Docteur X

Don't even try to compare this wonderful old WArner Brothers thriller from l934 with today's thrillers. It was made at a time long gone when atmosphere, sets, lighting and camerawork were king. I adore getting this movie out at least once a month along with "Mystery of the Wax Museum" and "Night Monster" (another reviewer has also cited "Night Monster" as the classic it is)turn out the lights and lose myself in the early Technicolor two-strip photographey which is beautifully pastel and atmospheric in its eerie greens, pinks, crimson and gold. The Anton Grot sets are unforgettable. The cast of Hollywood's greatest character actors throw themselves into their roles (I doubt they had any other choice. After all, the demonic Michael Curtiz was cracking the whip as director). Fay Wray is pretty and screams now and then. Most irritating of all is Lee Tracey as the relentlessly wise-cracking reporter. Glenda Farrell had the same role in "Mystery of the Wax Museum" also filmed in early color and she was fantastic. A great old thriller, set in a remote mansion by the sea. The monster is terrifying. Ironically, you never see any carnage, blood or torture. Hats off to those long-ago film masters who knew how to do things right.

When you think of it, everything about this film is strictly synthetic...the plot, the hokey comic relief, the occasional ham acting--but the atmosphere photographed in crisp looking two-strip Technicolor is fully charged and the taut direction of Michael Curtiz (long before he did another more polished noir called THE UNSUSPECTED), makes this a very watchable early horror film from Warner Bros.

The Anton Grot sets in early color will keep the viewer totally enhanced even when the plot holes become too obvious. The annoying comic relief supplied by Lee Tracy as a fast-talking newspaperman (was there any other kind?), is fortunately not much of a handicap when the cast includes an assortment of richly eccentric characters.

I have to confess I guessed who the murderer was from the start--but it didn't dampen my enjoyment of the melodramatic and very creepy events. The storyline concerns a killer known for striking when there's a full moon and Lionel Atwill is the doctor who thinks he can solve the crime by some scientific detective work of his own.

It's the sort of film that became a staple of the "old dark house" mysteries audiences loved in the '20s and '30s--and even into the '40s with films like THE CAT AND THE CANARY. None of it seems quite as compelling as some of the better known fright films (including MURDER IN THE WAX MUSEUM), but we do get a chance to hear some first rate screams from Fay Wray (who looks very attractive in close-ups even though the Max Factor make-up is a little too extreme), and the capable cast includes such sturdy performers as Lionel Atwill and Preston Foster.

Trivia note: The killer's synthetic flesh make-up is very effective when he's in full mode on the kill. Kudos to Michael Curtiz for a fun-filled fright film.

DOCTOR X (First National, 1932), directed by Michael Curtiz, capitalizes on the current horror trend made popular by Universal's 1931 releases of Dracula and FRANKENSTEIN. What makes DOCTOR X stand apart with similar products distributed by other studios was its two-strip Technicolor process, considering how color was a rarity and quite costly for its time. Equally rare was the use of color for one categorized as a horror film instead of a musical. While the title DOCTOR X indicates a "mad doctor" theme, especially with Lionel Atwill heading the cast, in true essence is a mystery-comedy with horror elements and science fiction thrown in along with Fay Wray belting out a few screams for good measure.

Plot summary: Six brutal killings have taken place at night only when the moon is full. An scrub woman is the latest victim. Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy), an inquisitive reporter for New York's Daily Record, enters the scene on the waterfront where he witnesses Doctor Xavier (Lionel Atwill), escorted by O'Halloran (Willard Robertson) and Police Commissioner Stevens (Robert Warwick), entering the Mott Street Morgue to examine the body. Because the murders were committed by a maniac with powerful hands near the vicinity of Xavier's Medical Academy of Surgical Research, all evidence points to Xavier's staff. Hoping to clear his academy of a scandal, Xavier asks Stevens for 48 hours to conduct his own investigation. With Taylor constantly snooping around Long Island's Blackstone Shoals estate where the investigations are to take place, Xavier has his beautiful daughter, Joanne (Fay Wray) attract his attention while having his medical staff handcuffed on chairs bound to the floor while staging a re-enactment of the crimes in hope that the mechanism they are connected to (an early indication of a lie detector) will reveal the killer through his heart beat reactions. It is soon discovered there is a killer among them when one of the members participating in the reenactment was murdered during a sudden blackout.

In the supporting cast are Preston Foster (Professor Ben Welles, a one-armed medical student); John Wray (Doctor Haines); Arthur Edmund Carewe (Doctor Rowitz); Harry Beresford (the wheelchair bound Professor Duke); Leila Bennett (Mamie, the frightful maid); George Rosener (Otto, the mysterious butler); Mae Busch (appearing briefly as a boarding house Madame); and Thomas E. Jackson (The Newspaper Editor).

The weakness of DOCTOR X is often accredited to the silly antics provided by Lee Tracy, typically cast as a wisecracking reporter who uses a buzzer placed onto his palm to shock an unsuspecting victims as Mike the Cop (Harry Holman) and Xavier's daughter (Wray) by placing the buzzard onto her bottom; along with he hiding in a slab of the morgue with a name tag placed on his toe, followed by him roaming the laboratory surrounded with dangling skeletons. The strong point of the story, however, is the way the mystery and suspense is handled, from hideous figure lurking about in a dark cloak with hands with long finger nails seen slowly clutching the throat of intended victims to a mysterious eye peeking through the hole on the door; climaxed by the killer's horrific transformation through the use of "synthetic flesh," one of the greatest, yet gruesome moments captured on film, even more effective in color.

