Alicia I love this movie so much

Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Stevecorp Don't listen to the negative reviews

Juana what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

MikeMagi "The Murder of Dr. Harrigan" is a glorious example of the sort of low-cost quickies Hollywood churned out in the 30s to satisfy the double feature pipeline. It is almost entirely set in what has to be the sloppiest hospital in America. Here, a doctor reschedules an operation for midnight without bothering to assemble a surgical team. Nurses haphazardly wander in and out of patients' rooms. And when the only elevator in the place stops running, nobody's much concerned until it starts up again -- and a dead body turns up inside. For comedy relief, the orderlies stomach pump the wrong patient. Oh, those wacky hospital staffers! The plot centers on an eccentric millionaire who arranges for a doctor who hates his guts to perform a delicate operation on him, using a new anesthetic that's better than ether; it puts patients out for three days so they can heal painlessly. Somewhere in this melange of mayhem and malpractice, there's Ricardo Cortez trying to save the nurse he loves from being charged with murder by the usual myopic cop. But the mystery zips along and as a throwback to a bygone era, it's at least entertaining. And for trivia buffs, there's Mary Astor in a relatively small, thankless role, purportedly her punishment for bucking the studio system.

arieliondotcom Only a certain kind of audience likes these types of movies, the type that flocked to see The Thin Man a few years before this film and the sequel to the Thin Man the same year as this film. It's obvious by the attempts at humorous banter by the romantic leads that this is a thinly veiled attempt to cash in on the same audience back in the hey day of the Thin Man series as the TM movies were attracting. This is nowhere close to those movies with none of the chemistry (although a few quips are funny) and the required explanation of what is going on and who shot who is painfully dragged out and boring. None of the action as Nicky grills the group. And awful dialog (ex: "Glad, glad do you hear!") which is really painful to hear from the likes of Mary Astor.But I am someone who does enjoy these types of movies. It fascinates me how they announce the parts and actions as if they are still on the radio for the sake of those who can't see it. And I enjoy seeing the cultural elements (count how many times the word "negro" is used.)These films are like a quick glimpse into the campy past. And it's no mystery that glimpses of the past are always fun.

dgz78 One of the things a movie has to do is convince the audience that the actors are not reading lines but are talking as real people would. You don't have to have overlapping dialog like Hawks or Altman - just realistic dialog.Unfortunately Frank McDonald was no Howard Hawks or Robert Altman. Too many times actors cut off their lines before the other actor cuts in and any decent director would have re-shot the scene. But directors like McDonald were expected to make pictures quickly and cheaply. They were not supposed to be making art Sometimes a B picture would would defy expectations and become a classic. But for every Thin Man or It Happened One Night there were hundreds of Murder of Dr Harrigan. None of the actors stand out except a young Mary Treen who would go on to become an exceptional character actress in movies and especially TV.As a murder mystery fan, I didn't expect this to be on the level of Murder on the Orient Express or The Hound of the Baskervilles but I was at least hoping for something that would be acceptable for a Murder She Wrote episode. But the way Dr Cortez figures everything out didn't wash. Martin was the most obvious suspect to the police so you know he didn't do it. And you aren't given enough information to pin it on the real killer before he is revealed.Unless you are a big Mary Astor fan and want to see every movie she was in, you probably are better off avoiding this movie.

Neil Doyle This is one of those typical fast-moving, harried murder mysteries involving the death of a doctor under unusual circumstances at a hospital full of suspects. Something about a formula he had developed in an uneasy partnership with another doctor--and his murder at the hands of someone who wanted that formula.Only of interest because of RICARDO CORTEZ in the leading role as one of the helpful doctors who leads the detective to solve the case, and, in a brief supporting role, MARY ASTOR, who manages to make an interesting impression as a nurse who knows more than she's willing to tell. She makes more of an impression than KAY LINAKER who plays Cortez's romantic interest.This is the sort of mystery fluff that played the lower half of double bills back in the '30s, watchable only for the fast pace and because of its "round up the usual suspects" kind of telling. Extremely dated, but amusing with enough plot complications to keep everyone guessing.