Doctor X Double Feature

Doctor X (1932)
Starring: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray and and Lee Taylor
Director: Michael Courtiz
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

A killer is stalking Gotham, butchering women--young and old--with a scalpel and surgeon-like precision. When the police turn their investigation toward the medical research institute operated by Dr. Xavier (Atwill), he hopes to prevent the entire institute from being tarred by scandal by conducting a scientific experiment that will identify the killer on his staff. With the moral support of his beautiful daughter (Wray) and a wisecracking crime-beat reporter (Taylor) standing by for the scoop of the decade, Xavier brings his colleagues to his isolated country house... where the murderer soon proves himself quite unwilling to submit to Xavier's experiments, but not so shy about stabbing the house guests.


"Doctor X" is a fun little film that mixes the mystery, comedy, romance, and horror genres into a bubbling cauldron of craziness. From the collection of four surgeons at Xavier's institute, each more suspicious and apparently crazy than the one before; to Xavier's creepy butler; to Xavier himself, the cast of characters here provide a rich pool of suspects. Wray and Taylor offer something attractive to look at amidst the strange collection of doctors and the bizarre, shadow-haunted scenery of the picture, with Wray presenting both radiant beauty and a very charming, very smart character. (In fact, Wray's beauty surrounded by the calculated ugliness of the rest of the film is a contrast that heightens just about every aspect of the film.

Something that will strike viewers coming to this film without foreknowledge--as I did--will be struck by the fact that instead of the expected greys and blacks, the film appears to be in sepia tones... until Wray makes her first appearance on screen, wearing a dress that's a startling, vibrant green in among the shadows and reddish-brown tones of the majority of the scenery. Later, there are other splashes of red and green; "Doctor X" was shot in an early version of Techicolor, and, while I found the reddish and/or greenish tint that was cast over everything generally tiresome, the bright splashes of concentrated color wow'ed me every time they appeared.

As a historical artifact in the development of film techniques, or just as a fun little comedy/thriller that's crammed to the brim with mad scientists, "Doctor X" is a movie that I think any lover of classic films will enjoy immensely.


The Return of Doctor X (1939)
Starring: Wayne Morris, Dennis Morgan, John Litel, and Humphrey Bogart
Director: Vincent Sherman
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

After being fired from his job for making up a false news story about finding a famous actress murdered--who shows up quite alive and intent on suing the paper--journalist Walter Garnett (Morris) turns to a close friend and surgeon (Morgan) in an attempt to figure out how he could have mistaken a live woman for a dead body. The answer he finds is stranger than anything he could imagine, and he soon finds himself up to his neck in creepy MDs, including the strange Dr. Quense (Bogart).


"The Return of Doctor X" has nothing in common with the original "Doctor X" film, except that they were produced by the same company. There is no character or story similarity, despite the presence of murderous medical professionals and a character with the last name of "Xavier", as well as a wise-cracking reporter character. However, where "Doctor X" was a comedy with heavy doses of suspense and a touch of horror, "The Return" is a straight-forward horror movie with a heavy dose of comedy. The first movie was also far more impressive in its camerawork and set design, and this film, while competently filmed, suffers greatly by comparison.

This is a decent enough flick, if completely forgettable. Big-time Humphrey Bogart fans may get a kick out of seeing him in a role quite different from anything else he did during his career, but otherwise, this is the kind of movie to load in a multi-disk DVD player for use as background noise during a Halloween party.

Lugosi is the dark, beating heart of 'The Invisible Ghost'

Invisible Ghost (aka "The Phantom Killer") (1941)
Starring: Bela Lugosi, Clarence Muse, John McGuire, and Polly Ann Young
Director: Joseph H. Lewis
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

Charles Kessler (Lugosi) is a widely admired man who, known only to his faithful manservant Evans (Muse) and his daughter Virginia (Young) suffers minor bouts with insanity during which he thinks he is still living with his beloved wife, who vanished years ago. However, Kessler's insanity is far deeper and far deadlier than anyone imagines; his wife seemingly appears outside his window at night, and the sight of her sends him into a trance during which he committs horrendous strangulation murders. When Virginia's fiance (McGuire) is executed for one of the murders, his twin brother Paul (also McGuire) arrives in town intent on finding the true killer.


"The Invisible Ghost" is another one of those films where I can see lots of potential that buried under a badly written script. The idea of a decent man so filled with grief and rage that he goes into murderous trances is pretty neat, but in this case the question of exactly how crazy Kessler is undermind within the first ten minutes of the film. (There's a "big revelation" that should have been saved for much later on.) Further, the dialogue (and its delivery) feels more suitable for a stage play than a movie... and it's delivered by actors whose performances mostly leave a lot to be desired.

