Time for a blast from the past on this Labor Day holiday, it's all about Jerry Church played by Patric Knowles, he's a private eye hired by a criminal defense lawyer after five mobsters he's gotten acquitted are then murdered by a serial killer named Doctor RX. Patric Knowles also appeared in these movies... THE WOLF MAN, FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN, FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON and his next to last credit was for TERROR IN THE WAX MUSEUM in 1973.
I have a sound clip for your approval,
sooooo, you can push the big red
'GO' button located there by our tore up gorilla cage,
NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula!.. Here's a little sample from...
THE STRANGE CASE OF DOCTOR RX!
Great start to the story, another acquitted mobster found hanged in his bedroom...
Then, time for a little comedy with our Dungeon pal, Mantan Moreland as Horatio B. Fitz Washington, you can hear him and the telegram delivery boy hash it out in the sound clip.
I threw in this pic because of the size differences between Patric and Mantan. Patric was 6' 2" tall, Mantan's height was not given in his bio but you can see he was just a little guy!
At the next trial, this gangster takes a poison pill instead of his heart medicine right after he's acquitted. Strangely, Lionel Atwill is there as Dr. Fish, sounds fishy to me! Anyway, he's there in court for some unknown reason and pronounces the guy dead!
Shemp Howard is in this one too, as Det. Sgt. Sweeney, it's always great to see his ugly puss!
Doctor RX kidnaps Jerry, you can hear in the sound clip the fate the doc has in store for him. Crash Corrigan plays Nbongo the ape, what else?!
Jerry is in a tough situation, and...
Horatio is forced to watch the gruesome goings on!
Check this out... I had one of these radios, it had the plug missing and I thought it was not in working condition. I sold it as is to a guy from Australia on eBay, he wrote me back, he added a plug cord and the damn thing worked perfectly! I could have gotten quite a bit more for it had I known that.
Okay, okay, here's pretty little Anne Gwynne as Jerry's estranged wifey, Kit.
It seems that Doctor RX released Jerry and Horatio before anything real bad happened, he just wanted to scare them real good. Jerry's in the hospital now after him and Horatio were found just wandering around town. Jerry has apparently been scared senseless and a group of people have came to watch Dr. Fish examine him.
The jig is up and the real Doctor RX is exposed, it was all an elaborate set up to trick the murderer, and it works, case closed!!
Fun ending as this little group of detectives give their farewells... Check back Wednesday as the Dungeon Express keeps on tooling down the track!
But, but...who was the real murderer...?!
ReplyDeleteHi Scout, you're led to believe from the beginning that the murderer is Dr. Fish, until the last moments - Doc RX was the guy who hired Jerry in the first place, the criminal defense lawyer...
ReplyDeleteI expected (SPOILER ALERT) Dr. Fish to be the killer, just because he was played by Lionel Atwill. That was a great thing about actors like Atwill, Karloff, and Lugosi. Their image as villains in horror movies made them perfect red herrings. (END SPOILER WARNING)
ReplyDeleteIt's always fun to see Shemp. He actually had a solo career (The Bank Dick, Africa Screams, Arabian Nights, Crazy House) before he replaced Curly in the Stooges.