Doctor X (film)

Doctor X
Doctor X One-Sheet
Directed by	Michael Curtiz
Produced by	Hal B. Wallis (uncredited) Darryl F. Zanuck (uncredited)
Written by	Robert Tasker (screenplay) Earl Baldwin (screenplay) Allen C. Miller (play) Howard W. Comstock (play)
Starring	Lee Tracy Fay Wray Lionel Atwill
Music by	Bernard Kaun Leo F. Forbstein
Cinematography	Ray Rennahan
Editing by	George Amy
Distributed by	First National Pictures (through Warner Bros.)
Release date(s)	August 3, 1932 (New York Premiere)
Running time	76 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Doctor X (1932) is a First National/Warner Bros. horror and mystery film based on the play of the same name. It was directed by Michael Curtiz and stars Lee Tracy, Fay Wray, and Lionel Atwill.

The film was produced before the Motion Picture Production Code was enforced. Themes such as murder, rape, cannibalism and prostitution are interwoven into the story. The film is also notable as one of the last films made, along with Warners' Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), in the two-color Technicolor process. Black and white prints were shipped to small towns and to foreign markets, while color prints were reserved for major cities.^[1]

Plot

Doctor X is a mystery-horror film with tongue-in-cheek comedic elements. It is considered by some to be of the "old dark house" genre of horror films, and takes place in 1932 New York City and Long Island, New York. Reporter Tracy investigates a series of cannibalistic murders.

Reporter Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy) is investigating a series of pathological murders that have taken place over a series of months in New York City. The murders always take place at night, under the light of a full moon (the newspapers dubbing them the "Moon Killer Murders"). Furthermore, each body has been cannibalized after the murder has taken place. Witnesses to the events describe a horribly disfigured "monster" as the killer.

Doctor Xavier (Lionel Atwill) is called in for his medical opinion, but it is learned through meeting with the police that the ulterior motive behind this is to begin an investigation of Xavier's medical academy, as the scalpel used to cannibalize the bodies of the victims was exclusive to that institution. Aside from Xavier, the other suspects are: Wells (Preston Foster), an amputee who has made a study of cannibalism; Haines (John Wray), who displays a sexual perversion with voyeurism; Duke (Harry Beresford), a grouchy loudmouth cripple; and Rowitz (Arthur Edmund Carewe), who is conducting studies of the psychological effects of the moon (Rowitz also displays a notable scar on one side of his face). It is learned that Haines and Rowitz were stranded in a boat with another man, and that while they claimed he had died and they had thrown him overboard, it was suspected that they had, in fact, cannibalized him.

The police give Xavier 48 hours to apprehend the killer in his own way. During this time, Taylor investigates the doctor's intentions and in the process, meets Joan Xavier (Fay Wray), the doctor's daughter. Joan is exceedingly cold to Taylor, particularly after finding out that it was his story that pointed a finger at her father and ruined his first attempt at locating the killer. Taylor, however, manages to find a romantic interest in Joan before being escorted out.

The setting switches to Xavier's beach-side estate on Long Island. There, all of the suspects are brought in for an unorthodox examination of their guilt: each member (excluding Wells, because it is known that the killer has two hands and he has but one) is connected to an electrical system that records their heart rate. When a re-enactment of the murder of a cleaning woman appears before them, the detector will expose the guilty man who will have no choice but to confess. Dr. Xavier's butler and maid, Otto (George Rosener) and Mamie (Leila Bennett), carry out the reenactment.

Things go awry, however, when a number of events inhibit the experiment. First, Taylor breaks into the home and hides in a storage closet, but is rendered unconscious by gas that the killer puts in the room. During the experiment, a blackout occurs. Wells, in another room controlling the equipment, is knocked over the head and falls through a glass door. When power is regained, it is discovered that Rowitz, whose monitor supposedly revealed him as the guilty party just before the blackout, has been murdered, a victim of a scalpel to the base of the brain.

Taylor is discovered by the staff and Xavier has no choice but to keep him there until the investigation is over, lest he report back to his paper. Joan decides to be friendly to Taylor, as she sees that he is the only one with enough intuition to solve the crime. Later that night, it is discovered that during these hours, Rowitz's body has been cannibalized.

