n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

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

Directed by Anatole Litvak, with a screenplay co-written by John Huston, this above average comedic crime drama featuring Edward G. Robinson, also stars Claire Trevor and Humphrey Bogart, among several other Warner Bros. stock players.The titled Doctor (Robinson) is a respected Park Avenue physician, a frequent guest at high society parties, who personally engages in thievery as research for a book that he hopes will provide insight into the physiology of the criminal, and "his" mind. During this quest for knowledge, Dr. Clitterhouse associates with the city's highest stakes fence Jo Keller (Trevor) and "her" gang, led by "Rocks" Valentine (Bogart), while trying to avoid capture by his acquaintance, Police Inspector Lewis Lane (Donald Crisp). The performances by its three leads (Robinson, Trevor, & Bogart) are particularly good.Clitterhouse has just beaten a member of Rocks's gang to a safe full of jewels at a Park Avenue party he's attended. After checking on a patient's condition by phone, he even calls the police and attends to the "innocent" criminal who was captured and shot in the confusion. Naturally, he avoided Police Inspector Lane's suspicion, under whose nose he escapes with his bounty on his way to surgery (on Thurston Hall's character, that appears again later). His nurse (Gale Page) discovers the jewels and learns from the Doctor that he is doing research - recording his own physical reactions before, during, and after committing these crimes (four, so far) - in hopes of writing an insightful book about it for the benefit of science and/or law enforcement. Because she's obviously fond of her employer of many years, whom she feels is just overworked, she agrees not to tell anyone.In order to learn more, Clitterhouse and nurse even visit his acquaintance, Inspector Lane, to find out what he should do next. The Inspector freely shares that a jewel thief will try to pawn his take and even gives Clitterhouse the name of the one most likely able to handle the caliber of stuff that's been stolen. So, Clitterhouse goes to the Sequin Hotel, which is owned by the pawn named Keller, whom he is surprised to find out is a woman named Jo.One of the film's best scenes involves Clitterhouse's "introduction" to the gang of thieves with which Jo is associated. His visit just happens to coincide with the appearance of Rocks and a raid on her hotel. Clitterhouse quickly hides the jewels in a bowl of pretzels and then proceeds to "dress down" police Lieutenant Ethelbert Johnson (Robert Homans); his logical approach to the situation helps him avoid giving his name and endears him to Jo and the gang which includes her bodyguard Butch (Maxie Rosenbloom), Okay (Allen Jenkins), and Tug (Ward Bond) among others.Rocks, who'd been hiding in the closet, was not so impressed and/or immediately recognizes the threat to his leadership. Clitterhouse and Jo discuss a partnership, his brain with her people, which then enables him to study a larger population of criminals' reactions before, during and after their crimes. He pretends to go abroad while he sets up shop at a studio where the gang pretends to be musicians when they're not carrying out the crimes that the Doctor has planned. Mild humor and symptoms, such as Okay losing his voice when he gets nervous, are incorporated while Rocks bides his time and waits for the proper moment to regain the power again.That opportunity comes when Clitterhouse plans a large fur heist. Jo, who's fallen in love with the Doctor, suspects that Rocks may be up to something and sends her heavy Butch, for the first time, on the job. Sure enough, Rocks seizes the chance by locking Clitterhouse in the safe, which he'd opened by hand, on his way out. However, because Rocks also turned up the safe's cooling system, the Doctor's respiratory system was lowered long enough for Butch to torch the safe open again, and before he'd run out of oxygen.An anxious Jo and company wait at the studio for Clitterhouse's return, but just as Rocks is being questioned, Butch and the Doctor arrive. Without explicitly exposing Rocks, Clitterhouse decides that his work is done, that Rocks can have his gang back, and gives the boys their final payoffs before leaving. A cheap plot device involving the phone is used that enables Rocks to track the Doctor, heretofore known to the gang only as "the Professor", back to his Park Avenue office.Jo soon follows but is too late to warn Clitterhouse before Rocks has him at the point of his gun. Rocks confiscates the Doctor's research which he protests is full of incriminating information. He then tells Clitterhouse that he likes the Doctor's setup and thinks, with Clitterhouse's social contacts, that it will be the perfect base of operations for future thefts. Trapped, Clitterhouse's warped mind rationalizes the need for yet another chapter for his book, concerning the ultimate act - murder, which he proceeds to commit by putting a specialized poison in Rocks's drink.Even though, out of love, Jo tries to confess to Inspector Lane about Rocks's murder, another couple of cheap plot devices are employed which enable Lane to arrest Clitterhouse, who had just confessed his crime to his friend and attorney Grant (Hall). Grant pleads his case as insanity to the Judge (Henry O'Neill), the jury and its exasperated foreman (Irving Bacon), against the prosecutor (John Litel).A little hackneyed perhaps, but a perfectly logical (and amazing!) verdict is eventually rendered, which somehow got by the censors at the time (who insisted that no criminal should go free and, after all, Clitterhouse was a murderer even if it was a criminal like Rocks!) - not guilty, though the Judge does recommend that the state doctor's examine him.

