BY HANK REINEKE
Michael Curtiz’s Doctor
X is a more technically extravagant version of the original stage
production of playwrights Howard Warren Comstock and Allen C. Miller. The play was first tested at the Fox Theater
in Great Neck, Long Island, for a single night’s performance on January 10,
1931. It was immediately followed by a
brief run at Brandt’s Carlton Theatre in Jamaica, Queens, where newspaper adverts
suggested theatergoers “Bring Your Shock Absorber†along. The production then moved to Brandt’s Boulevard
Theatre in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York, for several performances, only to
be followed by a week-long preview and fine-tuning at Brandt’s Flatbush Theater
in Brooklyn beginning January 26.
The three-act “mystery melodrama†would finally make its Broadway
debut at the Hudson Theater, off W. 44th Street, on February 9,
1931. The stage play featured actor Howard
Lang in the role of the sinister Dr. Xavier, but the mystery wouldn’t enjoy a
terribly long run on the Great White Way. The Hudson would eventually shutter the doors on the production in
mid-April 1931.
It’s no coincidence that four Brandt-owned theatres were successively
engaged to showcase the early previews of Doctor
X. The play had been intentionally co-produced
for the stage by the theatre owners William and Harry Brandt. Billboard
would note in December of 1930 that the two brothers had chosen to enter the
field of theatrical production as a potential remedy to offset the “slack
business conditions on the subway circuit.â€
The early reviews of the Brandt’s showcase were mainly
positive, especially when considering the decidedly grim fare offered. The critic from Brooklyn’s Times-Union thought Doctor X a “swell show.†The paper reported that the gruesome
goings-on of Jackson Height’s preview had not only caused a woman in the
balcony to scream in fright but that other patrons nervously called “for the
lights to be turned on†midway through the program. Whether such outbursts of fright were genuine
or simply publicity ballyhoo stunts may never be known. But likely more of the latter than the
former.
Not everyone was impressed. Brooklyn’s Standard-Union newspaper took a
contrarian view of the stage show’s ability to curdle the blood of attendees. In the paper’s review of February 10, 1931,
their critic would grieve that Doctor X
was a mostly undistinguished effort, “Freighted with all the dismal baggage of
those lamentable pastimes known as mystery thrillers.†“Even though the authors, no pikers, have
arranged almost an endless procession of synthetic horrors,†the review
mercilessly continued, “spectators are no longer hoodwinked by such drowsy
tidbits. No longer can an actor with an
anaemic makeup or panels that slide open terrify theatergoers into submission.â€
Nonetheless, and though the play opened to mixed reviews,
some of the New York dailies were impressed. There were enough good notices to allow the Brandt’s to run
advertisements suggesting Doctor X as
“New York’s Only Mystery Hit: Electrifies Press and Public Alike!†The critic of the New York Herald Tribune thought it a grand affair, trumpeting, “’Doctor X’ holds the best claim for some
time to the grand heritage of such creepy works as ‘The Bat,’ ‘The Cat and the
Canary’ and ‘The Spider.’†These
references to past and successful mystery-melodramas of the stage were not only
interesting but prescient: all three of these theatrical properties were
subsequently licensed by Hollywood studios to be brought to neighborhood movie
screens. Such transitioning of
properties from Broadway to Hollywood was, as referenced by the above review,
not unusual.
Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood’s The Bat had made its Broadway debut at
the Morosco Theatre on August 22, 1921. That play would be belatedly adapted for the screen as a vehicle for
Vincent Price in 1959. John Willard’s The Cat and the Canary would debut on
the boards of the Majestic Theatre on June 14, 1937, and enjoy no fewer than three
film treatments: there was Paul Leni’s celebrated silent film version of 1927,
a popular Bob Hope mystery-comedy of 1939, and a late-arriving 1978 British
production featuring Honor Blackman, Michael Callan and Edward Fox. Fulton Oursler and Lowell Brentano’s The Spider would make two appearances on
Broadway with an initial staging at Chanin’s 46th Street Theater in
March of 1927 and, again, at the Century Theater in February of 1928. That play would be brought to the big screen
twice, first in 1931 as a straightforward murder mystery, then reconfigured in
1945 as a film noir-style mystery picture.
Interestingly, Lionel Atwill was working on a different
Broadway stage at the same time Doctor X
was concurrently running at the Hudson. Atwill was working one block north at Broadway’s Morosco Theatre, the
featured player in Lee Shubert’s production of The Silent Witness (opening date 3/23/31). The
Silent Witness too was quickly picked up by Fox and following that show’s
Broadway run, Atwill traveled out to Hollywood to star in the play’s film
version, co-directed by Marcel Varnel and R.L. Hough. Though there were reports that Lionel Atwill
was to return to the New York stage directly following that film’s wrap, in early
March 1932 newssheets reported that Warner Bros. had asked him to remain in
Hollywood for a spell. He had been
offered the title role in their recently optioned property Doctor X.
In succeeding weeks, more details would emerge of the
forthcoming production. On March 17
there were reports that Michael Curtiz had been signed to direct Doctor X and that silent film star Mae
Busch (“absent from pictures some yearsâ€) was also offered a small role. On March 19, the Hollywood Reporter would relate that actor Tommy Dugan had signed
on for two new Warner Bros. pictures, the first being Doctor X. On March 20, it
was reported that popular ingénue Fay Wray was brought on to the picture, with
shooting scheduled to “begin this week.†Warner Bros/First National’s Technicolor film production of Doctor X would wrap – very quickly,
considering the elaborate sets designed and constructed - in early May of 1932.
The film’s projected release was set for late July.
There’s a lot to like about this film. With the release of Doctor X, Warner Bros. was most likely hoping to siphon off some of
the public interest and box office that Universal was enjoying with such
macabre fare as Dracula and Frankenstein. Though the studio fell short of producing an
iconic film, they nevertheless produced a pretty decent B-picture that offered
a modicum of thrills and chills. One of
the true highlight’s of the film version of Doctor
X, is the art deco “mad scientist†laboratory sets of designer Anton
Grot. The sets were so elaborate and
grand that the New York Herald Tribune
would run a fifteen paragraph long - and impressively detailed - tribute on
Grot and his designs. That article, “Built-in Menace Hangs Over All in Anton
Grot’s House of Doomâ€), includes an unusual for the period in-depth
interview with the designer. The article
also notes that no fewer than “192 sketches and blueprints†of imaginative and
elaborate design had been drafted in preparation for shooting.