TCM Film Festival Review: 'Doctor X' and the Horror Films of Michael Curtiz

In his insanely prolific career with more than 170 film credits in just over 40 years in Hollywood and Germany, Director Michael Curtiz made only three horror movies. As is typical of Michael Curtiz, these aren’t merely horror films, they are incredibly detailed, exceptionally well made horror films. Curtiz did nothing halfway in his remarkable career and while Doctor X may not be well remembered today, it’s an exceptional 1930’s horror movie filled with suspense, drama and a touch of comedy to make the scares more fun.

Our scene in Doctor X is set by a series of grisly murders committed by moonlight. A local reporter, Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy) is haunting the area near the City Morgue late one moonlit night and sees the latest body arrive. Being a smart reporter, he immediately assumes that this could be the latest victim of a cannibalistic serial killer, known as the Moon Killer, and he wants the story. After being thwarted by police from getting into the morgue, the reporter notices a local professor, Doctor Xavier (Lionel Atwill) has been called to the morgue and he senses a lead.

Inside the morgue, detectives have asked Doctor Xavier to examine the body. They claim to want his expert opinion but in reality, Doctor Xavier is linked to a piece of evidence that they’ve uncovered. The killer is using a specific type of scalpel, a brand that is only known to be used by the staff at Doctor Xavier’s medical school. The detectives want Dr Xavier to give them access to his school and his roster of professors for their investigation.

Doctor Xavier agrees in principle but he has a plan that he feels could be more effective. Rather than have Police crawling around his school and possibly catching the attention of the media, Doctor Xavier convinces Police to allow him to bring his professors to his home where he will interrogate them and use a new invention of his to unquestionably determine who the killer is. Needing Doctor Xavier’s cooperation, the detectives reluctantly agree.

Hiding in the morgue as a corpse, Lee Taylor hears the plan and sets about getting himself into Doctor Xavier’s castle. His first attempt is thwarted by Doctor Xavier’s daughter, Joanne played King Kong heroine, Fay Wray who gets to let's loose with one her first legendary film screams in Doctor X, a year before her pipers became iconic in Kong). Joanne quickly surmises that he’s a reporter. Eventually, Taylor finds a secret entrance to the castle and bumbles his way into the investigation. He also eventually manages to charm Joanne and a minor romantic subplot begins.

The roster of professors at Doctor Xavier’s medical school could not be a more suspicious and creepy group. First, there is Dr Wells (Preston Foster) whom we meet as he is using electricity to stimulate a human heart in a jar. Dr Duke (Arthur Edmond Carewe) is first glimpsed hiding whatever his bizarre experiment is from the visiting detectives and urging Doctor Xavier to get the cops out of there before they find out. And finally, there is Doctor Rowitz (Harry Beresford) a hostile, elderly doctor who protests his innocence so much he becomes more suspicious.

The set up and execution of the plot of Doctor X is impeccable. Curtiz introduces his characters with efficiency while also creating red herrings brilliantly. All the while, Lee Tracy bumbles around the edges of the story doing comic schtick that, in the hands of a lesser director and actor, could be annoying or distracting but here feels like just the right amount of levity needed to puncture the dread atmosphere of the murder plot and the creepy suspects. Tracy is so charming that his presence makes the final moments of Doctor X feel more exciting and triumphant.

The killer is, I kid you not, referred to as 'The Monstrous Moon Killer' because his murders have been timed to night’s when there is a full moon. The killer however, is not a werewolf but a doctor who has become obsessed with what he calls synthetic flesh which he claims can regrow limbs via the use of flesh from living victims. He kills by the full moon because it’s easier to see victims at night under a full moon.

The reveal of the killer is terrific as Curtiz has wonderfully crafted characters who could be the killer, ingenious red herrings and over the top circumstances surrounding Doctor Xavier's machine which he claims can unquestionably determine who the killer is. The suspense of Doctor X is so much fun and the ending is a rousing 1930’s style fight scene that I could not help but cheer for. The hero is a true hearted hero, the villain is a murderous monster and there is no mistaking our rooting interest. While modern horror has embraced anti-heroes or focused on flawed heroes, scarred by trauma, there is something so satisfying about a simple moment of good versus evil.

Doctor X was one of the first movies to employ color technology in the form of 2 color technicolor. This was a short lived experiment in the early 1930's and yet, Curtiz being Curtiz, he employed the process to help set an incredible atmosphere for his horror story. The look of Doctor X is just gorgeous, especially following a recent remastering of a two color print of the movie found in the personal collection of Jack Warner following his death and the coloring is superb. The two color technicolor process causes the costumes to pop off the screen and it gives the skin of the actors a particular glow while also washing out the color of the villainous monster of the story in an eerie and otherworldly fashion.

Doctor X will be featured at The TCM Classic FIlm Festival, May 6th through the 9th, alongside the short documentary The Horror Film’s of Michael Curtiz which features an interview with famed Michael Curtiz biographer, Alan K Rode. The short shines a light on Doctor X along with Curtiz’s two other incredible yet mostly forgotten horror movies, The Walking Dead starring Boris Karloff and Mystery at the Wax Museum, a film that reunited Curtiz with Doctor X star Lionel Atwill.

On a side note, quite tangential to Doctor X, there was a sequel to Doctor X that was not directed by Michael Curtiz or involving the legendary director in any way and yet is connected to his most well known feature, Casablanca. The Return of Doctor X in 1939, seven years after the original, and 3 years prior to Casablanca, is the only science fiction/horror movie in the career of the legendary Humphrey Bogart. Yes, the most famed tough guy romantic in the history of film starred in a zombie movie a mere three years before his iconic role as Rick in Casablanca. And it is as weird as it sounds.

It's a truly bizarre and low rent sequel which appears to have been made by people who hadn't seen the original Doctor X. In this version, a reporter and a doctor team up to investigate a series of murders that lead them to a mysterious doctor and his strange looking assistant, played by Bogart. The strange looking assistant is actually Doctor X who has been resurrected by his friend but now stalks moonlit nights seeking a rare blood type to sustain himself. Doctor X was not the villain of the original movie but he is the villain in the sequel and played by an actor who looks nothing like him. Yes, dear reader, the Hollywood cash grab from existing I.P is not new, it goes all the way back to the 1930's and probably even earlier. That's Hollywood for you.