The two exceptions to my negative comments about the actors are Clarence Muse and Bela Lugosi.

In the case of Muse, he plays Kessler's butler and manservant, but he projects an intelligence, dignity, and sensitivity that is lacking in just about every other character in the film; he's also the one actor who never comes across as unintentionally funny in the film... his laugh lines are true laugh lines, and they're delivered with excellent timing.

Lugosi also gives an engaging performance. Although the man seemed to lack the ability to pick decent projects to perform in, he often managed to make the most of the roles he did. In this case, he shows his acting ability by going through several emotions, and even completely transforming himself by doing nothing but changing his facial expressions. On the downside of his performance in "The Invisible Ghost", Lugosi is unintentionally HILARIOUS when Kessler enters his murderous trances. It takes some of the horror and tragedy away from the story when giggling viewers are trying to decide what Kessler resembles most in his murderous state: Kharis the Mummy without his bandages, or a spastic retard shuffling home after riding the short bus.

One strong aspect of the film that I must mention is that it is beautifully lit. The technical crew who worked on it really knew their stuff--the many candle-lit scenes are very well-handled with spotlights that properly follow the actors carrying the candleholders, and lighting is used consistently with great effect to underscore the drama and tension. Further, there's some very creative camerawork on display. (On the downside, the drama and tension is undermind by a truly awful score and the aforementioned bad acting.)

I think "The Invisible Ghost" is worth watching for Muse and Lugosi's performances, but the bad definately outweighs the good.

Three horror greats and a novelty band in a time capsule

You'll Find Out (aka "Wild Wild Spookhouse") (1940)
Starring: Kay Kyser and His Orchestra, Dennis O'Keefe, Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, M.A. Bogue, Helen Parrish and Ginny Simms
Director: David Butler
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Kay Kyser (Keyser) and the wacky musicians and singers that make up his orchestra are booked to play at the 21st birthday party of their manager's heiress girlfriend (Parrish). Swing music, high-jinx, and attempted murder follow as Keyser must team with a renowned debunker of psychics also invited to the party (Lorre) who has also been invited to the event in order to reveal the true nature of a phoney spiritualist (Lugosi), who has been bleeding money from the young lady's gullable guardian.


"You'll Find Out" is interesting viewing for two reasons.

First of all, it's the only film where Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre appear together. The three actors don't have alot of screen time, but their parts are meaty and they get to show their best sides; even Lugosi has a decent part, something that was becoming increasingly rare for him at this point. (In a meta-critical sense, their appearance is an almost Three Fates and/or The Stages of Man sort of affair--Lorre is on the verge of acheiving super-stardom, Karloff is at the pinnacle of his career, and Lugosi is slipping from twilight and into darkness.)

Second, it's an example of the fleeting nature of fame. While Karloff, Lugosi and Lorre have some presence in the minds of virtually every movie fan--even if their names might be a bit vague--how many know who Kay Kyser is? And this despite the fact that Kay Kyser was every bit as big a star as Karloff and Lugosi in his time, the leader of a very popular novelty band that had numerous Billboard-charting hit records, was the centerpiece of their own weekly network radio show, and starred in seven movies, including this one. Some 65 years after retiring from show business during World War II, Kyser and his band are completely forgotten by all. You can watch this movie to see what place Slim Shadey will hold in the public conciousness in sixty years... not to mention what "8 Miles" will look and sound like.

As for the film itself, it's more corny than suspenseful, which is fitting given that it was not a vehicle for the three horror actors but for Kyser's orchestra. Some viewers might be dissapointed at this, but I've always enjoyed Bela Lugosi's comedic turns. Lorre also has some very funny scenes with Kyser, sometimes being the straight man, sometimes being the deliverer of the jokes... and doing an equally good job in either role. (You may notice by now that I've not said much about Karloff. That's because there isn't much to say. He plays a dignified, slightly sinister lawyer and he delivers his lines on cue. It's a decent part and it's key to the story, but there's not much else to say other than, "Look... Boris Karloff!"

Is "You'll Find Out" a classic? No, "Ghostbreakers" this is not. However, it holds up a little better than many other pieces of disposable cinema made for no purpose other than to cash in on a cross-marketing opportunity of a musician.

Picture Perfect Wednesday:A kiss is just a kiss... unless there's a tentacle involved

A friendly Halloween kiss... H.P. Lovecraft style.

Greatest chiller of the silent movie era?

