El doctor Muerte

Lon Chaney Jr. stars as psychiatrist Mark Steele, who is an amiable man with a loyal nurse named Stella(played by Patricia Morison). Unfortunately, he is married to a wild, mean, and unfaithful wife(played by Ramsay Ames) who refuses to divorce him. After a mysterious blackout one weekend, Dr. Steele has no memory, but is told by the police that his wife has been brutally murdered, and the Inspector on the Case(played by J. Carol Naish) doggedly pursues him, convinced of his guilt. The man she was having an affair with is caught, but did he do it, or someone else? Reasonably good film could have dispensed with the head-in-a-crystal ball routine, but acting is good(especially Naish in a role quite similar to later "Columbo"!) Not bad for a low budgeter.

Dr. Steele (Lon Chaney Jr.) is a psychiatrist married to a cheating wife who refuses to give him a divorce. He's in love with his nurse (Patricia Morison) who loves him back. Then he blacks out one weekend and awakens to find his wife was brutally murdered. Did he do it or is he being set up?

The first of Universal's "Inner Sanctum" series based on a popular radio show of the time. It's introduced by a floating head in a crystal ball (!!!!). Not a horror movie as believed but a murder mystery. It was made on no budget with a half hour script padded to an hour (notice how many times J. Carrol Naish's policeman hounds Chaney). Also I had the murderer figured out about 20 minutes in but I had no idea why. Still, for what it is (a low-budget B picture) it's not bad. Chaney is OK and Morison and Naish are actually very good. This is not some unsung cinema masterpiece just a quick, efficient B movie. There are worse ways to kill an hour.

The first of Universal's fun series of thriller films under the Inner Sanctum banner. Each one starred Lon Chaney, Jr. in different roles. In this one, Chaney plays Dr. Mark Steele, a neurosurgeon and expert hypnotist. Steele's unfaithful wife (Ramsay Ames) is found murdered and he's a prime suspect. But Steele has lost his memory of the last few days and can't remember if he killed her or not! So he gets his nurse (Patricia Morison) to hypnotize him so he can try to remember what happened.

Chaney's great in this. I'm sure at the time he welcomed the chance to get out of playing movie monsters. Morison and Ames are lovely to look at and good in their roles. The always-solid J. Carrol Naish plays the hard-nosed police detective investigating the case. Holmes Herbert appears in one of his many butler roles. I really like this series. A little silly at times but it just adds to the entertainment value for me. It has that distinct look and feel Universal movies had at the time. Calling Dr. Death is a very good start to a fun, enjoyable series of mystery thrillers.

In between making his classic monster films for Universal studios, Lon Chaney was given a periodic break of sorts with this series of modest but enjoyable mystery films based on the popular radio program, "The Inner Sanctum". In them, Chaney sported a dapper mustache and wavy hair, and his central characters often were brooding intellectuals who wowed the ladies and regularly found themselves lost in a tangled web of mayhem. CALLING DR. DEATH was the first of these, with Chaney playing a neurologist named Mark Steele who is hugely successful in everything but his own personal life. His unfaithful wife Maria (the ineffective Ramsay Ames, who later stumbled her way through THE MUMMY'S GHOST) tricked him into a worthless marriage where she manipulates him for wealth and prestige, and Steele would like to put an end to the charade, even entertaining the possibility of murdering her to be freed. Chaney is also in love with his dedicated secretary (Patricia Morison), and she comes to his aid one morning when he awakens at his office on a Monday with no memory of where he was or what he had done throughout the weekend, becoming even more bewildered when it is revealed that his controlling wife has been murdered. The chief suspect is the young man Mrs. Steele was having an affair with (David Bruce from THE MAD GHOUL). J. Carrol Naish is very good in this film as the tough Inspector Gregg, and his constant suspicions of Chaney being the killer make for some interesting exchanges between both actors.

None of the six Inner Sanctum thrillers could be called great movies, but they're quick and entertaining in their own right, and fans all have their own varying opinions of which are the best. Though it's not too hard to guess the outcome of CALLING DR. DEATH, I consider it a fine start to the series, and one of the better efforts. **1/2 out of ****

I hadn't intended to purchase this Set - and only did so after constant prodding by Joe Karlosi; in essence, these films are no worse than the lower-profile sequels of the Universal monster pictures, such as the follow-ups to THE MUMMY (1932) and THE INVISIBLE MAN (1933).

This was the first of six "Inner Sanctum" mysteries all starring Lon Chaney Jr. (with his frequent voice-over linking them rather naively with the concurrent noir subgenre) and featuring portentous - and hilarious - intros by a disembodied head in a crystal ball! It's not too bad in itself, with the plot overly familiar but fairly involving - Chaney's mind goes blank one weekend and when he comes to, discovers his unloving wife has been murdered! Of course, he's the chief suspect of dogged detective J. Carroll Naish (the best thing about the entire film) though it's the woman's lover, named Robert Duval(!), who's actually accused - and convicted - of the crime. The characters are all relatively engaging (Chaney is a celebrated neurologist with beautiful Patricia Morison as his devoted assistant) and the plot development plausible enough, making for an entertaining and fast-paced 63 minutes. The final revelation, then, is at once surprising and satisfying.