The Crime Doctors Warning (1945)

This, the fourth Crime Doctor picture was directed by a pre-celebrity William Castle, and yes you can see his taste for the odd twist on display, though here it makes even less sense then usual. The Crime Doctor (Warner Baxter) is brought in to help the police investigate the death of a young model just arrived in town. On his way out of the crime scene Dr. Ordway is a approached by a young man who quickly runs away when the doctor attempts to speak to him. The next day this same young man arrives at the crime doctors office, he explains that he has been experiencing periods of "missing time" lately and is concerned what he might be doing. As the young man says he can usually sense when one of his spells is coming on Dr. Ordway advises that he be called the next time this looks like it is going to happen, day or night.

The young man is a struggling artist living in the same bohemian complex as the murdered girl, he is also dating/engaged to one of his models. While painting her the lad starts to feel one of his episodes coming on and phones the doctor accordingly, the model leaves at around this time. When Ordway arrives at the mans residence he finds a party going on, celebrating the recent sale of the one of the kids paintings. He tells Ordway that the moment passed but thanks him for coming anyway, then someone discovers the dead model under a trundle bed. Everything points to the young mans guilt, but the Crime Doctor isn't so sure, which is appropriate because it would be to obvious for the logical suspect to actually be the murder in one of these movies.

Now I'm going to spoil it for you, the murder turns out to be a middle aged man who has been making a living as an artist model since he was a little boy, he will pose in all sorts of getup and costume makeup and have his portrait painted as a sea captain, ect. Anyway this man is just kind of struggling along in his profession at this point, and he blames all the beautiful women that painters prefer to paint, so of course he starts killing them. Makes sense, no? The women he murdered had all once posed for the same painting, and the struggling artist protagonist has a disapproving, rich wheelchair bound mother, and on an on. No doesn't make much sense, but the fact that its odd makes it tolerable. **