The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse-1938-Edward G. Robinson-Humphrey Bogart

The Amazing Dr Clitterhouse was successful on the London stage and mildly so in New York.

The producers have retained the basic idea from the play [by Barre Lyndon] - that of a veteran physician whose study of the physiological effects of crime on its habitues takes him on a series of ventures with a skilled gang of crooks. This thread has been followed even to the deliberate poisoning of the gangster chief by the doctor when he learns of a hood- lum's blackmailing scheme.



But in many respects it is an outright gangster film with the medico's study of criminals as the excuse for carefully diagraming the gang's operations. In addition, the feature inculcates a bit of the sherlocking theme and modified romance. Claire Trevor, the ace fence for the thieves, is the sole romance that enters the doctor's life.



Edward G. Robinson, in the role of the criminal medico, is at his best. Humphrey Bogart's interpretation of the gangster chief, whose jealousy of Clitterhouse eventually builds to the blackmail scheme, is topflight.



Ronald Reagan's voice can be heard as a radio announcer, a job that Reagan held before he started as a film actor.