The following evening, the police allow Xavier an extension till midnight to apprehend the killer. Xavier again asks Otto and Mamie to re-enact another of the murders. Mamie is too frightened and ill to play her part, so Joan takes Mamie's place. All of the men, save for Wells, are this time handcuffed to their seats. It is during this that we find out that it is, in fact, Wells who is the killer. Through a "synthetic flesh" composition that he himself has created, Wells has been creating artificial limbs and a horrific mask to carry out his crimes in order to collect living samples of human flesh for his experiments. It turns out at first for years he had been searching for a secret manufactured flesh and eventually finds it; so, he went to Africa one time, not to study cannibalism, but to get samples of the human flesh the natives eat. In order to collect his final victim, Wells sneaks up on Otto as the monster and strangles him. Then, Wells proceeds to reveal himself and his intentions for collecting Joan as his specimen in front of the committee.

Just as Wells is about to strangle Joan, Taylor — who has been posing as one of a series of wax figures representing the killer's victims — jumps Wells and the two men get into a scuffle. As Wells lunges towards Taylor, Taylor grabs a kerosene lamp and hurls it at Wells. Set on fire, Wells stumbles and crashes out a window and falls down a cliff into the ocean. Reporting his story into the paper, Taylor tells his editor to make space in the marriage section for Joan and himself.

Cast

• Lionel Atwill as Dr Jerry Xavier
• Fay Wray as Joan Xavier
• Lee Tracy as Lee Taylor, Daily World Reporter
• Preston Foster as Dr Wells - Academy of Surgical Research
• John Wray as Dr Haines - Academy of Surgical Research
• Harry Beresford as Dr Duke - Academy of Surgical Research
• Arthur Edmund Carewe as Dr Rowitz - Academy of Surgical Research
• Leila Bennett as Mamie, Xavier's Maid
• Robert Warwick as Police Commissioner Stevens
• George Rosener as Otto, Dr X's Butler
• Willard Robertson as Detective O'Halloran
• Thomas E. Jackson as Daily World Editor
• Harry Holman as Mike, Waterfront Policeman
• Mae Busch as Cathouse Madame
• Tom Dugan as Sheriff

Production

The film was the second Warner Bros. feature film to be filmed in the improved Technicolor process which removed grain and improved both the color and clarity of the film. This improved process had first been used on The Runaround (1931) and resulted in an attempt at a color revival by the studios late in 1931. Due to public apathy, however, the studios quickly retreated from their ambitious plans for color films, late in 1932.

Background

Doctor X was filmed in the two-color process to fulfill Warner Bros. contract with Technicolor. During production, an alternate black-and-white version was shot and still exists, although side-by-side comparison shows that most takes between the two are the same. Differences in takes are minor, such as Tracy's ad lib with a skeleton in the closet, and Mae Busch's dialogue as a madam at a brothel. The black-and-white version was offered to exhibitors (much to Technicolor's dismay) as an alternative on the initial release of the film.

The film also falls into the "pre-Code" era of film making, and carries adult themes throughout. The situations of cannibalism and rape, although not unheard of, were rare and considered perverse in 1932 — topics that were not commonly explored in motion pictures at that point.

Following the success of Doctor X at the box office, Warner Bros. followed up with Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), which also starred Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill. Mystery was also shot in Technicolor, another film to try to complete Warner Bros.' contract with them. Technicolor made sure there were no black-and-white cameras on the set of Mystery and ultimately, the film became the last 2-color Technicolor feature released by a major studio. Both Doctor X and Mystery had their sets designed by Anton Grot.

The makeup was designed by Max Factor, who at that point had been associated with beauty makeup. Mystery of the Wax Museum also shared Factor's horror makeup design.

Doctor X was also the first in three films that co-starred Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray. Following this, they both starred in The Mystery of the Wax Museum and The Vampire Bat.

Reception

Time said "Doctor X is a routine nightmare [...] and is intended for avid patrons of synthetic horror rather than for normal cinemaddicts."^[2]

Doctor X was well received by both critics and at the box office. In fact, because of the popularity of the film, Warner Bros. followed up with Mystery of the Wax Museum. In 1939, a sequel with Humphrey Bogart was filmed, The Return of Dr. X, but the similarity between pictures ends at the title.

Preservation

By the late 1950s, when the film was being sold as a package on television, the Technicolor version was thought to be lost, since Technicolor discarded most of their 2-color negatives in the late 1940s. Upon the death of Jack Warner in 1978, a print was discovered in his personal collection, and the film was restored to its former Technicolor state by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

Cultural references

• In the musical play The Rocky Horror Show, and its movie adaptation, the opening song, "Science Fiction/Double Feature", references many classic movies and it does this one with the line: "Doctor X will build a creature".

References

1. ^ http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/title/128/Doctor-X/notes.html
2. ^ "Cinema: The New Pictures: Aug. 15, 1932" -- Time

External links

• Doctor X at the Internet Movie Database
• Doctor X at AllRovi
• Doctor X (film) at the TCM Movie Database