TCM Classic ’21: Doctor X

Thirty years before the first appearance of Professor X, there was Doctor X. The “X” did indeed stand for Xavier, but Dr. Jerry Xavier was not a superhero—just super smart. He also oversees his own school, in this case a leading medical school. Unfortunately, one of his faculty members could very well be the notorious “Moon Killer,” so he sets a trap for the psychotic—or vice versa—in the great Michael Curtiz’s Doctor X, which screens in its restored 2-color Technicolor as part of the 2021 TCM Classic Film Festival (to be broadcast over the network this year, for pandemic reasons).

Every full moon, the Moon Killer takes another victim. He doesn’t just strangle the bodies, he also slices the base of their skull with a surgical scalpel and partially cannibalizes the corpses (this is pre-Code, remember). Wise-cracking but dumb-as-a-post reporter Lee Taylor has followed the story to Doctor X. The gangster-like cops finally noticed all six of the murders took place within a close radius of Xavier’s school (currently on a semester break), so naturally they want to turn the place upside. Instead, Dr. X convinces them to let him conduct his own investigation, using his mad scientist apparatus to measure his still-present faculty’s responses to a re-enactment of the latest murder.

In some ways, Doctor X feels dated, especially Lee Tracy’s yukkedy-yuk humor as the gadfly reporter. However, Anton Grot’s sets are wonderfully atmospheric. For some reason, Dr. Xavier decides to conduct his experimental inquiry in a creepy old mansion overlooking a cliff. Maybe you have to be a genius to understand that one, but it is a good setting for mayhem. Counter-intuitively, the 2-color Technicolor might even make it eerier than the black-and-white print (that was how fans knew the film for years), because it has a weird, ethereal vibe, like a Guy Maddin film without Udo Kier.

Of course, Lionel Atwill is a blast to watch bellowing scientistic mumbo-jumbo, like an early forerunner to Peter Cushing’s Dr. Frankenstein. This time, Atwill gets to play a good guy. It also represents the first of three collaborations with Fay Wray (and also with Curtiz). Plus, this would be Wray’s first screen scream as Dr. X’s daughter Joanne. It is not exactly a richly-written character, but she plays it with saucy pre-Code energy. You can see why her performance was a stepping stone to bigger and more iconic roles.

The Vampire Bat [Restored], Starring Fay Wray and Dwight Frye

It is hard to say whether superstition or science is a more destructive force for this Old European village. Of course, we are not talking about mere conventional science. Dr. Otto von Niemann practices mad science. However, he shrewdly exploits the traditional vampire legends to explain away all the bodies he has drained of blood in Frank R. Strayer’s The Vampire Bat, which was recently restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive, who held a special streaming screening last night (and it also airs this afternoon on TCM, presumably from a standard, older print).

Dr. von Niemann is played by Lionel Atwill, so we know he is up to no good in his laboratory, but somehow his assistant and lodger, Ruth Bertin is oblivious to his villainy. She is romantically involved with Inspector Karl Breettschneider, who has been bedeviled by a rash of murder victims completely drained of blood. He initially thinks all the vampire talk is rubbish, but Dr. von Niemann gives it convincing credence.

Unfortunately, suspicion soon falls on poor Herman Glieb, the town freak, who keeps bats as pets in his garret (you could say they are in his belfry). He also has a habit of turning up at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Vampire Bat is the sort of production Roger Corman could respect. It was produced by a “Poverty Row” indie studio, but it approximated the look and vibe of the blockbuster Universal monster movies by repurposing hand-me-down sets from Frankenstein and Old Dark House. It also hired thesps who were (or would be) associated with the Universal franchises. For instance, Lionel Belmore, who played the Burgomaster in Frankenstein, plays Gustave Schoen, the Bergermeister (a totally different role).

More importantly, Dwight Frye (Fritz in Frankenstein and Renfield in Dracula) gives arguably his finest performance as the nutty yet acutely tragic Glieb. He raves, rolls his eyes, and does what he did best, but in a way that subverts and deconstructs his famous roles. Atwill (who would become iconic as the Inspector with the wooden arm in Son of Frankenstein) makes a coolly cerebral mad scientist, but he still chews plenty of scenery as von Niemann.

This was definitely a “scream queen” job for Fay Wray, but she plays Bertin with a bit more attitude and forcefulness then we usually get from pre-Code horror damsels in distress (as she also did in The Most Dangerous Game. She also has some nice flirty chemistry with Melvyn Douglas (fresh off Old Dark House), who is amusingly flamboyant and sarcastic, also providing a nice contrast to the standard bland horror leading men.

Tod Browning’s Mark of the Vampire

We always assumed vampire legends were silly superstitions, but in the age of coronaviruses, it may very well be that an aversion to bats was a survival instinct hard-wired into our DNA. Bela Lugosi and Tod Browning did more than their share to stoke those primordial fears. Four years after the classic Dracula, they returned to the blood-sucking well with Mark of the Vampire, which airs on TCM this Friday.

Sadly, Sir Karell Borotyn dies one fateful night, but the only apparent cause are two small bite marks on his neck. You know what that means. So does the cowardly Dr. Doskil, but Inspector Neumann of the Prague police thinks all the rustic locals’ vampire talk is just a bunch of rubbish, even though the recently deceased Count Mora and his equally dead daughter Luna have been seen prowling around. However, he starts giving the rumors some credence when both Borotyn’s daughter Irena and her fiancé Fedor Vincente suffer similar bite marks. The Van Helsing-like Prof. Zelen confirms their vampire suspicions and starts organizing a defensive campaign (“bat-thorn” instead of wolfsbane).

Mark has a twist that a lot of fans absolutely hate, but it has been ripped off anyway in dozens of subsequent films. It is not nearly as elegant as the original Dracula, but Mark still has plenty of entertaining skulking through graveyards. The great James Wong Howe’s black-and-white cinematography has the classic atmospheric look that made the monster movies of the 1930s and 1940s so darn cool. This was actually a case of Browning remaking himself, but his original silent film, London After Midnight (starring Lon Chaney) is now considered lost.

Obviously, it is shame that we are missing out on Chaney Sr. in a horror setting, but the cast of Mark also includes several legends. Lugosi was probably frustrated by his lack of dialogue, but his scenes with Carroll Borland (playing Luna) are arguably just as iconic as the original Dracula (you can clearly see their influence on Plan 9 from Outer Space, for what that’s worth). Lionel Atwill (who later tried to enforce the law with monsters on the loose as the Inspector in Son of Frankenstein) is rock solid playing the skeptical Neumann.