Doctor X [Dr X] **** (1932, Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy) – Classic Movie Review 3,121

‘Out-Thrills Them All!’

Director Michael Curtiz’s wild and wonderfully entertaining 1932 blood-curdling baroque horror movie Doctor X [Dr X] stars Lionel Atwill as a sinister doctor/ mad scientist, Dr Jerry Xavier, or Dr X, the head man at the suspicious Academy of Surgical Research. All the scientists working there are the prime suspects of being the crazy full-moon serial strangler who is operating in the vicinity of the academy. The Moon Killer’s victims are being strangled and cannibalised in the light of the full moon!

It is one of the last films produced in the early two-colour Technicolor process. But the glorious colour prints were reserved only for major cities, while the additionally shot black-and-white prints were shipped to small towns and foreign markets. Made in the pre-Code era, Doctor X gleefully incorporates such themes as murder, rape, cannibalism and prostitution.

Lee Tracy plays Lee Taylor, the wisecracking New York investigating reporter from the Daily World out to save society from the serial strangler evil who intrudes on Dr Xavier’s search for the killer, while King Kong’s Fay Wray of course contributes the screams, as ever, as Dr Xavier’s daughter Joanne Xavier.

The Daily World newspaper editor (Thomas Jackson) gives reporter Taylor the job of continuing to probe these hideous murders at the hands of a horribly disfigured monster in New York City over several months. So Taylor arrives to investigate Dr Xavier at his beach-side estate, where he meets and takes a shine to Joanne, who however dislikes him as his original news story first pointed a finger at her father.

Police Commissioner Stevens (Robert Warwick) and Detective O’Halloran (Willard Robertson) want to investigate Dr Xavier’s medical academy where the scalpel used to cannibalise the bodies comes from. Their suspects are Dr Xavier, amputee Dr Wells (Preston Foster) who has made a study of cannibalism, Dr Haines (John Wray) who displays a sexual perversion with voyeurism, grouchy paralytic Dr Duke (Harry Beresford), and Dr Rowitz (Arthur Edmund Carewe) who is conducting studies of the psychological effects of the moon.

Dr X wants no publicity for the sake of his academy and its research, so the police give him 48 hours to apprehend the killer. So all of the suspects gather for a weird experiment, where each scientist suspect is investigated, except amputee Dr Wells who only has one hand. Each is handcuffed and connected to an electrical detector system recording his heart rate. Dr X’s butler Otto (George Rosener) and maid Mamie (Leila Bennett) carry out a re-enactment of the murder of the cleaning woman, so the detector will expose the guilty man.

Producers Hal B Wallis and Darryl F Zanuck and the Warner Bros’ studio provide the budget for the great sets (designed by Anton Grot) and Ray Rennahan’s superb two-tone Technicolor cinematography, while director Curtiz keeps his movie chilling and stylish in its Gothic Expressionist mode. (Richard Towers provides the photography for the additional black-and-white version, uncredited.)

Doctor X is always way over the top, but that is part of the fun. Atwill is outstanding as Dr X, Preston Foster is hysterical as Dr Wells, and George Rosener and Leila Bennett are very amusing as Dr X’s menacing butler Otto and maid Mamie. Fay Wray does quite well too, especially considering she has a raw deal with the romance with Lee Tracy. The only real downside is Lee Tracy’s corny comedy and feeble wisecracking, which seem to be in a different, much inferior movie. When it sticks to being a horror film and focuses on Atwill and the other mad scientists, it is just great. The now restored two-tone Technicolor and the production are superlative, an absolute delight.

Also in the cast are George Rosener, Mae Busch, Arthur Edmund Carewe, John Wray, Robert Warwick, Harry Beresford, Leila Bennett, Willard Robertson, Thomas E Jackson, Harry Holman and Tom Dugan.

Earl Baldwin and Robert Tasker’s screenplay is based on Howard W Comstock and Allen C Miller’s 1928 play, originally titled The Terror, and produced on the New York stage in 1931 as Doctor X.

Max Factor supplied the creepy makeup for the movie.

Produced and released by Warner Bros, it is filmed in beautiful two-colour Technicolor. Sadly, though excitingly here, Doctor X and its follow-up, the 1933 Mystery of the Wax Museum, also with Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, were the last two drama films using this process.

Mystery of the Wax Museum involves many of the same cast, including Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Arthur Edmund Carewe, and Thomas Jackson, and crew, director Michael Curtiz, art director Anton Grot and cameraman Ray Rennahan. It even  re-uses Doctor X’s opening theme music by Bernhard Kaun.

Warner Bros had a falling-out with Technicolor after the studio violated their contract by filming Doctor X with an additional black-and-white unit, permitting them to process black and white prints at their own lab and avoid paying Technicolor thousands of dollars. But, when Technicolor’s three-strip process became available, Warner Bros was the first to use it for live-action shorts, beginning with Service With a Smile (1934).

It was released on August 3, 1932 (New York City).

It cost $224,000 and earned $594,000.

It runs 76 minutes.

Humphrey Bogart starred in The Return of Doctor X in 1939, playing a different Doctor X character of Marshall Quesne.

By the late 1950s, the Technicolor version was thought to be lost. But after the death of former studio head Jack L Warner on 9 September 9 1978, a print was found in his personal collection. It was copied to safety film and the original nitrate film print was donated to the UCLA Film & Television Archive. A far superior digital restoration by the archive in 2020 debuted on Blu-ray disc in April 2021. The alternative black-and-white version still exists, though most takes are the same.

The cast are Lionel Atwill as Dr Jerry Xavier,  Fay Wray as Joanne Xavier, Lee Tracy as Lee Taylor, Preston Foster as Dr Wells, John Wray as Dr Haines, Harry Beresford as Dr Duke, Arthur Edmund Carewe as Dr Rowitz, Leila Bennett as Xavier’s maid Mamie, Robert Warwick as Police Commissioner Stevens, George Rosener as Dr X’s butler Otto, Willard Robertson as Detective O’Halloran, Thomas Jackson as Daily World editor, Harry Holman as waterfront policeman Mike, Mae Busch as Madam, Tom Dugan as Sheriff, Raoul Freeman as Morgue Detective, Selmer Jackson as night editor Willard Keefe, Charles McMurphy as detective at headquarters, and Ky Robinson as Morgue Detective.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3,121

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