The Mad Doctor of Market Street

Mad Doctor of Market Street, The (1942)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent Universal horror film has a mad doctor (Lionel Atwill) experimenting with bringing the dead by to life through frozen animation. Your entertainment level will depend on whether or not you like comedy mixed in with your horror. I think the two genres can go together in certain cases and I found the comedy here to be pretty good. Nothing great but nothing bad either. The film's story certainly isn't original but it is fun enough to keep the short film going strong until the end. Atwill, in his final lead role, turns in a fun performance, which is something we've all come to expect out of him.

Ever-delightful Lionel Atwill plays another of his crazed scientist roles in this minor but amusing Universal genre picture of the period. Here, he plays Dr. Ralph Benson, a nutcase working to perfect suspended animation: killing subjects and bringing them back to life. When his first human victim goes missing, authorities are quick to respond, and he must take it on the lam. He arrives on a tropical island, where his medical abilities endear him to the natives - but his fellow shipwreck survivors want to get away A. S. A. P. Knowing that they'll report him the first chance they get, he refuses to let them leave, while enjoying his new role of "God of Life" on this exotic locale.

Overall, "The Mad Doctor of Market Street" is nothing special, but it IS a B-level horror flick / jungle adventure designed to be over and done with quickly, and it entertains quite adequately for a fairly painless 61 minute run time. The supporting cast - top-billed Una Merkel as annoying airhead Aunt Margaret, Nat Pendleton as dumb boxer Red Hogan, Claire Dodd as the lovely Patricia, the briefly seen Hardie Albright and Anne Nagel as hard-luck Saunders and his despairing wife, Richard Davies as likeable deck hand Jim, John Eldredge as the cowardly Dwight, and Noble Johnson as the native chief Elan - are all fine. But Atwill, as was so often the case, is the main reason to watch. He clearly did enjoy playing characters like the evil Benson. He also does well at selling a sense of panic towards the finish as he is given a time limit to prove just how good he is at restoring life.

Low-budget filmmaker Joseph H. Lewis, renowned for some of his later works (especially the film noir classics "Gun Crazy" and "The Big Combo"), does a very capable job of directing this routine, amusing little programmer. The setting for the tale - including the doomed cruise ship and the island - helps to give it a breath of fresh air. Benson spends barely any time at his lab of horrors on Market Street before the story kicks into gear and he must head for the hills.

A must for Atwill fans and Universal sci-fi / horror completists, if no-one else.

Six out of 10.

This very minor Universal horror film from 1942 is significant for it was the last time Lionel Atwill received a starring role in a film. He was on the outs after this due to the sex scandal that ruined his career and health. He played only minor roles after this and died 4 years later of cancer.

The film is very easy to be hard on and Universal has obviously regarded it so low, that it has never made it to video, despite the millions they still make off their classic horror films. What kills the film is a lack of mood or suspense. It is super-pedestrianly directed by Joseph H. Lewis.

What makes the film are the change-of-pace settings including a doomed cruise ship and an exotic island. The actors are all excellent too, even if Nat Pendelton and Una Merkel get a little tired with their comic relief act.

Ultimately, Atwill rules and is as menacing and sinister as ever. He revives a dead native and is revered as a god by the island tribe. He very selfishly dictates how the other ship survivors will live as only Atwill so slimily could (Sounds like a reality show plot). The other standout is Noble Johnson as the village leader. He is given more dialogue than he ever had in his many previous horror films and he ultimately gives Atwill a run for his money. It was nice to see him in a larger role.

Don't expect too much - this is a B film. Atwill fans will delight in seeing his last great lead performance. Atwill may have never had a definitive mad doctor film, but I've always regarded him as the maddest doctor of them all.

1941's "The Mad Doctor of Market Street" was the second time Lionel Atwill starred as a crazed scientist after receiving top billing over Lon Chaney in "Man Made Monster," but settled for second below Una Merkel here, who was coming off one of her best known roles, playing the ditsy daughter of W.C. Fields in "The Bank Dick." Una's likability survives intact, despite her unfunny material (can't say the same for Nat Pendleton). Nearing the end of her screen career was lovely Claire Dodd, busy at Universal that year ("The Black Cat" and Abbott and Costello's "In the Navy"), while cowardly scoundrel John Eldredge is in familiar form ("The Black Cat" and "Horror Island"). Even Noble Johnson ("King Kong") appears as a dignified native chief, not easy under such studio bound conditions. Atwill's Ralph Benson escapes a murder charge in San Francisco, only to wind up a prisoner on a South Sea island, until a demonstration of his technique on suspended animation on a supposedly dead native woman makes him 'God of Life' among the savages, who grant him his every wish. I certainly can't blame him for coveting Miss Dodd, just as he eyed beautiful Anne Nagel in "Man Made Monster" (here reduced to a cameo as his first victim's widow). Writer Al Martin earlier scripted Lugosi's "Invisible Ghost" (also directed by Joseph H. Lewis), and in 1957 turned out "Invasion of the Saucer Men," a rare science fiction comedy. Included in Universal's popular SHOCK! package of classic horror films issued to television in the late 50's, and aired 3 times on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater, Dec 18 1965 (following 1959's "The Hideous Sun Demon"), Dec 28 1974 (followed by 1970's "Night of the Witches"), and Sept 3 1977 (the first feature), paired with the only screening of 1934's "Secret of the Château" (a Claire Dodd double feature!).

This one stars Lionel Atwill, and it probably won't come as much of a surprise to learn that he's the one playing the titular mad doctor. A self-appointed physician, Dr. Ralph Benson (Atwill) conducts an experiment on a man, the pseudo-scientist attempting to put his subject in suspended animation and them revive him. The man dies, and Benson flees, wanted for murder.

Benson changes his identity and books himself on a luxury cruise bound for New Zealand, but the ship catches fire and he is forced to get into a lifeboat with several other passengers and seek refuge on a nearby island. The natives of the island think that the white people are evil and plan to burn them alive, but Benson uses his medical knowledge to resuscitate a woman who they think has died (in reality, she has suffered a heart attack); the group is spared and Benson is declared a god.

Benson plans to stay on the island and continue his experiments, using the other passengers as guinea pigs, and so they decide to make a bid for freedom...

A routine B-movie elevated slightly above awful by Atwill, The Mad Doctor of Market Street offers very little to get excited about. The best scenes are of the panic-stricken passengers clambering over each other to get off the burning ship - almost everything that occurs on the island is predictable and dull low-budget nonsense using left-over jungle sets from other South Seas potboilers. At the end of the film, Atwill is roasted alive (off-screen) for being unable to revive a drowned native, while the other passengers are rescued by a search plane that spots them in the nick of time.

3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for Atwill.