Crime Doctor *** (1943, Warner Baxter, Margaret Lindsay, John Litel, Ray Collins, Harold Huber, Leon Ames, Don Costello, Constance Worth, Dorothy Tree) – Classic Movie Review 12,181

Director Michael Gordon’s 1943 mystery thriller Crime Doctor is the film (based on a popular 1940-1947 American radio show by Max Marcin) that started off a series of 10 Crime Doctor features (from 1943-47), with Warner Baxter as Dr Robert Ordway.

In this one, the hero gets knocked on the head after being thrown out of a speeding car, regains consciousness in a hospital but suffers amnesia, takes the name Robert Ordway after a hospital benefactor, and turns from criminal mastermind to psychiatrist crime-solver. He has to go to court when his gangland past emerges.

Crime Doctor is a pacy and fairly gripping opener for the series.

Dr Ordway was the hero of the CBS radio programme Crime Doctor on Sunday nights between 1940 and 1947. Dr Benjamin Ordway was played by Ray Collins, House Jameson, Brian Donlevy, Hugh Marlowe, Everett Sloane and John McIntire.

Columbia Pictures made a series of 10 low-budget Crime Doctor mysteries from 1943 to 1949, with Warner Baxter playing Dr Robert Ordway in all of them. In the first film, as an in-joke, Collins played Dr John Carey, the Crime Doctor’s doctor.

Baxter was in poor health for much of the time while working on the series, and, two years after making the tenth film, he died of pneumonia on May 7, 1951, at age 62.

The cast are Warner Baxter as Phillip Morgan/ Dr Robert J Ordway, Margaret Lindsay as Grace Fielding, John Litel as The Mystery Man Emilio Caspari, Ray Collins as Dr John Carey, Harold Huber as Joe Dylan, Don Costello as Nick Ferris, Leon Ames as William Wheeler, Constance Worth as Betty, Dorothy Tree as Pearl Adams, Al Shean as convict Dave, and Vi Athens.

The 10 Crime Doctor films: Crime Doctor (1943), The Crime Doctor’s Strangest Case (1943), Shadows in the Night (1944), Crime Doctor’s Warning (1945), The Crime Doctor’s Courage (1945), Just Before Dawn (1946), The Crime Doctor’s Man Hunt (1946), The Millerson Case (1947) (aka The Crime Doctor’s Vacation), The Crime Doctor’s Gamble (1947), and The Crime Doctor’s Diary (1949).

Crime Doctor is directed by Michael Gordon, runs 66 minutes, is made and released by Columbia Pictures, is written by Graham Baker, Louise Lantz and Jerome Odlum, based on the 1940-1947 radio series Crime Doctor by Max Marcin, is shot in black and white by James S Brown, is produced by Ralph Cohen, and is scored by Lee Zahler and Louis Silvers.

© Derek Winnert 2022 Classic Movie Review 12,181

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