calvinnme ... might be a better title than the vague "Crime Doctor's Courage".The film starts by showing a young couple on their honeymoon. The new bride insists on going to the edge of a rocky cliff. Her husband (Stephen Crane as Gordon Carson) wants her to move away from the edge because his first wife died in an accident during the first week of their marriage just a year ago. She hit her head while swimming, it was ruled an accident, but the deceased bride's brother still thought it was murder.The couple argue. During the argument, Gordon's new wife pulls away from him, loses her footing and falls off of the cliff to her death. The sheriff calls it an accident, but the brother of the first wife believes that now Gordon is some kind of maniac that enjoys marrying women and then killing them in ways that look like accidents. His parting words to the sheriff are "Who will it be next year?".The answer to that question is Hillary Brooke as Kathleen Carson. She interrupts Dr. Robert Ordway (Warner Baxter) the psychiatrist on a vacation to sunny California that he is taking on doctor's orders. Kathleen has only been married one day and believes her husband could be insane. She asks Ordway to dinner to observe her husband. There are quite a few people at the dinner besides Ordway and the Carsons, and one of the servants is actually the first bride's brother who apparently has been popping up all over the place for the last year urging Gordon to either commit himself to an asylum or commit suicide before he kills someone else. Gordon is obviously troubled, retires to his study alone, and a shot rings out. Ordway and crime novelist Jeff Jerome (Jerome Cowan) burst in and find a gun near the body of Gordon, but the gun is cold. Somebody has tried to cover the murder of Gordon Carson with a fake suicide. But who could murder Gordon when he is locked inside his study and there are bars on the only window?Ordway finds his help unwanted by the local police, but he can't help coming across clue after clue. For one, the newly widowed Kathleen disappears right after the murder, hiding at the castle like home of the mysterious Braggas. A new will leaving everything of Gordon's to Kathleen was made out the day before Gordon's death. As for the mysterious Braggas, nobody has ever seen them out after dark, there is a portrait of them that is apparently 300 years old, they keep coffins in their basement, and they perform a dancing act at a local club in which one family member disappears and then just as mysteriously reappears. Did I mention that Miguel Bragga is in love with Kathleen? Could a vampire that can disappear and reappear at will possibly be the murderer? Watch and find out in this atmospheric entry to the crime doctor series. There are more suspects than I mention here, so it is not so cut and dried as you might think and remember, this is the crime doctor we're talking about, a man of science and reason, not Kolchak the night stalker! Highly recommended.

blanche-2 In "The Crime Doctor's Courage," Dr. Ordway investigates the death of a man thought of as a black widower - both his wives plunged to their deaths on their honeymoons. The investigation leads to brother and sister Spanish dancers who might be vampires - no mirrors, one of them disappears during their dance number, and no one sees them during the day. The third wife of the black widower becomes engaged to the male dancer, and the plot thickens.The plot is all over the place, but it's quite entertaining nonetheless. The other mysteries I've seen in this series have been pretty good. This one features, besides Warner Baxter as Dr. Ordway, Jerome Cowan and Hillary Brooke.Baxter, who at one point made more money than any other star of his era, suffered a nervous breakdown, and these films offered him a chance to work without killing himself. He's so laid back and casual with his speech - it almost seems like he's ad-libbing. He lived for another six years after this film was made and after a lobotomy, developed pneumonia and died.These films were made very quickly, so little details were often missed. These Spanish dancers supposedly have this amazing act where the female disappears in the midst of it and then reappears - yet they're doing it in this little club. They receive polite applause, and afterward, the host gets up and says that the audience may be wondering about the disappearance mid-dance, but it's no trick. The dancers have the ability to make themselves invisible. Tepid applause. A statement like that deserved a little more!

Panamint This is a watchable mystery but you can't really say why. It has a sort of meandering, rambling plot but strangely it works. Although the films are no way comparable, it is same type of unpredictable plot as Tarantino's "From Dusk Till Dawn". You just don't know where it will go next, and maybe they were making up the plot as they went along, but you want to watch it anyway. The performances here are delivered straight, even the vampire angle (which the characters know is suspect, if weird.) As usual Baxter is strong and trustworthy, Brooke is classy and untrustworthy. These two solid performers do a good job and will not disappoint you.The very last scene with a cop and the Crime Doctor talking real estate exemplifies the ambling but viewable style of this type of script, where sometimes the action is quick, yet characters have time to chat about whatever. Be it Tarantino or the writers here, you are always able to watch and be entertained all the way through.

Neil Doyle This one is not only baffling, it's weird.It starts off with a good hook for drawing the viewer into the story--but then veers off in so many different directions that the plot is soon downright bizarre. The opening has HILLARY BROOKE urging Dr. Ordway (WARNER BAXTER) to attend a dinner at her home so that he can have a good look at her husband (STEPHEN CRANE), a man whose previous wives have died mysteriously and whom she suspects might be insane.When Crane is murdered that evening, behind doors in a locked room, Dr. Ordway must solve the case. LLOYD CORRIGAN is on hand as a bumbling carpenter friend but the plot revolves around Spanish dancers (ANTHONY CARUSO and LUPITA TOVAR), suspected of being vampires because no one has ever seen them in daylight.A series of baffling twists and turns shed little light on whatever the outcome of the case will be--and the explanations that come forth during the film's last five minutes are less than satisfying, nor are they the least bit credible.It's a murky yarn that starts out acceptably in typical mystery fashion, but soon gets bogged down in a far-fetched story that deals with vampirism, a jealous suitor, trick effects to make a dancer disappear, and a rather abrupt ending with virtually no character development to prepare the viewer for the final explanation.Summing up: Interesting, but a bizarre mixture of mystery elements.