Reviews & Ratings for
Crime Doctor More at IMDbPro »

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34 out of 35 people found the following review useful:
One of the Best of the 30s & 40s Mystery Series, 9 December 2004

Author: Cutter-2 from Atlanta

With the exception of the Rathbone and Bruce Sherlock Holmes series, this is quite possibly the best of the 'mystery' series of the 30s and 40s. The series begins with this movie as Phil Morgan, master criminal, is double crossed by his gang, beaten and dumped along a roadside. As a result, he suffers from amnesia. This movie, the first of the series, establishes The Crime Doctor's background, explains how and why he became a doctor (a psychiatrist, actually), head of the parole board and helped many convicts find the 'straight and narrow'.

The element that makes this movie and the series in general unique is that it relies on psychiatry and the tendencies of the mentally ill. They often tease you by inserting an obviously unbalanced person and although the plot may lead one to believe that person is the "perp" they may or may not be the actual "perp". Because psychiatry was relatively new and often misunderstood, it provided general insight to the subject. In many ways, the series has yet to become dated although the psychological concepts may appear to be fairly basic nowadays.

A series of factors make this movie series much more enjoyable than others such as The Lone Wolf, Boston Blackie or Bulldog Drummond. The first is the consistency. The quality of the stories in all ten movies remains high throughout the series where the stories of other series tend to deteriorate into standard potboilers after the studio has captured the audience's interest. Second, the same actor plays the lead character in all of the movies. Third, the quality of the supporting cast is exceptional throughout the series. Some of the more recognizable supporting cast includes John Litel, Ray Collins, Harold Huber, Barton MacLane, Jerome Cowan, Reginald Denny, Eduardo Ciannelli, Nina Foch, George Zucco, Ben Weldon, Hillary Brooke, William Frawley, Ellen Drew and last, but far from least, a very young Lois Maxwell who played Miss Moneypenny in at least 15 James Bond films.

However, over the six years the series was shot, one can easily see Baxter's health deteriorating.

13 out of 13 people found the following review useful:
The birth of Robert Ordway M.D., 7 June 2007

Author: Gary170459 from Derby, UK

This was the opening chapter in the Crime Doctor series from Columbia, and as usual the first cut is the deepest. The other nine films veered from lightly sparkling to slightly insipid but all lovely to see - this one was strikingly thought provoking with many memorable scenes scattered throughout. Additionally the production values, acting and plots were of a consistently high standard, and basically Columbia allowed Warner Baxter a six year holiday with the filming of them to help him recover his dodgy health.

A man is tossed out of a moving car as one dead in 1932, turns out an amnesiac who is nursed back to good health by a good doctor who encourages him to become a good friend, good citizen and ultimately a good psychiatrist. He achieves all this by 1943, by which time his shady past is starting to catch up with him, 3 dumb guys eager to reclaim USD 200,000 stolen in his previous life. How it all unfolds and is resolved is as ingenious as the b picture format and the Hays Office could allow. Favourite bits: The 4 of them sitting round the table in Frankie's, all wondering what was going off; Margaret Lindsay – almost too exquisite too watch here; Leon Ames, the violent patriot in prison for life then out in a twinkling; the trial of Phil Morgan and Robert Ordway.

It should be an incredibly rewarding 65 minutes to fans of this genre of film, if you find yourself unmoved by it my advice is don't bother with the rest and do yourself and the fans a favour.

12 out of 12 people found the following review useful:
Not exactly original, but extremely well-constructed for a B-film, 25 April 2007

Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

In the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood made a huge number of "B" detective series films. They were called "B" because they had lower budgets, were shorter than the average film and were meant to be the second film in a double feature--the lesser of the two films. In general, these films were a lot of fun to watch BUT they also were very formulaic and repetitive. I enjoy Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chan, Boston Blackie and the Saint, but will gladly admit that once you've seen a few they all seem to blend together--particularly the Blackie series. It is because of this sameness that I really, really appreciate the Crime Doctor films--they are not so predictable and offer some nice innovations.

This movie is the first, and from what I've seen, the best of the Crime Doctor films. It sets the stage for future films by explaining how Warner Baxter became a psychiatrist and crime solver and is well-written and interesting throughout--even though this movie's plot isn't original--having been a variation on a film from 1936. The acting is very good and the film is played more seriously than the average film of the genre--with no goofy sidekick or stupid police investigator. And, frankly, this is a good thing as the others are clichés that just seem to permeate almost every B detective film. Give it a watch--it's very enjoyable and doesn't disappoint, as the characters behave intelligently and believably.

8 out of 8 people found the following review useful:
better than average for the genre, 9 November 2007

Author: jpickerel from United States

This film is much better than what one might expect, given the studio that made it and the other films of this type put out at the time. Warner Baxter was a good actor, the supporting cast is able, and the writing is taut, uncomplicated and well-done. Direction, lighting and photography are professional. In short, there are few, if any, faults, and the film is well worth a watch. Leon Ames makes an early appearance in a somewhat far fetched sequence involving the rehabilitation of a hardened, bitter convict, but this is a minor, minor flaw in an otherwise very well constructed film. As another reviewer wrote, there are, thankfully, no dumb cops or simple minded assistants, just a well thought out plot and good acting.

