The Crime Doctor series was usually consistent in it's style and excellence, helped enormously by Warner Baxter as the unobtrusive doctor. The stories were always a bit different to the usual cops and robbers fare with Doctor Ordway's most important job to get to the root of the patient's problem. This movie, though, seems to have it's fair share of holes and starts out with a troubled man, having lost his first wife on their honeymoon and soon to lose his second in a rock slide - again on their honeymoon. Even though the fall was an accident it was caused by the young man's strange behaviour and though he is acquitted, the brother of his first wife feels it was no accident.Dr. Ordway enters the picture when a newly married socialite Kathleen Massey (Hillary Brooke) begs him to come to dinner to observe her husband and diagnose whether he is insane or not!!! Yes, it is the same husband whose former wives were involved in those honeymoon accidents. The brother who made the original allegations keeps popping up everywhere driving Carson (dare I say it) insane, until this particular night he makes his appearance as a waiter and has it out with Carson in front of everybody - minutes later Carson is found dead!!Now the storyline goes off on a completely different tangent - wants you to forget about Carson and his troubles (the brother doesn't appear again!!) and concentrate on Kathleen, who apparently has always loved Miguel Bragga (Anthony Caruso) (well for a few weeks anyway) - who, along with his sister (Lupita Tovar) have a mystical disappearing dancing act that they perform at a local night club. As Kathleen tells yet another of her love sick suitors, she liked Carson "well enough" but only married him for the financial help he could give her father. I think the viewer loses sympathy for her and seeing she tends to disappear from the second half - it doesn't help her case!!The movie then concentrates on the Braggas who, publicity says, are a pair of modern day vampires who are never seen in the day time, never sleep in their beds and when Ordway makes a search of their "castle", finds two silk lined coffins in the basement. His buddy in this movie is a writer (Jerome Cowan) who has cooked up the vampire publicity for the pair and brings them to Ordway's notice when he comments on their amazing disappearing act. Even though production values are good and events are explained, the ending seems hastily put together - it would have been interesting to keep the angry brother around, at least as a red herring!!Still it was nice to see Lupita Tovar again. She had a few roles in the early thirties, usually as "native girl" and she was in the Spanish version of "Dracula" but she married director Paul Kohner and retired (their daughter was actress Susan Kohner). And I am definitely convinced that it is Virginia Mayo by the pool - what do other people think???

Of all the B-detective series films of the 30s and 40s, one of my favorites has been the Crime Doctor films starring Warner Baxter. Most of this is because the basic premise and style of the films is different enough from the average film of the genre to make unique and worth seeing. However, despite my enjoyment of most of these films, I must say that I agree strongly with Neil Doyle's review that found this particular film to be interesting but also very bizarre and confusing due to its strange plot--making it one of the lesser entries in the series.The film begins with a man on his honeymoon. His new wife tells him that she just discovered that he'd been previously married and there were accusations he'd murdered his first wife. Then, in a case of lousy acting and poor directing, the second wife falls off a cliff accidentally--leaving a groom who has had two wives die quickly after the wedding and both suspiciously.A short time later, you see the husband now married to his third wife! I found myself wondering WHY this guy kept getting married--especially when his first brother-in-law kept following him and accusing him of being a murderer! A short time later, the husband is murdered but HOW the murderer was able to escape from a locked room without being detected is a real mystery. I really liked this aspect of the plot a lot--the classic "how did they kill a man and escape undetected" plot line is exciting. However, where the film went next is just bizarre and was too much of a weird distraction that involved a couple of dancers who MAY just be vampires!!! This just left me baffled and confused and resulted in a less than satisfying conclusion.Don't take the silliness of this film convince you the series is bad--it isn't. It's just that this particular film, though interesting, is also pretty silly and confusing. I guess you can't win 'em all!

Another nice entry in the Crime Doctor series [#4/10], with atmospheric almost noirish black and white photography and some splendid Spanish American backdrops and sets. And a more off-the-wall storyline too!A man who looks like the insane murderer of his first two wives is found dead in a locked room after a dramatic dinner party. The Crime Doctor is on the scene (ostensibly as a guest) to immediately and resignedly proclaim it murder, and so we are presented with a quite weird set of people to mull over, for one of them did the deed. Was it the frothing brother of the dead 1st wife, the 3rd wife and rich widow Hilary Brooke, the dancing brother and sister vampires, the intense young man, the eccentric cabinet maker Lloyd Corrigan on loan from Boston Blackie, the irreplaceable butler, or odds-on Jerome Cowan? Police Inspector Emory Parnell had his work cut out, but Warner Baxter as Ordway was as unflappable as ever in working it all out. One of the goofs listed on the IMDb is wrong: On breaking into the murder room Ordway says "Right through the centre of the forehead" and Cowan replies "He didn't miss this time". Favorite bits: Baxter and Cowan travelling through club sandwiches and beer at the nightclub to make amends for their interrupted dinner party; The scene where the Braga's place of repose is seemingly rumbled. The plot does seem to meander a bit at times and the way it was all explained off was perhaps more worthy of Monogram, but leaving it in the air as supernatural wouldn't do either!Well worth a watch if you already like the genre, you won't be disappointed unless you really don't like the genre.

This one is not only baffling, it's weird.It starts off with a good hook for drawing the viewer into the story--but then veers off in so many different directions that the plot is soon downright bizarre. The opening has HILLARY BROOKE urging Dr. Ordway (WARNER BAXTER) to attend a dinner at her home so that he can have a good look at her husband (STEPHEN CRANE), a man whose previous wives have died mysteriously and whom she suspects might be insane.When Crane is murdered that evening, behind doors in a locked room, Dr. Ordway must solve the case. LLOYD CORRIGAN is on hand as a bumbling carpenter friend but the plot revolves around Spanish dancers (ANTHONY CARUSO and LUPITA TOVAR), suspected of being vampires because no one has ever seen them in daylight.A series of baffling twists and turns shed little light on whatever the outcome of the case will be--and the explanations that come forth during the film's last five minutes are less than satisfying, nor are they the least bit credible.It's a murky yarn that starts out acceptably in typical mystery fashion, but soon gets bogged down in a far-fetched story that deals with vampirism, a jealous suitor, trick effects to make a dancer disappear, and a rather abrupt ending with virtually no character development to prepare the viewer for the final explanation.Summing up: Interesting, but a bizarre mixture of mystery elements.