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Simply Perfect

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

When the Crime Doctor heads to the boonies for a week of fishing and hunting, it is only a matter of time before murder follows. What starts off as a series of typhoid cases resulting in quarantine reveals murder. So far, so smart, but not for long. These country folk all have secret resentments, and when one of them dies of something other than typhoid, the backwoods doctor is made out to be the top suspect. There is obviously a reason why one film press agent wrote, "Hicks Nix Stykx Pix", and this just gets more and more ridiculous as it uncovers such idiot hokum as corn whiskey, home-made medical remedies and a town fair that of course ends up with a square dance. The creators were stretching this series to the max with this entry that would insult the residents of TV's Bugtustle and Petticoat Junction. Not to mention that this was a re-tread of a plot similar to 1932's "The Circus Queen Murder" where detective Adolph Menjou also headed to the country for a vacation and ended up involved in murder as well.

When the Crime Doctor series started the cast was filled with known names - on their way up (Ellen Drew) or down (Margaret Lindsay) but as the series progressed the names were often obscure - although the production levels were always high. The biggest name in "The Millerson Case", apart from Warner Baxter, was Barbara Pepper who had really only ever been an interesting supporting player. She had started out as the bleached blonde tramp in "Our Daily Bread" who gives leading actress, Karen Morley, a few anxious moments when she makes a play for her husband. She had a similar look (back then) to Lucille Ball (who was a good friend) but apart from a couple of poverty row leads ("Rogue's Tavern") she is remembered more for her portrayal of a vicious gun moll in "Let 'Em Have It". Unfortunately with a difficult private life she didn't keep her looks and in "The Millerson Case" she played Eadie Rookstool, the town vamp, who instantly starts making eyes at a very nervous Dr. Ordway.This is a bit out of the ordinary for a Crime Doctor movie as it deals with the outbreak of a typhoid epidemic in a rural community. Dr. Ordway, in town for a much needed vacation, instantly falls foul of the local doctor, Millerson, who doesn't believe in sterilization and treats everything, from gunshot wounds to dizziness, with herbal concoctions. When Ordway looks into the bout of "summer sickness" that hits the community every year he realises, through examining blood samples that it is typhoid and that even though 3 people have died, the third person didn't die of typhoid but was murdered. He was Ward Beechy, the barber, and the local Lothario - so there is no end of suspects - any of the women or their jealousy fuelled husbands or swains!!!As usual Ordway's sense of fair play and justice have him championing Millerson when the rest of the town are eager to make him chief suspect. He is the town grump and is always at loggerheads with the town's other doctor, Wickersham (Addison Richards) and his "new fangled" ideas. The murdered man had changed doctor's, going over to Wickersham but a few other mysterious happenings, potshots taken at Wickersham and Ordway's gun going missing and when Millerson turns up dead, motives have to be rethought!!Like others in the series this is just a great rainy day movie, there are loads of suspects and the guilty one is never the most obvious.

Well, one thing you can say about the Crime Doctor detective series is that it sure didn't fall into a predictable pattern. Unlike other Columbia Pictures films of the genre (such as Boston Blackie and The Lone Wolf), the plot lines and locations of the Crime Doctor films generally made them a bit fresher and more interesting.Here, oddly enough, Dr. Ordway takes a needed vacation in what looks like the Ozarks or Appalachians (though the exact setting was never mentioned). Talk about a big departure from the usual sophistication of New York! While his going there for hunting and fishing is unusual, what ISN'T unusual is that murders occur here--just like in the city! The troubles begin in this very backward little town when Typhoid breaks out and Dr. Ordway is pressed into service by the county health department. While assisting with autopsies, Ordway discovers that one of the victims has no trace of Typhoid in his blood and the man was actually poisoned! At this point, given that this is the country and Ordway is quite the amateur detective, he helps the police solve the crime as well as rid the town of infection.Because of the strange combination of the New York psychiatrist and the Li'l Abner-like locals, this makes for a very strange mix. While certainly far from the best Crime Doctor film, fans of the genre no doubt will be thrilled to see a unique story and decent writing. And don't worry--this is NOT anything like SWING YOUR LADY or other silly hillbilly films.

WARNER BAXTER was approaching the last few "Crime Doctor" films when he made THE MILLERSON CASE, about an epidemic of typhoid that's tainted by a slight case of murder. Seems that while trying to have a vacation in the country, Dr. Ordway is pressured to join other doctors in helping out when typhoid strikes the townspeople.A gruff country doctor (GRIFF BARNETT) opposes the notion that the epidemic is anything more than "summer complaint". But a microscopic examination of bacilii proves that one of the victims was not dead from typhoid, but poison.As usual, there are a number of suspects and Sheriff CLEM BEVANS has his hands full arresting first one, then another, each time fooled into suspecting the wrong culprits. The only quibble I have with the story is that when the denouement does come and the mystery is solved, it turns out to be the least interesting character that did it.The sleuthing is interesting in all of these "Crime Doctor" stories, and as usual, at the end there's a little extra surprise thrown in at the last moment.Reliable character actor GRIFF BARNETT, as Dr. Millerson, was a busy character actor throughout the '40s and '50s, most memorable as Olivia de Havilland's druggist father in TO EACH HIS OWN ('46). He played a much more likable character in that one.