The Crime Doctor’s Strangest Case

1943 "PRIMITIVE PASSIONS THAT LED TO Murder!"
6.3| 1h8m| NR| en
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The Crime Doctor gets involved in the case of the poisoning of a wealthy industrialist.

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Exoticalot People are voting emotionally.
Bereamic Awesome Movie
WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.
sol1218 ***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!
blanche-2 Warner Baxter is the "Crime Doctor," and here he is in the second film of the series, "Crime Doctor's Strangest Case," filmed in 1943. This one has a perk for baby boomers as it stars a very young Lloyd "Sea Hunt" Bridges as a man acquitted of killing his boss who consults Dr. Ordway (Baxter), the man who helped him in his case. Though he was found not guilty, he has had terrible trouble finding a new position. Now he's been offered a job working for a person instead of a company - a similar situation to his first job, and he wants to get married. Ordway recommends that he look instead for a corporate position, even if he has to leave town, and wait to get married.The Bridges character doesn't take Dr. O's advice, and when his boss is killed, it does look as though he was given the job so he could be framed. Ordway steps in to investigate, dueling wits with the detective in charge of the case (Barton MacLaine).This "Crime Doctor" has some comedy in it, with Jerome Cowan as a musician who is careless with matches. There's also a hilarious, very fast change of identity.This is a good series, and I hope to see more of it on TCM.
MartinHafer This is one of the earliest Crime Doctor films and perhaps when they wrote the script they thought it would be the good doctor's strangest case--though compared to some of the later films, this one is pretty ordinary though a tad confusing--certainly NOT particularly strange.The film begins with a very young and handsome Lloyd Bridges taking his fiancée to see Dr. Ordway. A short time later, Bridges is accused of committing murder and the doctor decides to investigate. Some of the plot twists were pretty weird and confusing. In fact, though you expect the plot to continue to be Ordway convincing everyone that Bridges is not the killer, this is only the film up to a point--as soon it becomes apparent that many people had a reason to want to kill the victim. Plus, soon more murder victims begin popping up in the oddest places! Overally, I really liked the plot (even though it was confusing) and the twists and turns worked out very well except for the actual way in which the first person was murdered. The manner chosen was so ridiculous and impossibly complicated that I really think this helped knock the film's rating down a point or so. Otherwise, if you can ignore this silly twist, it's an engaging and entertaining film.
Dorian Tenore-Bartilucci (dtb) 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!