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)
Starring: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher and Lil Dagover
Director: Robert Weine
Rating: Ten of Ten Stars

A sideshow performer (Krauss) and an eternal sleeper with prophetic powers (Veidt) engulf a small town in a wave of nightmarish terror and death.

Anyone who's taken a film history class has almost certainly seen "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari". If you haven't seen it, and if you consider yourself a fan of horror movies, or a movie buff in general, you absolutely must see this movie. It is one of the most chilling horror movies ever made.


It might be a bit slow in the wind-up from the point of view of the modern audience, and you might be a bit amused by the Dr. Suess-like set design of the village in which the movie takes place... but you'll soon be rivited by the stark moods this film invokes through the sharp use of contrasts, the spooky appearance of the actors, and the brilliantly concieved sets. Dr. Suess will be very far from your mind, unless you want to view the film as "Horton Has a Psychotic Break and Hallucinates."

Although dating from 1919, this film still stands nearly unmatched it its ability to draw the audience into a disturbing, twisted world where ultimately nothing can be taken for granted or assumed to be true. And, depending on how you choose to interpert the very effective twist ending, it may well be a world from which there is no escape.

Every filmmaker has certainly seen this movie. It's too bad so few of them seem to have taken away any lessons from it.

'Essential Tales of the Zombie' is an accurate title for a fine collection of comics

Essential Tales of the Zombie (Marvel Comics, 2007)
Writers: Steve Gerber, Tony Isabella, Doug Moench, Chris Claremont, et.al.
Artists: Pablo Marcos, Alfredo Alcala, John Buscema, Bill Everett, Gene Colan, et.al.
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

"Essential Tales of the Zombie" is one of an ongoing series of 500-page+ collections of reprinted material from the past 30-40 years of Marvel Comics' output. The material in this book originally appeared in some of Marvel's black-and-white magazines from the mid-Seventies. It presents dozens of tales of voodoo and walking dead, the majority of them taken from the 10-issue run of "Tales of Zombie." Also sprinkled throughout the book are some of the best text features from the magazine, such as reviews of zombie movies and articles about voodoo.

It should be noted that nowhere in "Essential Tales of the Zombie" will you find walking corpses of the flesh-eating, post-Romero kind. The undead here are mostly the result of voodoo curses and similar magics. For me, this classic feel is refreshing in this day and age of rampant splatter and dismemberment.

The most worthwhile material in the book is the ongoing saga of the Zombie from the title. It's the story of Simon Garth, a captain of industry and control freak, who is murdered and reanimated as a zombie. Painfully aware of his condition, yet helpless to do anything about it, he becomes the undead slave of a series of different masters, controlled by the mystical Medallions of Damballah.

The stories of Simon Garth are top-notch, classic horror comics, which is not surprising, given they were penned by Steve Gerber when he was at the height of his creative powers. The manage to present social commentary, tragedy, chills, and poetic justice to the bad guys, often-times within the confines of the same story. The narration may get a bit purple at times, but the power of the stories shine through. Plus, the two-part tale that sees Simon Garth finally gain the peace of the grave is an excellent bit of writing by Gerber's successor on the strip, Tony Isabella. It is a perfect end to the story of a man who was forced onto a journey of discovery and redemption.

Although Bill Everett and John Buscema drew the first three tales featuring the Zombie, the art on the Simon Garth saga is mostly by Pablo Marcos. Alfredo Alcala also handles the art on a couple of the stories. Despite the vast difference in styles between these four artists, the mood remains consistently oppressive, dark, and spooky, and all do a great job capturing the macabre atmosphere of the Louisiana swamps and Haitian back-woods that the Zombie spends most of his time. (Alcala, Buscema, and Everett happen to be three of my favorite artists, and they do fine work here.)


Aside from the stories chronicalling Simon Garth's journey, "Tales of the Zombie" contains two stories with Brother Voodoo (a superhero who, as his name implies, gains his powers from voodoo rites) and a couple dozen short horror stories. The Brother Voodoo stories are... well, they're Brother Voodoo stories. The character always seemed a bit goofy to me, and he's true to from in both stories. (One wraps up the plotline from his "Strange Tales" appearances, and it was nice to finally know how that all ended, but the character still doesn't do much for me.) The shorts are mostly your standard twist-ending sort of tales that have been around in comics since the 50s... the ones that once filled the pages of "Creepy", "House of Mystery" and "Psycho". Althoguh they are all excellently written and illustrated, these run the gamut of quality from ho-hum to masterful.

