It wouldn't be Spookyween without an Old Dark House. Now, calling Doctor X an Old Dark House film is a bit of a misnomer as the movie takes a little bit to actually get to the ODH in question. But this is the first Old Dark House movie I watched, and if it wasn't for it, then I think I would have developed a migraine over movies I love today like Sh! The Octopus and House of Mystery. These movies were so good at packing in menageries of oddity into their cheap and quick desire to make people laugh and scream that it's hard not to gawk at them today. Plus, with some authentically antiquated creepy visuals and a stellar performance from Lionel Atwill, there are some nice thrills to supplement the trashy hilarity.
For six months, New York has been wracked with murders committed every full moon by the rather dully named Moon Killer. Reporter Lee Taylor, a cowardly klutz, is looking for news on the murders and stumbles across an autopsy on one of the victims led by Dr. Xavier, head of a prominent medical research institute. Not only do the cops learn that the victims are being partially cannibalized, but they reveal that each of the victims was butchered post-mortem by a particular brain scalpel only used in the Xavier Institute. Xavier and all his scientists are now under suspicion. Xavier insists on the privilege of conducting his own investigation to help exonerate his Institute's reputation; this being the '30s, the police agree. We meet each of the doctor's staff in turn. Dr. Wells is a cannibalism specialist, but he lost an arm years ago and therefore isn't really super great at crushing people's tracheae, which is usually how the victims met their end. Dr. Haines is the most capable physically, but he's (initially) the least suspicious, as his deal is just that he reads porn. Dr. Duke is a rude, shrieking bastard, but he's also paralyzed and thus not really the strangle-murdering sort. And Dr. Rowitz gets creepy framing and has scars and an eyepatch, plus a scientific fascination with the moon, but he seems harmless enough. Taylor ultimately finds out where Dr. Xavier's testing of himself and his staff will take place: his creaky upstate mansion, a suitably aged and shadowy locale. Xavier and his scientists, along with Xavier's daughter Joan and his maid and butler, pack themselves into the house, with Taylor not far behind. Xavier will find his killer, alright--but he should know that keeping his killer so close is playing with fire.
Like many an Old Dark House film, Doctor X is part comedy as well as part horror-mystery. This works to varying effects throughout the film. Much of this comedy is centered around our ostensible protagonist, Lee Taylor, a character whom other critics hate so much you'd think he was Jar Jar Binks. I find him sort of charming, but then, I also have severe brain damage from having sat through the vast plethora of comic relief reporters who crop up in horror films from the 1920s through the 1940s. That he ends up with Joan Xavier in the end is something of a male entitlement issue, a conformance to tropes better left dead, but Fay Wray's performance is entirely fitting that of the daughter of a mad scientist, and while she could definitely do better when it comes to bedmates, you'd better believe she's wearing the fucking pants if they go places. I trust her judgment in men, and I do find some of Taylor's shtick at least a little funny, so I'll be kind to him. The movie never made me laugh out loud, but it had a consistent pace and rhythm to it that helped draw me into the experience.
This movie is so old that a character has to explain to us how a joy buzzer works. Contrariwise, this movie also features Prohibition jokes and a character entering what is obviously a brothel, salaciously-clad ladies included. Keep it classy, 1930s. And don't forget, Dr. Haines' "textbook" turned out to be full of "French Art," which is made all the funnier by the fact that Xavier calls Haines a "most studious worker." But this changes, as the movie goes on, and we see that Haines is definitely some sort of sicko. After all, it's not quite professional behavior to stare at the swimsuit-clad body of one's boss for prolonged periods of time, is it? That Haines is physically abled and the seeming meekest of all the scientists makes it stand to reason that he's the killer--he and Xavier himself, who the movie beautifully never keeps above suspicion, especially by having him played by Lionel Atwill. But nope, this is a '30s horror film so of course the real solution to the mystery is something far less comprehensible. Spoilers ahead.
The killer is Wells, and he's able to strangle people because he knows how to make new limbs. While his field is ostensibly cannibalism studies, we find out that he's actually been working on something called "synthetic flesh" (a phrase which he ends up saying in the best voice possible no less than three times in the film's climax). Not only can he recreate his missing arm, but he uses the synthetic flesh to makes a monstrous face and head for himself, resembling something like the handsome older brother of the closet-monster from The Brain That Wouldn't Die. The scene in which he applies the synthetic flesh has some artsy, proto-psychedelic flair to it. He then explains that he wasn't in Africa to study cannibalism, but was instead actually there to use the flesh that natives eat to develop his synthetic flesh.
This makes no sense. If Wells was never a cannibal, or even particularly interested in cannibalism outside of--I don't know--securing meat from the cannibals, why the hell does he start eating the corpses?! Maybe he wants to convince that the public that this killer is a maniac and not a respectable doctor, but this argument falls flat when he considered; 1) Wells also butchers his victims with a scalpel, which is why the Xavier Institute is under suspicion to begin with; 2) Wells is a known expert on cannibalism. That's what he's a doctor in! Also, how does studying the feeding patterns of cannibals provide insight into the creation of an organic flesh substitute? Is synthetic flesh refined in the human gullet or something? Is that why he was taking bites out of his victims...? Maybe that's why the comedy is here--it's conforming to type as an ODH film, but it also helps cover the fact that They Just Didn't Care. Or, perhaps more properly, that It's Just a Show, and We Should Really Just Relax.
Doctor X can fade into a dull sit at times, but it really is one of the best of its kind. Filmed at a time before mass film censorship, it takes full advantage of the guttural sensationalism at the time and comes up with something nearly as fucked up as West of Zanzibar and Murders in the Zoo. It's absolutely not perfect, but I watch it every October. Join me, won't you?
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