During the days of commercial television, DOCTOR X aired in black and white. A perennial favorite on New York City's "Chiller Theater" on WPIX, Channel 11, from the 1960s to 1977, it would be another decade before DOCTOR X turned up on the airwaves again, this time with early Technicolor prints acquired from UCLA Film Archives, on cable TV's Turner Network Television (1988-1993), Turner Classic Movies (1994-present), and further availability on video cassette in the 1990s and then DVD. In one of the briefings by TCM's host, Bob Osborne, he mentioned that Technicolor prints of DOCTOR X were few, having circulated in big cities like New York and Chicago, while black and white prints played at smaller theaters in other areas. Fortunately, DOCTOR X has survived in Technicolor, make this a worth while event, thanks to interesting make-up effects by the Max Factor Corporation, lavish sets by Anton Grot, a chance seeing classic film actors usually not associated in Technicolor, notably Fay Wray and her reddish brown hair.

With the obvious success by 1932 standards of DOCTOR X, Atwill and Wray would work together again in more of the same with 1933 releases of THE VAMPIRE BAT (Majestic) and MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (Warner Brothers). Seven years later, Warners turned out a sequel in name only titled THE RETURN OF DOCTOR X (Warners, 1939). Instead of bringing back Tracy, Wray and Atwill, the new leads were enacted by Wayne Morris as the comical reporter, Rosemary Lane the heroine, and Humphrey Bogart (!) as a zombie, formerly Doctor Maurice Xavier brought back to life not through the use of synthetic flesh, but by synthetic blood. A missed opportunity for Lionel Atwill, the one and only Doctor X, or was it? (***)

Wow, what a shock - a 1932 color movie! Well, sort of......only two colors, but they look great.

I only got this because I saw it at the library as part of a two-pack with "The Return Of Dr. X." It is part of a Hollywood "Legends Of Horror" package that includes several other films I am familiar with and think highly of, so I can see a possible future purchase.

Anyway, the first thing that struck me watching this was that fantastic two-strip Technicolor. Immediately there is a street scene of green and brown that looks tremendous....and eerie. You would think that only black-and-white might make this look eerie, but not so - that combination of green and brown was very effective and made this a fascinating visual film. Hats off to the UCLA film restoration team, which made this 75-year-old film look really good.

As for the story, well, let's just say it doesn't measure up to the visuals. It starts off looking like a fun movie, even - surprise - a comedy as the newsman "Lee Taylor" (Lee Tracy) cracks a few corny jokes. However, it settles down into a crime story (more than horror) and we wind up with a whodunit and a room full of suspects, a la Charlie Chan or Sherlock Holmes. The suspects are all scientists working in the Academy of Surgical Research. A bunch of recent hideous crimes by the "Moon Killer" were all done in the vicinity of the academy, so they're the prime suspects. Even the head man at the academy, "Dr. Xavier," looks a bit suspicious. He is played well by Lionel Atwill.

The police give "Dr. X" 48 hours to find out if any of his employees are the killer before they totally take over the investigation and ruin the reputation of the scientific institution. All of the scientists, by the way, look and act creepy which adds to the mystery. Heck, they all could be serial killers.

The film drags during much of that period - except for a short testing session that Dr. X sets up to see if any of his subordinates are, indeed, the killer. Apparently, it's true because someone kills one of the suspects during the experiment! Then there is another long lull and the cops are getting impatient with the good doctor. They give him another ultimate so he "tests" his employees again, this time using his daughter "Joanne" (Fay Wray) as a guinea pig, so to speak.

Then, we finally see who the real killer is and that part is fun to watch and he transforms into a hideous monster-like man. I guess this why the film is called a horror film instead of a crime movie. I won't give the ending away but I admit, it's pretty good.

If that long middle part had been spiced up a bit, this would have super, but it was too talky for too long. Still, this isn't bad and I love those two colors. I wish more movies looked like that.

The police are investigating a series of murders where victims have been cut up by scalpel and cannibalized. The murders always take place on a night with a full moon. They trace the scalpels to a nearby surgical academy. The head of the academy, Dr. Xavier (Lionel Atwill), doesn't believe someone at the academy is the killer and asks police for a chance to prove this using his own scientific methods. Also on the trail of the killer is reporter Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy). Taylor is suspicious of Doctor Xavier but when he meets the doctor's daughter (Fay Wray) he becomes smitten. Allowed only 48 hours to prove his case, Xavier gathers all the suspects at his mansion to perform his experiment. But things don't go as planned and another murder is committed.

Doctor X is a classic horror-mystery that has many points of interest for film fans. For starters, the two-color Technicolor process it was filmed in was new for the time. It also has great Max Factor makeup that looks especially nice in the early Technicolor. Another thing, it's a pre-Code film. Cannibalism, a major part of the plot, wouldn't have been allowed just a short time later. Lastly it's the horror debut of one of the greats of the genre, Lionel Atwill. Atwill would go on to a great career making many horror films, including two more with Wray the following year. He always brought class and dignity to his usually villainous roles. He's great here as well.

The major complaint about the film seems to be directed at Lee Tracy's comic character. He is probably the worst part of the movie, but not because his performance is bad. He does fine with what he's supposed to do. It's just that comedy in horror films is usually best left to minor supporting roles not for the male lead in the film. However, I personally feel he's not obnoxious enough to hurt the film significantly. It's still very fun and very interesting, both from a film history perspective as well as sheer entertainment value. I would recommend all fans of classic horror films check it out.