By
Hank Reineke
Just following Christmas of 1940, Box Office reported Paramount’s new thriller The Mad Doctor would hit cinemas on Valentine’s Day of 1941. The actual sneak-preview – and accompanying
publicity push - of the film would take place ten days prior, February 4, at Los
Angeles’s Paramount Theater. Then, on
Saturday night, February 6, the studio would pull out all the stops, offering a
proper premiere for their “blood-chilling drama.” The studio would celebrate the double-bill of
The Mad Doctor and The Monster and the Girl as central to a
“Spook Week” celebration. Saturday’s
“hair-raising” program would not only feature the films but also a magician and
Andy Kirk and his Harlem Orchestra… the latter performing their swinging
“Spooks and Boogie Woogie” stage show.
The general release of The Mad Doctor, more fittingly described a “drama” than a horror film
in industry trades, was pushed to February 20. Perhaps issuing a blood-letting, wife-offing film on Valentine’s Day was
considered poor taste, or maybe not. In
any event, The Mad Doctor opened to
mixed reviews, ranging from “pretty good” to “poor entertainment.” There were certainly no raves, most critics finding
the film lackluster and derivative. The scenario
was a basic one, they reminded, mildly reminiscent of Charles Perrault’s 1697
fabled folktale Bluebeard. (PRC’s Bluebeard
(1944), starring John Carradine as the titular murderer, was still more than
years away from hitting screens). There
were also suggestions The Mad Doctor
was very similar to Rowland V. Lee’s 1937 British chiller Love from a Stranger.” The comparison
to this latter film was not unfair. That
film, partly based on an Agatha Christie mystery, also featured Basil Rathbone
as a charming womanizer who murders paramours for their dowries.
In the first few minutes of director Tim Whelan’s The Mad Doctor, Basil Rathbone’s Dr.
George Sebastien, an eminent psychiatrist, has already left a trail of formerly
betrothed bodies behind in Vienna, Savannah, and in the village of Midbury,
NY. He has been abetted in his scheming by
murderous accomplice Maurice (Martin Kosleck). Maurice may, or may not, have sexual feelings for Sebastien. This inference of a homosexual relationship between
these two ne’er-do-wells hangs awkwardly in subtle dialogue parries
and glancing looks between the two. But,
this being 1941, one can only assume why this element is not explored further.
Shortly following his bumping off of wife number three,
Sebastien decides to moves his head-shrinking practice to midtown
Manhattan. It’s there that he’s asked by
Louise Watkins (Barbara Jo Allen), the wife of a wealthy newspaper publisher Lawrence
Watkins (Hugh O’Connell), to address the melancholic behavior of a sister Linda
Boothe (Ellen Drew). Though she’s beautiful
and lacks for nothing, the grim but glamorous Linda routinely suffers dreams
where she stands at the “edge of the grave looking down.” Her morbid visions drives her to suicidal
attempts. We watch as she prepares to
jump from the parapet of a high-rise skyscraper. But the girl’s plunge is foiled by the quick intervention
of would-be suitor Gil Sawyer (John Howard).
The girl clearly is in need of mental health counseling. Though concerned about Linda’s “suicide
complex,” Sawyer more selfishly, if correctly, sizes up handsome
psycho-therapist Sebastien as a romantic rival. He disparages Sebastien as a “half-baked soul meddler,” assuring Linda (in
ignorance) she suffers from nothing greater than “ordinary hypochondria.” Sawyer cunningly uses his platform as a
newspaperman to publish a series of unflattering articles on the practice of psychotherapy
in the New York Sun. He hopes to expose Sebastien as the biggest
quack of the profession. But his
research into the doctor’s past leads him to suspect the therapist might very
well be a homicidal maniac. So when a
half-hypnotized Linda agrees to accept Dr. Sebastien’s proposal of marriage, there’s
reason to worry.
Though eight decades have passed since The Mad Doctor hit theaters, it’s hard
not to agree with the original critical assessments published upon release. Personally,
I’m a soft touch for old, creaky and gloomy celluloid mysteries of the 1930s
and 1940s, but what critics moaned as true eighty years ago remains true today.
