Doctor X

Starring: Lionell Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster, John Wray, Harry Beresford, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Leila Bennett, Robert Warwick
Directed by: Michael Curtiz
Rating: Unrated
Genre: Horror
1932

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A reporter (Lee Tracy) investigates a doctor (Lionell Atwill) given 48 hours by the police to conduct his own investigation into his medical colleagues, to find the potential Moon Killer.

Review:

Tim: Michael Curtiz's 1932 Doctor X has quite a few things going for it, as well as some big drawbacks. It's an interesting film, wonderfully shot. The plot has twists and turns, but the characters feel a bit too one-dimensional. I thought it was a decent film, worth seeing, but not as good as it needed to be.

It was very intriguing for me to watch a film released prior to the Motion Picture Production Code being enforced- so, we get a number of mature themes tackled in this film, including murder, cannibalism, and prostitution. Outside of the obvious murder aspect, though, these other themes are most limited to dialogue. It's a film that feels mature and challenging for the time period in which it was released, but honestly, fairly tame, all things considered. For audiences in 1932, though, I'm sure they were far less comfortable seeing such a dark and twisted tale being told on screen. The movie definitely deserves some credit for its legitimately creepy themes and it's embracing of more mature subject matter throughout.

The story itself is decent, although it does feel like there's plenty of plot holes. Our titular Doctor X is under suspicion because The Moon Killer uses a scalpel to murder his victims. The police want Doctor X's files on his medical colleagues. In an attempt to stave off bad publicity, he gets the police to agree to a 48 hour window for him to conduct his own investigation. Maybe this was realistic in 1932, but it seemed awfully stupid to me. In the midst of Doctor X's internal investigation, there's a plucky reporter sniffing around who is willing to go to great lengths to break the story. From here, there's plenty of twists and turns, additional murders, and some romance thrown in. The story mostly works, but it was hard to feel any emotional connection to the characters. I was fairly interested in seeing the mystery resolved, but I didn't care about the characters at all.

Much of this is due to the writing, but the cast wasn't great, either. Lionell Atwill makes an intriguing Doctor X, but his performance feels somewhat obvious. It has all the trappings of these slightly over-the-top 1930s performances. Atwill is definitely a solid supporting character, though, and overall gives a strong performance. I thought Fay Wray was good in her role, if a bit unremarkable. I don't think she elevated the material or made her character especially memorable. She's the doctor's daughter and never really makes much of an impact on anything. I didn't like Lee Tracy here. That's probably the biggest reason why I didn't consider this a good film- Tracy is just a bit too smarmy, too conceited, too stupidly male as a character. I know this was the 1930s, but even with that context, Tracy is a bit hard to take. He's hamming it up throughout the film, but he never gives us a reason to care about his character. The romance subplot felt forced and totally illogical. As the main character of the film, Tracey missed the mark with his performance and the writers made him too stereotypical and one-dimensional to really work as a legitimate protagonist. That undermines the whole film.

The visuals, the cinematography, they work exceptionally well. Curtiz is a strong director and the technical aspects of this film work beautifully. He creates an appropriately intense and malice-filled environment. The movie doesn't pull many punches and the creepiness factor is high here. As a 1930s horror film, the look and feel of the film is better than most I've seen.

I did think Doctor X was a decent film and I did consider rating it a "7" for quite a while. I think it's right on the line. It's engaging while you watch, but upon reflection, that's Curtiz's technical strengths coming out. The narrative is a bit weak and the characters are too underdeveloped. This movie is worth seeing, but it's an unfortunate case of its weaknesses being just a bit too many and a bit too visible, which ultimately pulls the movie down.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Return of Doctor X, Mystery of the Wax Museum