The Strange Case of Doctor Rx

1942

Action / Horror / Mystery

Director

Top cast

Harry Harvey as Nightclub Manager
Frank Austin as Jury Foreman
Samuel S. Hinds as Dudley Crispin
Leyland Hodgson as Thomas- the Butler
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU
604.06 MB
1280*954
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 5 min
Seeds ...
1.09 GB
1448*1080
English 2.0
NR
23.976 fps
1 hr 5 min
Seeds 2

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by AlsExGal 4 / 10

Hard to define as either mystery or horror

In spite of a title which sounds like something for a horror film and the second billing of Lionel Atwill, this Universal programmer is a breezy "mystery" (not a lot of mystery here) which opens with a series of murders committed of men found innocent of a crime by a killer who leaves notes nearby signed, you guessed it, Doctor Rx.Patric Knowles plays a dapper detective who lives in a beautiful penthouse apartment with a servant. Don't they all? He spends much of his time looking suave and bantering, with the servant (Manton Moreland), his girlfriend (Anne Gwynne) or a hard nosed police captain (Edmund MacDonald) who wants him to work on the Dr. Rx case because, well, he's hopeless to solve it on his own.Lionel Atwill, prominently displayed in posters advertising the film and wearing coke bottle bottom glasses, also pops up on the rare occasion, as a suspect. But he's barely in this 65 minute feature. There is, for those who enjoy it, a lot more in the way of clowning from Mantan Moreland and Shemp Howard, the latter playing a police detective who, at one moment, plays craps with Moreland then arrests him for illegal gambling.As the film is winding down suddenly, out of no where and seemingly from another film, there is a ten minute sequence involving a caged ape straight out of a mad scientist horror film. It's a fun over-the-top piece of stereotypical melodrama, certainly enjoyable while it lasts, but the viewer has to wonder, "Why didn't we get this kind of stuff in the first 50 minutes of this film?"For those who enjoy Universal "B"s this is a minor effort, but they will still probably get a kick out of some of it, certainly the horror portion, brief as it is, towards the end.
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Reviewed by Bunuel1976 4 / 10

THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. RX (William Nigh, 1942) **

This obscure Universal "B" horror flick is also included in that yet-to-be released Box Set I mentioned in my review of HOUSE OF HORRORS (1946) above and, unfortunately, while I would certainly say that this one is more readily enjoyable, my verdict overall is equally lukewarm. For one thing, much of the film's entertainment value stems more from the interaction between "master" Patrick Knowles (an insurance salesman moonlighting as a private dick!) and klutzy valet Mantan Moreland (who even devices a convoluted method for remembering his most basic instructions)! Also on hand are Knowles' girl Anne Gwynne, distinguished lawyer Samuel S. Hinds (whose guilty but off-the-hook clients are meeting sudden death at the hands of the enigmatic titular medico), the bumbling investigating duo of Edmund MacDonald and Shemp Howard (of "The Three Stooges" fame) and even a brief, thankless "red herring" cameo from a mousy(!) Lionel Atwill. As I intimated earlier, the surfeit of comic incident (not to mention the endless, dull chatter in which various parties, including Hinds' brother Paul Cavanaugh, try to talk Knowles out of taking on the case) – far outweighs the film's horror elements which are puzzlingly relegated to the last five minutes of the 66-minute movie – as if the screenwriter suddenly realized which genre he was supposed to be working in! What happens towards the end, however – with the belated "in costume" appearance of the raspy-voiced doc suddenly hard at work on transplanting the brain of his caged gorilla with that of Knowles?! – comes so utterly out of left field as to seem ridiculously far-fetched and, therefore, unable to redeem this would-be chiller. But, at least, Moreland and, to a lesser extent Howard, are funny

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