The Devil-Doll

Infobox Film
name = The Devil-Doll


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director = Tod Browning
producer = Edward J. Mannix
writer = Tod Browning Guy Endore
Garrett Fort
Erich Von Stroheim
narrator =
starring = Lionel Barrymore
Maureen O'Sullivan
music = Franz Waxman
cinematography = Leonard Smith
editing = Frederick Y. Smith
distributor =
released = July 10, 1936
runtime = 79 min.
country = USA
language = English
budget =
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amg_id = 1:13499
imdb_id = 0027521

"The Devil-Doll" is a B&W 1936 horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring a cross-dressing Lionel Barrymore and Maureen O'Sullivan as his daughter, Lorraine Levond.

The main thrust of the plot of this little-known B-movie classic where Barrymore plays the fellow inmate of a mad scientist who is trying to create a formula to reduce the size of people to 1/6th of their original size, with the idea of conserving the resources needed for survival: clean water, food, energy, etc. which are limited on the Earth last longer for an ever-growing population. The scientist dies after their escape. Barrymore's character joins the fellow escapee's widow, "Malita," and uses the shrinking technique to obtain revenge on business associates who framed him and vindication for himself.

While unavoidably a camp film, there is a serious message underlying the entire plot: that of the concern of over-population, and that the resources on Earth are by nature limited, and that at some point if population growth is not controlled and limited, these resources will be too limited to allow mankind to survive. This is fairly forward-looking for a film penned in 1934.

Cast

*Lionel Barrymore- Paul Lavond
*Maureen O'Sullivan - Lorraine Lavond
*Frank Lawton - Toto
*Rafaela Ottiano - Malita
*Robert Greig - Emil Coulvet
*Lucy Beaumont - Madame Lavond
*Henry B. Walthall - Marcel
*Grace Ford ... Lachna
*Pedro de Cordoba - Charles Matin
*Arthur Hohl - Victor Radin
*Juanita Quigley - Marguerite Coulvet
*Claire Du Brey - Madame Coulvet (as Claire du Brey)
*Rollo Lloyd - Detective Maurice

External links

*imdb title|id=0027521|title=The Devil-Doll