Shadows in the Night

Flaccid. Incoherent. I don't know what movie other reviewers saw but this was truly a mess. Not enough of a motivator in the plot to generate all the mayhem and is never fully explained. Well it's explained and the explanation is absurd and unrealistic. You Tube has all the Crime Doctor movies available, which is where I found this one. I will watch another one as the cast was good in this particular offering. Very atmospheric. Looked like it had potential. What a dud. Many thanks to the other reviewers of this picture for the historical background on the series. Your synopses of the movie were far more interesting than the film itself. I found it trite, un-engaging and ridiculous. My opinion only. No one has to agree with me. I'll give the series another chance though.

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.

Having seen most of the series over the decades there's a couple of Crime Doctor films I've still to see, this was one of them until last night. Was it worth it the wait? Like the previous commenter, as a fan of b movie detective films (especially from the Golden Age): Yes! This was no. 3 and Columbia were well into their stride by now – and with Boston Blackie, the Lone Wolf and the Whistler – churning out 10 films in 6 years until everyone ran out of steam in 1949.

A mysterious woman visits Dr. Ordway (always played by the ever dependable Warner Baxter) at 3 am in the pouring rain for his psychiatric help because she doesn't know whether the bad dreams she's having tempting her to suicide are actually real. This leads him to stay at her spooky but extremely scenic house and grounds by the ocean containing a motley assemblage of strange guests and staff with secrets galore – when one of them gets murdered the game is afoot to unmask the culprit. The usual stuff in other words, but expertly handled with high production values and a nice brooding smoky atmosphere. George Zucco helps the film but hinders Ordway as a fairly mad scientist – a brilliant stroke to put him in! Distracted Nina Foch plays the woman apparently having nightmares; just about the only film you see her in over here nowadays is An American In Paris. Favourite bits: Ordway's sleepwalking adventure; searching the cellars and the dark underground journey. It's all reasonably cogent and it all fits neatly together by the end.

A nice entry in the series, one I can recommend to fans of the genre as usual and encourage non-fans to save their time as usual.

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.

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.