calvinnme ... 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.

sol **SPOILERS** Left for dead as he's thrown from a speeding car the man, Warner Baxter,recovers but completely lost his memory of just who he is and what was the reason for he his attempted murder. In the hospital the nurses are just crazy about the tall dark and handsome, as well as bandaged, stranger whom they affectionately give him the name of the wing of the hospital that he's staying in Robert Ordway a well known philanthropist and humanitarian.Ordway obsessed in finding out his identity, since no one in the medical profession could, goes the full nine yards in working his way through medical school as well as getting a degree in psychology, this in eight hard and back breaking years. Now a full fledged doctor and psychiatrist Dr. Ordway has just about forgotten what was the reason he put himself through all this just like he forgot who he originally was. Dr. Ordway is now a respected member of the community and has finally put his past, whatever that was, behind him until he meets some old friends, that knew him before he became Dr. Ordway, and that shocked him back to reality.The first of the "Crime Doctor" series that in fact establishes that the "Crime Doctor" Dr. Robert Ordway was into crime himself before he, with the help of hitting himself on the head, became the famous "Crime Doctor". The movie makes a plea to the audience that just because one has a criminal past doesn't mean that he'll have a criminal future as well. This is firmly established in Dr. Ordway himself who was in his previous incarnation the ruthless and brutal crime boss Phil Morgan. Morgan was the mastermind of the notorious Nordon payroll robbery back in 1932 that resulted in him being double-crossed by his associates, fellow hoods, Emlio Joe Nick & Myrtle.What Emilio and his gang didn't know when they double crossed Morgan is that Morgan had in fact double-crossed them in switching the suitcase with the payroll cash, $200,000.00,with a suitcase stuffed with old newspapers. Ordway now a marked man after he was spotted, by one of his former gang members, with his girlfriend Grace Fielding, Margaret Lindsay, is to really go all out in not only finding out who he is but were he hid the stolen payroll cash; the only thing that can keep him alive as long as Emilio & Co. don't get their hands on it.In the end Ordway/Morgan pays his debt to society not in just the good work that he did as a prison doctor and member of the parole board but also has the hoods, Emilio & Co, who tried to do him in brought to justice. As for reformed hoodlum Robert Ordway/Phil Morgan Justice being both just and merciful took into account Dr. Ordways accomplishments in both medicine and psychiatry, as well as him turning around the lives of the many convicts under his care, and forgave, with the jury recommending mercy, his past and youthful discretions. This had the presiding judge, who was ready to throw the book at him, put the grateful Dr. Ordway on probation for ten years.

Nojaa I recently saw all of the Crime Doctor movies on Turner Classic Movies. I'd sure like to see these made available on DVD, but it doesn't seem that they're available on ANY medium yet. I rather enjoyed all of the movies of the "Crime Doctor" series. I have a particular affinity for detective stories and crime dramas from that time period, in both the movie and radio formats. I consider them to be at least the same caliber as the "Thin Man" series, although "Crime Doctor" tended to be more cerebral, while Nick Charles was rather more flamboyant and party-hardy, and I suspect that Asta was smarter than he was!If the Crime Doctor is made available on DVD, perhaps they might at least be released on CD as an audio series. Perhaps I might even be able to find some of the original issues from Detective Comics.

MartinHafer In the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood made a huge number of "B" detective series films. They were called "B" because they had lower budgets, were shorter than the average film and were meant to be the second film in a double feature--the lesser of the two films. In general, these films were a lot of fun to watch BUT they also were very formulaic and repetitive. I enjoy Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chan, Boston Blackie and the Saint, but will gladly admit that once you've seen a few they all seem to blend together--particularly the Blackie series. It is because of this sameness that I really, really appreciate the Crime Doctor films--they are not so predictable and offer some nice innovations.This movie is the first, and from what I've seen, the best of the Crime Doctor films. It sets the stage for future films by explaining how Warner Baxter became a psychiatrist and crime solver and is well-written and interesting throughout--even though this movie's plot isn't original--having been a variation on a film from 1936. The acting is very good and the film is played more seriously than the average film of the genre--with no goofy sidekick or stupid police investigator. And, frankly, this is a good thing as the others are clichés that just seem to permeate almost every B detective film. Give it a watch--it's very enjoyable and doesn't disappoint, as the characters behave intelligently and believably.