Rounding out the book is an interesting time capsule of table of contents from each issue of "Tales of the Zombie", selected text pieces about voodoo and the occult, a two-part short story from Doug Moench, and some reviews of movies featuring zombies. The movie reviews were of particular interest to me (big surprise there, eh?) and there were even a few mentioned that I hadn't heard of! These magazine articles made for surprsingly good reading... although I wished a few more of had been included. I would have liked to read the obit of Bill Everett that was mentioned on one of the ToCs.)

"Tales of the Zombie" is an unusual entry in the "Essential" series, but one that lives up to its title. Fans of horror comics won't regret spending money on this one.

Frankenstein returns to monster-making in the far-away future of... 1970!

Frankenstein 1970
Starring: Boris Karloff, Don Berry, Rudolph Anders, Jana Lund, Charlotte Austin, Tom Duggan and Norbert Schiller
Director: Howard W. Koch
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

As his family fortune runs out, an aging and disfigured Baron Frankenstein (Karloff)gives a brash TV producer (Berry) permission to shoot a monster movie in and around his castle. However, when he improves upon his forebears old monster-making ways with atomic technology, the television crew and actors become an easy source of body parts.


"Frankenstein 1970" was made to cash in on the revived interest in the classic monsters generated by the beautiful color horror films from Hammer, most notably "Curse of Frankenstein." While it opens with great promise--with a shambling monster chasing a buxom peasant lass into a pond and then drowning her in what is one of the most intense openings to any monster movie of this vintage--it quickly starts showing its extreme low-budget roots, as well as settling into a pace that is just a little too slow for its own good.

That's not to say the film doesn't have some great moments, like the scene where lead camera man and the starlet are setting up a shot in the crypts under the castle while the monster lurks in the shadows, the scene when the Baron talks about what happened to an inquisitive commander in the Nazi concentration camp where he was tortured during the war, and the scene where the monster claims its first victim. But the material between these moments is a little drab and run-of-the-mill. Nothing is terribly bad, but, on the same note, nothing is exceptionally good.

Among the cast, Karloff is definitely the best, but there isn't anyone here who doesn't do a decent job. Karloff once again manages to take a sneering, leering character and imbue a little touch of humanity into him, with the Baron initially coming across as somewhat sympathetic. (Our sympathy for him quickly evaporates as he reveals himself to be utterly evil and homicidally insane.)

Although... as much as we recognize Baron Frankenstein's evil, we can't help but appreciate that he has created a monster that is disposing of some thoroughly annoying film industry stereotypes. We can also appreciate the Baron's frustration when the monster accidentally kills the one non-annoying member of the production crew.

A flawed, but still entertaining movie, it's a relatively obscure Karloff outing that makes the "Karloff and Lugosi Horror Classics" four-movie DVD collection worth the asking price almost by itself. It is also a great chance for Karloff and Frankenstein fans to see him play a Frankenstein instead of a Monster of Frankenstein.

'The Corpse Vanishes' will make you appreciate your family

The Corpse Vanishes (aka "The Case of the Missing Brides") (1942)
Starring: Luana Walters, Bela Lugosi, Elizabeth Russell and Angelo
Director: Wallace Fox
Rating: Six of Ten Stars

Certifiable madman and scientific genius Prof. Lorenz (Lugosi) is placing beautiful, virgin brides into deathlike states at the altar with specially created orchids. He then steals the bodies and drains glandular fluids from them to create a concoction that keeps is even crazier wife looking youthful. His scientific fountain of youth is threatened when society columnist and wanna-be hardnosed reporter Patricia Hunter (Walters) grows suspicious and pays him a visit at his isolated home. Will she bring in the scoop of the year, or will she herself become a victim?

"The Corpse Vanishes" is a pretty standard mad scientist vs. plucky girl reporter lightweight horror movie... except for the bizarre group of characters that make up Lorenz's household.

From Lorenz's wife (who sleeps in a coffin for no apparent reason) to the house-keeper (a doomsaying withered old hag), her bestial son (who likes fondling the comotose brides Lorenz brings home, not to mention our heroine when she stays the night at the house), to her midget son (who serves as valet, butler, and Lorenz's chief henchman), to Lorenz himself (who at one moment refers to them as his "strange family" and the next moment is threatening to kill them... not to mention the whole abducting of brides thing), this is the weirdest household this side of the Manson Family.

No matter how freaky your family is, if you watch this film before going to celebrate a holiday with them, you will be able to say to yourself, "Eh... they could be worse."

Aside from the Lorenz household, everything else is pretty much stock here--including our heroine and the bland love interest she picks up--but the fast-paced story keeps things lively and moving.

Lugosi gives a standard performance. Although he has quite a bit of screen time, he doesn't have alot do to, except to be a centerpiece around which other, stranger characters orbit.