The cast is good, the New York City penthouse atmosphere elegant and classy,
but the film, alas, is a slow drag. Technically, the film is not even a mystery. It’s no spoiler to reveal Rathbone’s
character as the de facto serial wife-killer and misogynist. This revelation is made plain in the film’s
first few minutes. The only mystery here
is how and when this will be revealed to fellow cast members.
Box
Office dismissed The Mad
Doctor as” not good enough to grace the upper half of the bill save in the
most unimportant program arrangements.” Variety was in agreement sighing,
“Pictures are supposed to move, but ‘Mad Doctor’ has a difficult time getting
anywhere.” The review continued, “This
cumbersome film, running 90 minutes could have been cut to 60 and still there
would have been little meat.” It’s unfortunate
but true. The Mad Doctor is, at best, a middling B picture masquerading as a
something better. There’s very little
suspense, hardly any action nor mystery present to keep moviegoers on the edge
of their seat. A full-page Paramount in-production
announcement published in June 1940 promised, “Basil plays a ‘Jekyll’ and
‘Hyde’ role in the heart chiller!” But
the resulting film is unable to deliver any of the promised thrills.
The Mad Doctor is neither a great film nor, to be
fair, a terribly poor one. Despite its elegant trappings, it’s merely
another B programmer, the sort of thing Monogram or PRC might have knocked out
with less polish or window dressing. The film is mostly doomed by its
ninety-minute running time. There’s enough on screen to suggest The
Mad Doctor might have been a more exciting offering if condensed by a
modicum of judicious editing. But, truthfully, there are other dooming issues
aside from the film’s length. Howard J.
Green’s screenplay is odd in construction; so much so that his paint-by-numbers
scenario offers cinemagoers few moments of audience engagement.
To be fair, Green was brought on to rework an already troubled
script (The Monster) that had been knocking
about the Paramount lot for years. Screenwriters Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur had been trying to get
their script of The Monster into
production as early as 1935. Variety
reported in January 1936 the pair was even bringing aboard Charles Lederer,
visiting Hollywood from New York, to assist in the film’s scripting. The problem was Paramount was simply not
interested in it.
This caused the writers to - unsuccessfully - try and
finagle a deal for The Monster with
the British arm of the Gaumont Film Company in the summer of 1936. Gaumont too would pass, the project remaining
in limbo until September 1939 when Paramount finally opted to purchase story
rights. On October 28, 1939, Box Office reported the studio had
engaged Green to write the script, with neither Hecht, MacArthur nor Lederer receiving
screen credit for their contributions. Perhaps this was a case of too many cooks spoiling the broth: the resulting
patchwork script is demonstrably less the sum of its parts.
The original supporting feature of this double-bill from
Paramount was Stuart Heisler’s The Monster and the Girl, another B film that
also would feature Ellen Drew as the damsel-in -distress. Though not a
classic by any stretch, at least that film (working title, The
Avenging Brain) is a bit of fun: Drew fights off a gorilla whose simian
cerebellum has been replaced by that of a vengeful gangster. At least The
Monster and the Girl half-delivers on what it promises. Something that, sadly, cannot be said of The Mad Doctor.
This Kino Lorber Studio Classics Blu ray of The Mad Doctor is presented here in an aspect ratio of 1.37:1 in 1920p x 1080p
with removable English subs and DTS monaural sound. The set also features an audio commentary
track supplied by film historian David Del Valle, as well as the film’s
theatrical trailer. Visually, I suspect
this film is going to look as good as it ever will. It’s doubtful this title will ever receive a
meticulous and expensive restoration; that would be an effort this film would arguably
not merit. The print used for transfer is not immaculate, but only God - and
a few film techs - would know the condition of the surviving elements used.
Medium shots tend to appear a bit soft-focused, but close-up photography
appears sharp with clarity. There are passing sprinkles of visual debris
and evidence of minor base and emulsion scratches, but these are minor issues
that do not distract.
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