L'incubo del passato

... 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.

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.

Crime Doctor (1943)

** (out of 4)

First film in Columbia's Crime Doctor series has a man (Warner Baxter) thrown out of a car, which leaves him with amnesia. Not knowing who he is, the man decides to start a new life as a doctor but then learns that in his previous life he was a gangster. This was the first film from the series that I watched and I certainly hope they get better. I suspect this film just tells a backstory, which could have been told in the first five minutes of another movie. I found the film incredibly dull and the story itself really wasn't all that involving. Baxter was good in his role but I still wouldn't rank him very high among the countless mystery/detective films of the 30's and 40's.

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 too much unbelievable baggage.

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.