The Crime Doctor's Gamble (1947)

Dr. Ordway travels to Paris to lecture at a conference and visit his friend the Prefecture of Police (back story implies they meet in the States 9 years before while Ordway was studying for his degree). The Prefecture takes Ordway out for a night on the town and makes sure they stop at a little bistro to watch a professional knife thrower. The Prefecture comes clean and explains to Ordway that he brought him to see the knife thrower because he views him as a potential suspect in a murder (stabbing via letter opener). The murder was that of a rich man whose son the Prefecture had served three years with in a German POW camp. This same young man had spent six months after the war in a French mental institution, and even thinks he was the one who killed his father but he can't really remember. So anyway the young man is in police custody. The young man is also engaged to the daughter of the knife thrower, but the knife thrower hates the man's father (more back story that I have frankly forgotten) and would prefer his daughter to marry a neighbour who is skilled at duplicating famous works of art. Also the dead man's lawyer is a character of some import, as is a comic relief art dealer. Another complicated Crime Doctor plot, though this one felt more grounded then a lot of them. Anyway the change to a foreign location helped to pump a little novelty into this the 9th Crime Doctor movie. **1/2