When the Crime Doctor series started the cast was filled with known names - on their way up (Ellen Drew) or down (Margaret Lindsay) but as the series progressed the names were often obscure - although the production levels were always high. The biggest name in "The Millerson Case", apart from Warner Baxter, was Barbara Pepper who had really only ever been an interesting supporting player. She had started out as the bleached blonde tramp in "Our Daily Bread" who gives leading actress, Karen Morley, a few anxious moments when she makes a play for her husband. She had a similar look (back then) to Lucille Ball (who was a good friend) but apart from a couple of poverty row leads ("Rogue's Tavern") she is remembered more for her portrayal of a vicious gun moll in "Let 'Em Have It". Unfortunately with a difficult private life she didn't keep her looks and in "The Millerson Case" she played Eadie Rookstool, the town vamp, who instantly starts making eyes at a very nervous Dr. Ordway.This is a bit out of the ordinary for a Crime Doctor movie as it deals with the outbreak of a typhoid epidemic in a rural community. Dr. Ordway, in town for a much needed vacation, instantly falls foul of the local doctor, Millerson, who doesn't believe in sterilization and treats everything, from gunshot wounds to dizziness, with herbal concoctions. When Ordway looks into the bout of "summer sickness" that hits the community every year he realises, through examining blood samples that it is typhoid and that even though 3 people have died, the third person didn't die of typhoid but was murdered. He was Ward Beechy, the barber, and the local Lothario - so there is no end of suspects - any of the women or their jealousy fuelled husbands or swains!!!As usual Ordway's sense of fair play and justice have him championing Millerson when the rest of the town are eager to make him chief suspect. He is the town grump and is always at loggerheads with the town's other doctor, Wickersham (Addison Richards) and his "new fangled" ideas. The murdered man had changed doctor's, going over to Wickersham but a few other mysterious happenings, potshots taken at Wickersham and Ordway's gun going missing and when Millerson turns up dead, motives have to be rethought!!Like others in the series this is just a great rainy day movie, there are loads of suspects and the guilty one is never the most obvious.

(Some Spoilers) With him being in such great demand by both the the local, as well as out of town, police department in solving so many of it's unsolvable crimes the obviously burnt out "Crime Doctor" Dr. Robert Ordway, Warner Baxter decides to finally take his first vacation in over five years. Dr. Ordway drives upstate to the little quite town of Brookfall to do some hunting fishing and most of all relaxing. Sadly for the good doctor it did't turn out that way.As soon as Dr.Ordway got to Brookhill it was quarantined because of a typhoid epidemic with him being recruited by the state troopers and local medical clinic to help in the inoculation of the towns population. Doing the best he can Dr. Ordway examining the blood samples of those who succumb to the deadly disease finds that the towns barber as well as it's smooth talking and handsome womanizer Ward Beachey, Trevor Bardette,did't die from typhoid at all! It turns out that Benchey was poisoned and made to look by his killer like he died of that disease.Being that Dr. Ordway's friend Dr. Sam Millerson, Griff Barnett, who's house he staying at last treated Benchey with his home-made brew or potion of bark roots berries and bitters he's the prime suspect in his murder. It's also reviled that Dr.Sam was very angry with Benchey for not going to him for medical treatment over the last year. Benchey was going to the newly opened county medical clinic that's taking business away from him. All this suspicion of Dr. Sam being Benchey's killer becomes moot later on when Dr. Sam himself is murdered! It now becomes very clear, especially to Dr. Ordway, that Bencheys murder had nothing to do with business matters between him and his killer! There's something far more deeper in Benchely's death and closer to home. Benchy's sexual exploits with the ladies in town may well have caused one of those ladies outraged and vindictive husbands or boyfriends to murder him.It's the murder of Dr. Sam that rings a bell in the "Crime Doctors" head when it's reveled that he, Dr. Sam, got a note to meet him, his killer, outside the summer carnival or fair. It was at the fair that he and everyone in town, including Dr. Ordway, were at. Finding the note on the murdered Dr. Sam with his killer in to much of a hurry to get away, or just too absent-minded to grab and destroy it, turned out to be the evidence that in the end hung him! Not that Dr. Sam's killer wrote it but*****SPOILERS*****that he needed someone else to write it for him.Dr. Ordway take his life in his hands in this murder mystery by getting both Dr. Sam & Beacheys killer in a position where he can make Dr. Ordway his next victim. The "Crime Doctor" was more then ready for mysterious killer in alerting to towns sheriff old man Akers, Clem Bevans, and the local townspeople to come to his rescue. Dr. Ordway slug-fest with the crazed killer, after failing to poison Dr. Ordway, just about to split Dr. Ordway's head open with a shovel.Arrested and facing life or even the electric chair, if convicted in both Dr. Sam & Bencheys murder, the killer tries to be real cute by faking that he's nuts. The killer acts as if he's trying to catch or swat invisible flies or horseflies in his cell thinking that would get him off on an insanity defense. It just happened that the "Crime Doctor" got his number and then tricks him into showing everyone watching that he's indeed sane. Dr. Ordway does this by showing that the killer thinking that he's acting insane is in fact really thinking and rational, in trying to show that he's indeed crazy, by falling right into the clever trap that Dr. Odway's set for him.

WARNER BAXTER was approaching the last few "Crime Doctor" films when he made THE MILLERSON CASE, about an epidemic of typhoid that's tainted by a slight case of murder. Seems that while trying to have a vacation in the country, Dr. Ordway is pressured to join other doctors in helping out when typhoid strikes the townspeople.A gruff country doctor (GRIFF BARNETT) opposes the notion that the epidemic is anything more than "summer complaint". But a microscopic examination of bacilii proves that one of the victims was not dead from typhoid, but poison.As usual, there are a number of suspects and Sheriff CLEM BEVANS has his hands full arresting first one, then another, each time fooled into suspecting the wrong culprits. The only quibble I have with the story is that when the denouement does come and the mystery is solved, it turns out to be the least interesting character that did it.The sleuthing is interesting in all of these "Crime Doctor" stories, and as usual, at the end there's a little extra surprise thrown in at the last moment.Reliable character actor GRIFF BARNETT, as Dr. Millerson, was a busy character actor throughout the '40s and '50s, most memorable as Olivia de Havilland's druggist father in TO EACH HIS OWN ('46). He played a much more likable character in that one.

Greatly enjoy these classic films which featured Dr. Robert Ordway,(Warner Baxter) who plays the role of doctor and also a detective who always manages to catch the killer. In this story, Dr. Ordway cancels all his appointments at his office in New York City and hands all his cases over to his assistant and tells everyone he is going on a vacation way out in the country for some good fishing and hunting and he will not involve himself with anything else, because he has not taken a rest for a very long time. Dr. Ordway no sooner gets to his location that the local town becomes sick with a Typhoid epidemic and everyone is getting sick and some people are dying. There is a local doctor who mixes all kinds of herbs and way out contents and Dr. Ordway has to take matters into his own hands. Dr. Ordway runs some tests with the state health department and discovers that someone has been poisoned and then the story takes on a different twist and Dr. Ordway stops enjoying any kind of vacation and tries to find out who the killer is. This is a great look back at films in 1947 and is lots of fun to watch.