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Greetings, and welcome to VIEWING THE CLASSICS. Here you'll find capsule reviews of vintage movies from the early days of cinema through the 1970s, with a special emphasis on sci-fi, horror, and mystery movies. Be sure to check out the Pages links, where you can find a Film Index of all my reviews, links to the reviews organized by cast members, directors, and other contributors, and links to my reviews of the films of talented young director Joshua Kennedy.

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Saturday, February 22, 2014

The Mysterious Doctor (1943)

Starring John Loder, Eleanor Parker, Bruce Lester, Lester Matthews, Forrester Harvey
Directed by Ben Stoloff
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)

A doctor on a walking trip visits an English village where he learns the deaths of men working in an old tin mine have been blamed on a legendary headless ghost.

A fun wartime programmer from Warner Brothers, this is a modest B-movie, but a well-assembled one with swirling fog, eerie music, and a top-flight cast.  Actor Matt Willis, who played Bela Lugosi's werewolf assistant in The Return Of The Vampire around the same time, is memorable as a mentally retarded man who becomes a prime suspect in the killings, and Parker is good as the brave young beauty who comes to his defense.  Although some elements of the mystery are a bit transparent, Stoloff still leads the proceedings efficiently towards an exciting climax.

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