5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Very good mystery, 6 December 2008

Author: blanche-2 from United States

I hope that TCM broadcasts more of the "Crime Doctor" series, based on the radio show. Starring Warner Baxter, 1943's "Crime Doctor" is one of the first films Michael Gordon (Pillow Talk) directed, and it's a good, solid B movie.

Baxter plays a criminal named Phil Morgan who gets amnesia after being left for dead on the side of a road. He rehabilitates himself and, still not knowing who he is, becomes a noted psychiatrist named Robert Ordway who works with prisoners as well as other patients. However, Phil Morgan stole and hid $200,000 and his fellow gang members want the money. As word gets around that Dr. Ordway is Phil Morgan, the question is - does he really not remember, or does he know who he is and where he put the money? Baxter was 54 years old when this film was made. Fifty-four in 1943 isn't what it is today, so when the character announces that "thirty years of his life" have been wiped out, one wonders which thirty years he's talking about. The film covers a span of ten years, but it's just as hard to buy he's forty. It's a minor point - Baxter gives a sincere performance with an undertone of real gentleness.

The supporting cast includes the lovely Margaret Lindsay, John Litel (who play Nancy Drew's father in the series), Perry Mason's Ray Collins, and Leon Ames.

I hope TCM shows more of the "Crime Doctor" series.

4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
America leaves the gangster era behind ..., 6 February 2011

Author: calvinnme from United States

... as well as the Great Depression as a two front war with everything at stake yields bigger fish to fry. This is what this first film in the Crime Doctor crime/mystery series represents in the person of Dr. Robert Ordway (Warner Baxter).

The movie opens with a car speeding along the road with a sign referring to the presidential campaign of 1932. The car slows down and an unconscious man is dumped from the vehicle that then speeds off again. Next we see the man without an identity recovering in the hospital with no memory of who he was before. The nurses dub the mystery man Robert Ordway after the wing of the hospital in which he is staying. Kindly Dr. John Carey (Ray Collins) works with Ordway after he is discharged to help him recover his memory, but no association -not even going through the phone book name by name - yields results. A check of his fingerprints with police records also turns up nothing. Of course, all that proves is that Ordway was clever enough to never be arrested, not that he wasn't a criminal. With all of the time he's spent with the good doctor, Ordway has developed an interest in medicine, and with he and Dr. Carey agreeing that the unmasking of his identity is something that he should no longer hope to have solved in the near future, he decides to study medicine himself and specialize in psychiatry.

So Ordway starts out as a freshman in college in his early 30's, with his studies requiring the next ten years of his life. The world changes a great deal in the next ten years - Prohibition ends, the Depression eases, and World War II begins. In all this time Ordway is no closer to recovering his identity. As he begins to practice medicine, he spends a great deal of time working with convicts at the prison. He's drawn here because he wants to do some good but also because he hopes that someone there will recognize him and help him reclaim his memory. In the back of his mind he's got to know that nobody gets dumped as he did from a speeding automobile in 1932 without the high probability that he was somehow mixed up in crime.

There's a complicating factor too. Ordway has become involved with an attractive young woman who works with female ex-cons - Grace Fielding (Margaret Lindsay). At this point, Ordway doesn't even know if he has a wife out there somewhere, so he can't make plans with Grace until he knows his true marital status. How will all of this work out? Watch and find out.

This first in the series was probably never intended to be anything other than just one film, so this movie wraps up in a self-contained kind of way that will leave you wondering what ever happened to this or that character if you watch the whole series. It was a big hit, so Columbia released a whole series featuring the Dr. Robert Ordway character, always starring Warner Baxter, over the next seven years. The rest of the series focuses not so much on Ordway's life as it does on some mystery Ordway has wandered into and how he solves it, but in this first film the mystery is Ordway himself. Who is he really? And if he recovers his memory and the news is bad - will remembering alone make him a criminal all over again? Does a man need a clean slate of a mind to really have a clean slate? Interesting material done in the quick spartan way required by poverty row Columbia's budget, but done well all the same.

3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
If you can't cure me I'll cure myself, 7 November 2007

Author: sol from Brooklyn NY USA

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

**SPOILERS** Left for dead as he's thrown from a speeding car the man, Warner Baxter,recovers but completely lost his memory of just who he is and what was the reason for he his attempted murder. In the hospital the nurses are just crazy about the tall dark and handsome, as well as bandaged, stranger whom they affectionately give him the name of the wing of the hospital that he's staying in Robert Ordway a well known philanthropist and humanitarian.

Ordway obsessed in finding out his identity, since no one in the medical profession could, goes the full nine yards in working his way through medical school as well as getting a degree in psychology, this in eight hard and back breaking years. Now a full fledged doctor and psychiatrist Dr. Ordway has just about forgotten what was the reason he put himself through all this just like he forgot who he originally was. Dr. Ordway is now a respected member of the community and has finally put his past, whatever that was, behind him until he meets some old friends, that knew him before he became Dr. Ordway, and that shocked him back to reality.

