE MALTESE FALCON. Fellow ... FALCON alumnus Barton MacLane plays the police detective on the case), and an anxious middle-aged lady whose freaky dreams may be the key to the mystery. That dream sequence is surprisingly intense, with imagery of silhouetted girls plummeting off cliffs and hanging from nooses; it's almost like a welcome bit of comic relief when a sinister male silhouette holding a suitcase labeled "POISON" shows up! THE CRIME DOCTOR'S STRANGEST CASE may not be THE MALTESE FALCON, but Baxter is an ingratiating lead and the flick is an entertaining way to spend 68 minutes. Give it a look next time it turns up on Turner Classic Movies!

This movie is the 2nd in the Crime Doctor series. He is now a famous and successful Psychologist, The first Crime Doctor sets him up and explains who, why and how. The rest of the Crime Doctor stories like this one are Who Dunnits. And not bad ones at that. Depending if you are an aficionado of old movies and mystery stories, I am of both, the plot should be interesting and hold your interest. Usually the Crime Doctor gets involved in the mystery through a patient and this story is no exception. The patient this time is a ex-convict who is taking on a new job. Pretty soon it looks like he has been hired so that he can be framed for the murder. Crime Doctor interviews the other people who are related to or work for the murdered man. Somewhere among them he finds the real murderer.