Le docteur de la mort

Calling Dr. Death (1943) is the first of six Inner Sanctum films starring Lon Chaney, Jr. The film is a dark mystery-thriller about a neurologist named Dr. Mark Steel and his cheating wife Maria. Maria has a lover which has upset Dr. Steel. Dr. Steel and his nurse Stella Madden has developed a closeness but refrains themselves from a romance. Maria goes away for the weekend but has been found murdered. The police are investigating while Dr. Steel feels he may have murdered his own wife... the question is did he (Dr. Steel) kill her or was it someone else?

A good watch if you like film-noir, mysteries, and the Universal classic horror films.

8/10

Hypnotist's faithless wife is murdered and cops suspect him until a likelier suspect emerges who may or may not be guilty.

Old radio fans no doubt recognize the Inner Sanctum origins of this film and the series that followed. Those old radio half-hours emphasized the mysterious and the darkly psychological and were nearly always entertaining. (In fact, I think the origins of post-war noir lie as much in these radio shows as they do in the better-known movie precursors.) Fortunately, this series, like its radio namesake, trades on the offbeat and chilling, and though these programmers fail to reach the memorable level of Columbia's comparable Whistler entries, the Inner Sanctum movies have their own virtues and are worth catching up with.

This first entry doesn't really grab until the last 15 minutes or so. Then it takes off with a surprise ending and especially with the surreal dream sequence. There's one got'cha in the sequence that shows real imagination. Yes, the storyline doesn't always make sense and I'm still puzzled by some of the relationships. Then too, looks to me like Chaney's not too interested in his part as the psychologist. Catch that one confrontational scene with faithless wife Maria (Ames) where both deliver their lines like they've been woodenly memorized. Nonetheless, Ames is drop-dead gorgeous in her high-fashion gown circa 1943, while Morison (nurse Stella) has the most fetching over-bite this side of Gene Tierney. All in all, this hour of intrigue is spotty but does show promise for future entries.

(In passing—those Chaney voice-overs conveying his private thoughts are a carry- over from radio where they were necessary to prevent "dead air.")

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.

the music is very good and a cast with Lon Chaney Patricia Morison J.Carrol Naish makes this a great little b movie. Also Ramsey Ames is Quite stunning as always. These inner sanctum movies are a lot of fun if you are a fan of the thirties and forties Universal horror pictures. The director Reginald Leborg was a skilled director who never got the credit he deserved. The movie has some very interesting camera techniques rarely seen in pictures of this era. Patricia Morison once said that Lon Chaney came up to her and shook her hand and told her that it was an honor to work with her. She was quite touched by this and had a number of nice things to say about Lon in an interview she gave about ten years ago.

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.