Great Film overall

good back-story, and good acting

Excellent but underrated film

Don't Believe the Hype

After a rash of murders in New York, a reporter's quest for the truth leads to the seaside mansion of a famed scientist are conducting a series of illegal experiments on the nature of evil, forcing him and his still-alive captors to stop their experiments before he can finish.This here was a pitiful and absolutely wretched effort. What makes this one so terrible is the fact that there's just no possible way the story to this one can mean anything when the large portion of what's going on here tends to fall into the rather ridiculous and lame comedy that's supposed to be down-right hilarious but truly isn't. Not only is the lead's constant bungling around his clothes for different objects at a given time or his thousand-words-a-minute smooth-talking to get out of sticky situations unbearably unfunny, but the film has the gall to believe that not just one or two but three separate scenes of him being trapped in a room with skeletons that manipulate themselves on their own are gut-busting hilarious enough to warrant that many repeat returns to that gag that this is a great example of the purposeful horror/comedy that's not funny. That each of these scenes last as long as they do not only makes this one a staggering chore to get into in the first half but also drowns out the horror to a bare minimum in these parts which is really only in the fact that the rampage is on-going and we get detailed explanations of the victims' remains in such a state that the technical jargon for these sequences is almost as bad as the boredom from the supposed laughs to come along. What tends to keep this one remaining as a horror film is the films' final half which is where this one really gets going with some admittedly decent and suspenseful times in their experiment chamber where the different attempts to provide the search for their mission manages to get pretty enjoyable by holding out the killer's identity quite well here in the first sequence as the chaos makes it quite chilling, while the second attempt is even better with the identity switch putting the killer with her while the others are helpless to watch culminating in a great brawl that ends this on a high note. Still, the massive flaws with this one really hold it down the most.Today's Rating/PG: Violence.

There are Many Enjoyable Elements Incorporated in this Early Talkie/Technicolor Horror Movie. It is Directed with Flair and Style from One of Hollywood's Elite, Michael Curtiz and Shot in a Two-Strip Color Process that was Rare at the Time. It has Horror Icon's Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray. The Exciting Climax Lovingly Displays some Fantastic Horror Makeup and is Filmed in Eerie Closeups and is Quite Impressive. The Sets are Mad-Lab Expressionistic and there is Pre-Code Nastiness and Lurid Inclusions.The Movie is Visually Stunning at Times and is Always Interesting, Using Pulp Magazine Style Art Representations that were Popular at the Time with Bondage and Women in Peril Themes. The Horror Elements may seem Dated but are Still Chilling in a Retro Kind of Way. Fay Wray is a Beauty and is Exploited in a Beach Scene right up to a Money Shot. Lionel Atwill and His Board of Scientists are Creepy and Eccentric with Physical and Mental Scars that are, Again, Pulp Inspired. The Pre-Code Stuff Includes a Whore-House, Cannibalism, a Drug Addict and More. This is a Great Example of Uncensored Hollywood and is Only Brought Down Today by a Heavy Dose of Slapstick Humor and Stilted Love Interest with the Never Appealing Lee Tracy (although He has His Fans).

Doctor X isn't the story of just one but five mad scientists, all complete with mad scientist laboratories: simmering flasks, bubbling beakers, sizzling Jacob's Ladders, popping power breakers & crazy theories. Director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, Captain Blood, Yankee Doodle Dandee) uses shadow effectively to throw us red herrings, cast menace and provide a rich atmosphere. Lionel Atwill is Doctor X (Xavier), owner of a seaside mansion that is home to four more great scientists happily working away until a series of murders throws suspicion on the gaggle of geeks. Lee Tracy is a newspaper reporter with a fondness for practical jokes (hand buzzer, exploding cigars) looking for a scoop and determined to do anything to get it. Fay Ray is Joanne Xavier, Doctor X's daughter. Here she is strong, determined, confident and independent; although still gets some opportunities to exercise her exquisite screams. Fay Ray could display an unmatched sensuous vulnerability that played so well in King Kong and which we get to see for a few seconds near the end of Doctor X. The downside is that the story is preposterous, sometimes goofy and has trouble deciding if it wants to be a comedy or suspenseful thriller. Doctor X, determined to prevent bad press, rigs a silly experiment to find the killer himself and when the experiment goes fatally wrong, decides to up the ante and do it again. What I found implausible is that the other scientists would risk their lives, again, and that Doctor X would risk his daughter's life without adequate precautions but that is what happens. In a dark comedy this would work but here it just seems silly. Lee Tracy's many scenes of practical jokes not only drags the pace but seem out of place against the otherwise dark and serious tone.

This movie was the archetype for the dark old house films of this era, with classic horror actors Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill in the starring roles. (Atwill never really gets credit, he was much a feature of classic horror films as Lugosi and Karloff, but only film buffs really know who he is.) The film was also famous for one of the first attempts to use Technicolor in a commercial film, albeit not successfully.The plot is simple, a number of murders with cannibalism have been committed (absolutely shocking in 1932 before the Hayes Code)and the suspects are a group of doctors at Doctor Xaiver's academy. (Must avoid X-men joke.) IN a rather convoluted experiment, Dr. X attempts to trap the killer using some fancy machine. It really borders on science fiction.this was before Hollywood movies fully understood the concept of tone and put elements of horror and comedy into the same film. And some of the acting and dialog was pretty corny, but keep in mind, they were only used to doing movies with sound for less than a decade at that point. In many ways, actors still acted like they were on stage in a theater, because cinema hadn't entirely developed as an art form yet.