Missed viewing this great Classic 1938 Classic film which stars great veteran actors like Edward G. Robinson, (Dr. T S Clitterhouse) who is a psychiatrist and medical doctor who decides to investigate the world of crime. Dr. Clitterhouse gets himself involved with criminals and wants to do a study of what makes all these people chose the life of crime and even gives blood tests to all the criminals. Claire Trevor, ( Joe Keller) and Humphrey Bogart, (Rocks Vallentine) are a few of the people involved with Dr. Clitterhouse's study of the criminal mind. There is also some very comedy scenes and all the actors give an outstanding performance.

John Huston co-authored the script for THE AMAZING DR. CLITTERHOUSE and whatever fun he was having with the concept of a respected doctor who turns to crime in order to become a method criminologist by joining a hoodlum gang of thieves, it doesn't quite jell.At no time does director Anatole Litvak let us know that this is supposed to be a comedy or spoof of Warner gangster films. However, audiences must have found the idea more than a little offbeat to be taken seriously.Making things further unbelievable is the way CLAIRE TREVOR plays the gun moll with such intensity, but immediately takes a liking to the amazing doctor after opposing his very presence among them. Her shift to tender romantic feelings is blatantly unrealistic.HUMPHREY BOGART's role at least makes sense. He's the only gang member to take an instant dislike to the good doctor when he sees how assured he is in taking charge of things the moment he lands in the den of thieves. But the story takes a grim twist toward the end, dealing with Bogart's fate.Another absurd angle is the gang's willingness to have the doctor performing his blood tests on them as a part of his research project every time they go on a heist. Add to this the courtroom ending with some unbelievable happenings and you have a crime drama (or is it a crime comedy?), that rarely makes any sense and strains credibility at every turn.EDWARD G. ROBINSON is fine as the doctor and has one especially good scene where he plays cat-and-mouse with THURSTON HALL to find out whether the man will be willing to represent him at trial.Robinson, Bogart, Trevor and director Huston would all reunite ten years later for a much finer film--KEY LARGO--which utilized Trevor's talent in a much more rewarding way.At best, this is a curiosity that holds the interest but can make you impatient with the absurdity of it all.

Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse, The (1938) *** (out of 4) Extremely weird and bizarre gangster film from Warner that spoofs their other gangster films. A doctor (Edward G. Robinson) decides to start robbing so that he can study criminal's in the heat of the job. In order to get better tests done he joins a gang being run by Claire Trevor and the dangerous Humphrey Bogart. This film's suppose to be a comedy but it's a tad bit too strange to work as that but it remains an entertaining movie due to the three stars. Warner made a lot of gangster pictures through this decade and this one here is certainly their strangest. Co-written by John Huston.