When the Crime Doctor series started the cast was filled with known names - on their way up (Ellen Drew) or down (Margaret Lindsay) but as the series progressed the names were often obscure - although the production levels were always high. The biggest name in "The Millerson Case", apart from Warner Baxter, was Barbara Pepper who had really only ever been an interesting supporting player. She had started out as the bleached blonde tramp in "Our Daily Bread" who gives leading actress, Karen Morley, a few anxious moments when she makes a play for her husband. She had a similar look (back then) to Lucille Ball (who was a good friend) but apart from a couple of poverty row leads ("Rogue's Tavern") she is remembered more for her portrayal of a vicious gun moll in "Let 'Em Have It". Unfortunately with a difficult private life she didn't keep her looks and in "The Millerson Case" she played Eadie Rookstool, the town vamp, who instantly starts making eyes at a very nervous Dr. Ordway.
This is a bit out of the ordinary for a Crime Doctor movie as it deals with the outbreak of a typhoid epidemic in a rural community. Dr. Ordway, in town for a much needed vacation, instantly falls foul of the local doctor, Millerson, who doesn't believe in sterilization and treats everything, from gunshot wounds to dizziness, with herbal concoctions. When Ordway looks into the bout of "summer sickness" that hits the community every year he realises, through examining blood samples that it is typhoid and that even though 3 people have died, the third person didn't die of typhoid but was murdered. He was Ward Beechy, the barber, and the local Lothario - so there is no end of suspects - any of the women or their jealousy fuelled husbands or swains!!!
As usual Ordway's sense of fair play and justice have him championing Millerson when the rest of the town are eager to make him chief suspect. He is the town grump and is always at loggerheads with the town's other doctor, Wickersham (Addison Richards) and his "new fangled" ideas. The murdered man had changed doctor's, going over to Wickersham but a few other mysterious happenings, potshots taken at Wickersham and Ordway's gun going missing and when Millerson turns up dead, motives have to be rethought!!
Like others in the series this is just a great rainy day movie, there are loads of suspects and the guilty one is never the most obvious.
This is a bit out of the ordinary for a Crime Doctor movie as it deals with the outbreak of a typhoid epidemic in a rural community. Dr. Ordway, in town for a much needed vacation, instantly falls foul of the local doctor, Millerson, who doesn't believe in sterilization and treats everything, from gunshot wounds to dizziness, with herbal concoctions. When Ordway looks into the bout of "summer sickness" that hits the community every year he realises, through examining blood samples that it is typhoid and that even though 3 people have died, the third person didn't die of typhoid but was murdered. He was Ward Beechy, the barber, and the local Lothario - so there is no end of suspects - any of the women or their jealousy fuelled husbands or swains!!!
As usual Ordway's sense of fair play and justice have him championing Millerson when the rest of the town are eager to make him chief suspect. He is the town grump and is always at loggerheads with the town's other doctor, Wickersham (Addison Richards) and his "new fangled" ideas. The murdered man had changed doctor's, going over to Wickersham but a few other mysterious happenings, potshots taken at Wickersham and Ordway's gun going missing and when Millerson turns up dead, motives have to be rethought!!
Like others in the series this is just a great rainy day movie, there are loads of suspects and the guilty one is never the most obvious.