The Strange Case of Doctor RX

USA 1942
produced by
Universal
directed by William Nigh
starring Patric Knowles, Mantan Moreland, Anne Gwynne, Lionel Atwill, Samuel S. Hinds, Mona Barrie, Shemp Howard, Paul Cavanagh, Edmund MacDonald, John Gallaudet, William Gould, Leyland Hodgson, Matty Fain, Mary Gordon, Jan Wiley, Boyd Davis, Victor Zimmerman, Paul Bryar, Harry Harvey, & Ray Corrigan (= Ray 'Crash' Corrigan) as a gorilla
written by Clarence Upson Young, music by Hans J. Salter, Frank Skinner

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Dudley Crispin (Samuel S.Hinds) is a brilliant attorney, yet all his clients who get free - murderers, invariably - are murdered by strangulation soon afterwards, including one (Matty Fain) who was strangled right in court, except there was nobody there to strangle him ... plus, all the stiffs carry a note claiming a certain Doctor RX murdered them.

For a mystery like that, it needs a master detective, and somehow, Crispin manages to persuade super sleuth Jerry Church (Patric Knowles) to take the job.

During most of the film, Church doesn't seem to be doing much investigating, instead he constantly teases his cop friend Captain Hurd (Edmund MacDonald), bullies his valet (Mantan Moreland) around, gets into arguments with lovely mystery writer Kit (Anne Gwynne), marries lovely mystery writer Kit (Anne Gwynne), decides to give up investigations, then is forced by a gangster boss (John Gallaudet) to continue investigating, and in the end he is abducted by Doctor RX (who wears a mask) and is threatened to have his brain exchanged for that of a gorilla (Ray Crash Corrigan) ... that though was only a ploy by RX to scare Church witless. But Church doesn't scare easily, and in the end, he can reveal lawyer Crispin to be the perpetrator, claiming he is a schizophrenic, who is a brilliant attorney by day but a wicked executor by night, and he used a poison from Africa shot from his pen to kill ... and that poison causes symptoms of strangulation in those affected ...

Lionel Atwill has a pointless but slightly amusing role as Church's companion tieing up all the loose ends in the end.

On the plus side, The Strange Case of Doctor RX is solidly acted, has a fine cast and even some good (if by no means great) moments ... the problem with the film though is that ir desperately lacks direction, much of the short running time of this murder mystery is wasted on scenes about the romance, marriage and marital disputes between Patric Knowles and Anne Gwynne which do not help the film move along one bit, then there are many subplots one could have done without either, like the whole story about the gangster forcing Knowles to continue investigations or Knowles teasing his cop buddy ... with all these scenes, one occasionally forgets what the movie is actually about - and the mock horror ending with the gorilla is nothing short of ridiculous (but not in a good way). The only scenes that actually seem to hold the film together are those featuring the comic reliefs Mantan Moreland as valet and Shemp Howard as ineffective detective, but that's not enough to save the film ...

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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