El candelabro fatal

"Shadows in the Night" is one of the weirdest of the Crime Doctor series of movies...probably the weirdest. The plot, though enjoyable, is just very strange and incredibly farfetched...but still watchable.

A woman comes to visit Dr. Ordway (Warner Baxter). She has been having weird dreams and has been having some suicidal thoughts. The doctor decides to drop by the lady's home for an extended visit..in order to investigate the strange happenings. Soon, the doc is having some strange visions himself. One involves finding a dead body. The body disappears and later is found dead in the surf nearby. Now this part makes zero sense....Dr. Ordway is the crime doctor and has a history of solving crimes. He quickly identifies the body in the surf as the one he saw in the house...yet everyone quickly dismisses him. Huh?? He is a trained psychiatrist and yet he's assumed to be delusional and the fact a body soon IS found means nothing! These sorts of logical errors and the actual cause of the sleepwalking and delusions is pretty silly....though the rest of the film is enjoyable and Baxter and the rest are good actors. Worth seeing for lovers of the series.

Of the ten Crime Doctor films starring Warner Baxter released by Columbia from 1943 through 1949, this is the only one that Turner Classic Movies has never aired. This third entry is one of the earliest screen roles for the young Nina Foch (pronounced Fosh), who plays a neurotic young woman having strange nightmares and calls upon Dr. Ordway to pay a house call at her seaside estate. There is no shortage of suspicious characters not the least of which is Nina's chemist uncle Frank Swift, played by the always enjoyable George Zucco. Other familiar faces include Lester Matthews and Ben Welden. A screen heartthrob during the early talkie era whose health problems by this time included emphysema and arthritis, Warner Baxter was truly grateful for the steady employment of a 'B' movie series like this one. Columbia was one of the few Hollywood majors whose bread and butter came from series like the Crime Doctor, The Whistler, Boston Blackie, and the trio of "I Love a Mystery," all of which were based on popular radio shows of the day. Until their recent airings on TCM, these films had not been widely seen so 'B' movie buffs like myself have been rejoicing ever since. The Crime Doctor series differs from the others in that (with the exception of the initial entry) the title character was never saddled with a love interest and always dedicated to the psychological aspects of the cases (shades of Philo Vance!). Warner Baxter was a native of Columbus Ohio who died in 1951 at the age of 62, much beloved at the time but quietly forgotten today, although his early talkies include appearances opposite Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. While none of Dr. Robert Ordway's adventures were truly outstanding, the only one I could not recommend remains the one set in Paris (the ninth, "The Crime Doctor's Gamble," director William Castle's 4th and last entry). Perhaps the most intriguing entry would be the last, "The Crime Doctor's Diary" (1949) which featured an early Hollywood appearance by future Moneypenny Lois Maxwell.

Nina Foch comes to see psychiatrist Warner Baxter. She''s been sleepwalking onto the beach from her house by the shore, and having threatening, incoherent dreams. Eventually, Baxter comes to visit her. Miss Foch's family is decayed gentry. Although she has the house, she earns a living as a textile designer. She also runs a perpetual house party for family and friends, including mildly nutty chemist George Zucco, her sister and brother-in-law, and so forth. To see if there is something about her bedroom, she sleeps in one of the guest rooms and has Baxter take hers for the night.... and he has threatening, incoherent dreams and goes sleepwalking onto the beach. Then Zucco turns up dead.....and everyone in the house seems intent on the inquest declaring it an accident.

It's a pretty good mystery, although there's a fake-science edge to it, but the cast of capable performers do nicely with the material under high-speed director Eugene Forde. The result is an excellent B picture, one of the series that occupied Bater for most of the last decade of his life.

One thing about Dr. Robert Ordway he keeps some strange office hours As in Shadows In The Night when Nina Foch comes to his home in the middle of the night and invites him to her place. Off he goes without any hesitation.

Foch is a rich young woman who has a collection of permanent party guests, friends and relatives of a sinister nature. Right now Foch is just having sleepwalking problems, but soon murder among he guests happens.

The solution is a scientific one and the murder for very understandable motives. With his knowledge of medicine and the mind Warner Baxter figures it out.

The murderer was not who I expected so that is always a plus.

When the young "Lois" (Nina Foch) starts having nightmares at her seaside home, she calls in the help of renowned psycho-sleuth "Ordway" (Warner Baxter) to help her out. He duly arrives at her rambling pile and finds on his first night that he has become a sleepwalker. Luckily he is found by "Uncle George" (George Zucco) on the beach and escorted back to the house where he discovers a body. Rousing "Lois" they return to discover it's gone! What is going on here? What's with the eerie smoke that hovers around the rooms at times? Is "Lois" just not quite the full shilling or is George Zucco up to his usual nefarious acting tricks? I quite liked this - it's dark and coastal scenario, bodies there then not and just a little chemistry do rather point us to the conclusion, but the whodunit element is still a little left field. It's production is basic, as is just about everything else - but it passes an hour enjoyably enough.