The Mad Doctor of Market Street

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.

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.

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.

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!).

A textbook example of Universal's streamlined approach to churning out quickie "horror" products in the early 1940s is The Mad Doctor of Market Street: backlot sets, truncated run time, a script that disintegrates upon scrutiny, familiar contract players, and recycled musical cues. It is also a wonderfully entertaining movie that merrily skips about disregarding logic while stitching together two popular topics of the day: mad scientists and South Seas jungle adventures. What separates the wheat from the chaff in this case is a delicious performance by Lionel Atwill, sometimes dubbed the "maddest doctor of them all", who provides one of his most flamboyant turns in this guise.

Dr. Ralph Benson (Atwill) is an unhinged medico who longs to perfect suspended animation as a means to prolong life indefinitely and establish himself before the world as a God-like being. Following uninterrupted success with animals his first attempt on a human fails forcing Benson to take it on the lam. He boards a passenger steamer for New Zealand but his bad luck continues: the ship suffers a fatal fire and sinks. Benson and a handful of survivors wind up on a pacific island inhabited by superstitious natives eager to burn them alive. Fate intervenes when Benson saves the life of Tanao (Rosina Galli), the wife of the chief Elon (Noble Johnson), and is proclaimed the "God of Life". Reveling in his celebrity status Benson plans on continuing his experiments using his fellow castaways as unwitting subjects.

The original screenplay is credited to Al Martin who provides Atwill with a plethora of scenery-chewing opportunities. The narrative glosses over obvious questions like how Benson eludes the city wide dragnet out to get him, how people know the Mad Doctor of Market Street is on the boat yet have no idea what he looks like, how Benson's group escapes the burning ship and arrives unscathed on a beautiful beach, and so on. Martin is content to focus on the crazed Doctor and expects viewers to do the same while ignoring the Flash Gordon aspects of the plot. Atwill enjoys several well-written speeches detailing his all-consuming mania to become immortal in the eyes of man while demonstrating how completely unhinged he is. Meanwhile the rest of the cast must grapple with inane dialogue, unfunny comedy bits, and, in the case of the natives, a particularly degrading portrayal.

Director Joseph H. Lewis keeps events moving at a rapid pace to compensate for the logistical potholes in the story. Clearly hamstrung by a limited budget he employs abundant stock footage to portray the burning ship at sea and the rescue planes hunting for survivors while saddled with a laughably obvious toy boat in a studio tank for establishing shots. He does avoid the pitfall of ersatz indoor studio jungle sets by filming outside which adds immeasurably to the suspension of disbelief (such as it is). The opening sequence in Benson's darkened office, detailing the setup for his first human experiment, is impressively done with low lighting and a film noirish atmosphere. Lionel Atwill benefits from a career's worth of tight closeups accentuating his eyes and devilish countenance while Lewis perhaps goes to the well too often with undeniably impressive subjective shots of Atwill menacingly holding out a chloroformed object as he slowly advances towards the camera lense. Lewis also makes wonderful use of HJ Salter's familiar musical cues from Son of Frankenstein and Black Friday to assist in putting over the melodramatics. Perhaps the most chilling moment in the film is a shot of Benson's test tubes that dissolves into a roaring fire indicating what is about to happen to the man when his luck runs out.

Mad Doctor affords Lionel Atwill a field day for his unique talents. Rarely one to restrain himself the actor swings for the fences with outrageously flamboyant line readings and vivid depiction of a man with an insatiable ego who only wants to benefit mankind so he can be exalted as a deity. Whether smooth talking test subjects, reveling in his God of Life title, puffing on a cigar while watching ship passengers make fools of themselves, nonchalantly dumping nosy private investigators overboard, or fiendishly enjoying succulent native fruits while contemplating his next unholy act Atwill thoroughly dominates the film. It is an absolute crime that Universal deprived him of top billing (for Una Merkel of all people) not to mention having the script take shots at his doughy physique. Such disrespect was usually reserved for Bela Lugosi but apparently the studio had plenty to go around. This film would be unwatchable today if not for Atwill's bombastic performance.

The rest of the cast struggles in vain to remain buoyant in Atwill's wake. Beautiful Claire Dodd looks especially gorgeous as the love interest and registers well with her emoting; unfortunately onscreen boyfriend Richard Davies is endlessly bland. As the purveyors of the alleged comedy relief the aforementioned Una Merkel grates on the nerves with her screechy voice while Nat Pendleton also strikes out as a dumbbell boxer. Reduced to a bit role is Anne Nagel, who costarred with Atwill in Man Made Monster and acquitted herself quite well less than a year earlier, as the weepy wife of Atwill's first victim. Finally there is Noble Johnson, once the chief of Skull Island in King Kong, reduced to the kingpin of this tropical destination who is all too eager to put trespassers into the fire (and after what the white folks did to Skull Island who can blame him?).

While it will never be confused with any of the more noteworthy Universal chillers from the War Years The Mad Doctor of Market Street is a harmless bit of fun with delightful illogic and a familiar feel from the studio. Most of all it has a superior turn by genre icon Lionel Atwill who appears to be enjoying the time of his life in a superbly written role. Definitely worth a watch for fans of both the actor and the studio.