The first of the "Crime Doctor" series that in fact establishes that the "Crime Doctor" Dr. Robert Ordway was into crime himself before he, with the help of hitting himself on the head, became the famous "Crime Doctor". The movie makes a plea to the audience that just because one has a criminal past doesn't mean that he'll have a criminal future as well. This is firmly established in Dr. Ordway himself who was in his previous incarnation the ruthless and brutal crime boss Phil Morgan. Morgan was the mastermind of the notorious Nordon payroll robbery back in 1932 that resulted in him being double-crossed by his associates, fellow hoods, Emlio Joe Nick & Myrtle.

What Emilio and his gang didn't know when they double crossed Morgan is that Morgan had in fact double-crossed them in switching the suitcase with the payroll cash, $200,000.00,with a suitcase stuffed with old newspapers. Ordway now a marked man after he was spotted, by one of his former gang members, with his girlfriend Grace Fielding, Margaret Lindsay, is to really go all out in not only finding out who he is but were he hid the stolen payroll cash; the only thing that can keep him alive as long as Emilio & Co. don't get their hands on it.

In the end Ordway/Morgan pays his debt to society not in just the good work that he did as a prison doctor and member of the parole board but also has the hoods, Emilio & Co, who tried to do him in brought to justice. As for reformed hoodlum Robert Ordway/Phil Morgan Justice being both just and merciful took into account Dr. Ordways accomplishments in both medicine and psychiatry, as well as him turning around the lives of the many convicts under his care, and forgave, with the jury recommending mercy, his past and youthful discretions. This had the presiding judge, who was ready to throw the book at him, put the grateful Dr. Ordway on probation for ten years.

4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Not on DVD?, 27 August 2007

Author: Nojaa from United States

I recently saw all of the Crime Doctor movies on Turner Classic Movies. I'd sure like to see these made available on DVD, but it doesn't seem that they're available on ANY medium yet.

I rather enjoyed all of the movies of the "Crime Doctor" series. I have a particular affinity for detective stories and crime dramas from that time period, in both the movie and radio formats. I consider them to be at least the same caliber as the "Thin Man" series, although "Crime Doctor" tended to be more cerebral, while Nick Charles was rather more flamboyant and party-hardy, and I suspect that Asta was smarter than he was!

If the Crime Doctor is made available on DVD, perhaps they might at least be released on CD as an audio series. Perhaps I might even be able to find some of the original issues from Detective Comics.

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
The Crime Doctor's Criminal Background, 29 March 2011

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

One of the wilder premises involving a movie series was in the Crime Doctor films that starred Warner Baxter. We are asked to believe that Baxter was once gentleman crook Phil Morgan who held out the loot from his gang and who slugged him and threw him from a moving car and left him for dead. He didn't die, but has a case of amnesia. In any event ten years go by and in those ten years we are asked to believe that Baxter has acquired the eduction and training to become criminal psychologist Robert Ordway a most respected gent.

The Crime Doctor character came from radio and I assume that radio provided a lot of background so that the Ordway character became more believable. Given the fact that the movie-going public had been used to the Crime Doctor radio program the whole premise was easier to swallow in 1943 than it is today.

Baxter who is now a successful criminal psychologist and engaged to Margaret Lindsay is visited by old gang member John Litel who wants to know where the stashed loot is. He's not buying the amnesia story. He assembles the rest of the gang and the film is a battle of wits between Baxter and the rest. Need I tell you who wins?

Future Crime Doctor films gradually left out the part that Baxter was a convict and as a result they have not become as dated and are more believable than the first film. Some are actually pretty good with the simple premise that Baxter with his psychological training is a pretty good criminologist, better in many cases than those who carry a badge. In fact Jeff Goldblum's character on Law and Order: Criminal Intent who does carry a badge can trace his origins back to Warner Baxter's Robert Ordway.

A good screen character with two much unbelievable baggage.

4 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
First of the "Crime Doctor" movies with Warner Baxter..., 26 March 2008

Author: Neil Doyle from U.S.A.

It's odd that CRIME DOCTOR ('43), the film that started the B-film series at Columbia, is one of the least involving of the Dr. Ordway stories. The first half-hour is pretty dull before the film takes on any real interest in the amnesia background of Baxter's character.

His development from complete amnesia to gradual recall is well handled and some of the scenes with JOHN LITEL have a certain amount of interest, but the story lacks overall believability with RAY COLLINS turning to the phone book in a search for Baxter's name and then becoming his mentor and leading him into a doctor's career with a quick montage of events establishing Baxter as a psychiatrist.

MARGARET LINDSAY is attractive as the female interest, looking so much like a prettier version of Barbara Stanwyck, whom I always thought she resembled in manner and looks. For fans of the series, this one will do, but surprisingly it's not the sort of "first film in the series" that I expected and you have to wonder why Columbia decided to make a series after this one.

WARNER BAXTER looks quite ill in most of his close-ups, so you can see the man was in fragile health all during these "Crime Doctor" films. He gives his usual solid performance but the film was a disappointment for me.

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