Crime Doctor - THE MILLERSON CASE (1947)

I’m a fan of the Columbia mystery film series of Crime Doctor tales even as I sometimes feel they are far from perfect. The problem I usually have is evident in the 1947 entry THE MILLERSON CASE in which our main character goes on a country vacation for relaxation but ends up (of course) involved in solving a murder.

The film’s first oddity caused me to wonder just how far into the country Dr. Ordway had driven and in which direction. Had he travelled by car from New York City to Kentucky? Because fully half of the characters he encounters in the small rural village where the story takes place have southern accents while the others sound as if they hail from the Midwest. I kept wanting to know the locale of this tale or at least the state we were in but never got any clue even after the State Police show up. Are we in New Jersey? Upstate New York? Help a curious viewer out, dammit!

But the thing that takes this film down a notch or two from the standard for the series is the same thing that always creeps into mind as I watch any of them. Often it feels like the script was written to be about ten or fifteen minutes longer than it was filmed to be. Some elements are rushed and plot points are glossed over that would be more entertaining if detailed a bit more. Often these rushed moments center on the main character and his methods of investigation making it seem as if the director was wanting to get on with things instead of letting us admire the cleverness of the Crime Doctor. Or it might have been the choice of actor Walter Baxter trying to keep the pace of things quick. I don’t know. But the speeding past explanations of things often causes me mental whiplash and the desire for a more careful look at the scene as it plays.

A perfect example of this in THE MILLERSON CASE involves Dr. Ordway hypnotizing a murder suspect. We are dropped roughly into the scene with no explanation of what is going on and then watch the question-and-answer session play out, complete with onscreen visualization of the story being related by the hypnotized man. This seems to exonerate the fellow but after the suspect leaves Ordway tells the assembled police witnesses to the whole thing that he wasn’t really under hypnosis at all. Because he showed strong emotions while ‘under’ the man was faking, so the entire story he told could be a fabrication. WTF? Ordway claims to have known he wasn’t really hypnotized but let things continue to see what he would say. Come on! There had to be a better way to handle this information drop. And Baxter rushes through the entire explanation so fast I wonder if he might have felt the same way. It is a silly scene and perhaps he was somewhat embarrassed by it.

Of course, I still enjoyed the film. I’m a sucker for these kind of hour-long mystery thrillers, but this is not the best of the Crime Doctor run. By the way – why aren’t these on DVD or Blu-Ray yet? Why are YouTube uploads of the Turner Classic Movies broadcasts the only way to see these fun movies?