The Crime Doctor series were mostly partially eponymously named movies, but The Millerson Case (1947) was one of the exceptions, which has no particular bearing on the movie or much else. Dr. Ordway seeks to find relaxation in a long-delayed vacation, only to have the inhabitants of the small town to which he travels hate each other so much that they’re killing each other – or at least engaging in “shemale” fights. Under cover of a typhoid epidemic being mishandled by the town’s elderly, cantankerous Doctor Millerson, a murder of the town’s handsomest man occurs, and is only detected because Dr. Ordway has been drafted by the county doctors to help out with shots and blood analyses. He then proceeds, with evident reluctance, to lose his vacation to the duties of being a psychologist with insights into the doings of criminals, having been one himself, and, after the prime suspect is lured to an isolated location and shot to death, he finally establishes the identity of the killer, a man jealous of his wife’s extramarital proclivities.
The movie features the smooth Warner Baxter in the title role, a couple of excellent (almost too excellent) character actors handling the roles of Dr. Millerson and the town sheriff, and a generally interesting plot, mostly in that almost nobody in this example of small-town America really likes anyone else – sometimes spouses included.
But – in the “but” section of this review – why did the dunce identify the wrong man as shooting Dr. Millerson? What was the point?
But why does Dr. Millerson Ordway not believe in continuing education of, well, himself?
But why isn’t the town sheriff not doing anything more than being curmudgeonly?
But why the final scene? Just so Dr. Millerson can acquire a set of antlers to convince the home office that he’s a great hunter? Is there a hidden meaning in here? Has he somehow acquired the horns of a cuckold in some obscure joke? But he’s not even married!
It’s all a bit silly, with the a nice little ribbon around the package, but is not an awful choice if it’s a rainy afternoon, or if you’re a driven man who must see every installment of this series.
