The Crime Doctor series was usually consistent in it's style and excellence, helped enormously by Warner Baxter as the unobtrusive doctor. The stories were always a bit different to the usual cops and robbers fare with Doctor Ordway's most important job to get to the root of the patient's problem. This movie, though, seems to have it's fair share of holes and starts out with a troubled man, having lost his first wife on their honeymoon and soon to lose his second in a rock slide - again on their honeymoon. Even though the fall was an accident it was caused by the young man's strange behaviour and though he is acquitted, the brother of his first wife feels it was no accident.
Dr. Ordway enters the picture when a newly married socialite Kathleen Massey (Hillary Brooke) begs him to come to dinner to observe her husband and diagnose whether he is insane or not!!! Yes, it is the same husband whose former wives were involved in those honeymoon accidents. The brother who made the original allegations keeps popping up everywhere driving Carson (dare I say it) insane, until this particular night he makes his appearance as a waiter and has it out with Carson in front of everybody - minutes later Carson is found dead!!
Now the storyline goes off on a completely different tangent - wants you to forget about Carson and his troubles (the brother doesn't appear again!!) and concentrate on Kathleen, who apparently has always loved Miguel Bragga (Anthony Caruso) (well for a few weeks anyway) - who, along with his sister (Lupita Tovar) have a mystical disappearing dancing act that they perform at a local night club. As Kathleen tells yet another of her love sick suitors, she liked Carson "well enough" but only married him for the financial help he could give her father. I think the viewer loses sympathy for her and seeing she tends to disappear from the second half - it doesn't help her case!!
The movie then concentrates on the Braggas who, publicity says, are a pair of modern day vampires who are never seen in the day time, never sleep in their beds and when Ordway makes a search of their "castle", finds two silk lined coffins in the basement. His buddy in this movie is a writer (Jerome Cowan) who has cooked up the vampire publicity for the pair and brings them to Ordway's notice when he comments on their amazing disappearing act. Even though production values are good and events are explained, the ending seems hastily put together - it would have been interesting to keep the angry brother around, at least as a red herring!!
Still it was nice to see Lupita Tovar again. She had a few roles in the early thirties, usually as "native girl" and she was in the Spanish version of "Dracula" but she married director Paul Kohner and retired (their daughter was actress Susan Kohner). And I am definitely convinced that it is Virginia Mayo by the pool - what do other people think???
Dr. Ordway enters the picture when a newly married socialite Kathleen Massey (Hillary Brooke) begs him to come to dinner to observe her husband and diagnose whether he is insane or not!!! Yes, it is the same husband whose former wives were involved in those honeymoon accidents. The brother who made the original allegations keeps popping up everywhere driving Carson (dare I say it) insane, until this particular night he makes his appearance as a waiter and has it out with Carson in front of everybody - minutes later Carson is found dead!!
Now the storyline goes off on a completely different tangent - wants you to forget about Carson and his troubles (the brother doesn't appear again!!) and concentrate on Kathleen, who apparently has always loved Miguel Bragga (Anthony Caruso) (well for a few weeks anyway) - who, along with his sister (Lupita Tovar) have a mystical disappearing dancing act that they perform at a local night club. As Kathleen tells yet another of her love sick suitors, she liked Carson "well enough" but only married him for the financial help he could give her father. I think the viewer loses sympathy for her and seeing she tends to disappear from the second half - it doesn't help her case!!
The movie then concentrates on the Braggas who, publicity says, are a pair of modern day vampires who are never seen in the day time, never sleep in their beds and when Ordway makes a search of their "castle", finds two silk lined coffins in the basement. His buddy in this movie is a writer (Jerome Cowan) who has cooked up the vampire publicity for the pair and brings them to Ordway's notice when he comments on their amazing disappearing act. Even though production values are good and events are explained, the ending seems hastily put together - it would have been interesting to keep the angry brother around, at least as a red herring!!
Still it was nice to see Lupita Tovar again. She had a few roles in the early thirties, usually as "native girl" and she was in the Spanish version of "Dracula" but she married director Paul Kohner and retired (their daughter was actress Susan Kohner). And I am definitely convinced that it is Virginia Mayo by the pool - what do other people think???