Dr. Broadway

I saw this when the late William K. Everson did a whole weekend of Paramount B movies, and it was easily the winner out of the whole batch, slick and atmospheric. The first feature of radio director (and Chaplin assistant director) Anthony Mann, it was a highly promising debut that inexplicably led neither to a Dr. Broadway series nor an immediate studio contract for Mann(not that the string of low-budget Bs Mann did follow it with, including Railroaded, T-Men and He Walked By Night, would necessarily have been better made at bigger studios).

Future soap opera star Macdonald Carey stars as Dr. Broadway, so-called because he serves as all-purpose medico, advisor and crime-solver to the Runyonesque denizens of Broadway. Carey is a little bland in the lead, which may be why a series didn't follow, but J. Carrol Naish is terrific as a sinister criminal who operates a tailor shop as a front-- the scene where he "takes the measure" of Dr. Broadway could have inspired the more obviously sexual double entendre banter in The Big Sleep about what kind of horse Lauren Bacall likes to ride.