Doctor X Review

        This is an interesting one. Whenever I do something special such as these guides to the classic horror movies. I always want to do one that has some historical aspect to them. One year I’ll scrape the bottom of the barrel and see some crappy ones. Anyways, I want to talk about Doctor X to wrap up my look into 1930s horror. 

1. Doctor Xavier

        I’ll talk about the reason why this movie is historically important in movies in a bit. With that, this is an interesting horror movie from Warner Bros. Specifically, this is based on a play that was happening in a decade prior to this film’s release. Now obviously, it’s a horror movie, but it has that spin of being a crime movie. I feel that when these two types collide, it mostly produces something great. 

        With that, we follow a reporter named Lee, who tries to get a scoop about the roaming murderer in New York City dubbed the Moon Killer. He tries to follow the police to see the gruesome aftermath of the victims. Meanwhile, the police call in Doctor Xavier to see if he can investigate. This is the interesting part of the movie; they have the doctor perform an experiment to see if the other suspects are the real killer. 

        The movie makes it seem that the Doctor is the killer in question. It’s an interesting take that the police is willing to let him be the one to figure out who the killer is. All the while, Lee is trying to get the story for his paper. We get to see the betterment when Lee comes across the Doctor’s daughter. At first she’s mad at him for writing a negative piece on him and he admits that he was forced to. 

        Now for the killer himself, we hardly get a good look. I mean we do see a glimpse of his face, and almost come close to killing Lee. When it’s revealed who the actual killer is, it almost looks grotesque with how he puts on his face. He applies some wax-like substance and smears it all over his face to assume a different identity. This idea has popped up in another movie, but I’m getting ahead of myself. 

        One last thing I want to talk about is that the film has a comedic element to it. Most of it comes at the expense with Lee. There’s moments when he’s a trickster and he messes with an officer by using a buzzer on his hand. I can divulge on the comedic moments, but this movie is perhaps the first color and comedic horror movie. 

2. Technicolor

        To put it into perspective of how significant this movie was, nearly all movies were shot in black and white. It’s just a fact. Now, there were certain circumstances where color did appear in a dominant black and white film. One example is in the first adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera. The Wizard of Oz made it popular, but it had the sepia tone in the beginning and the end. 

        With Doctor X, its interesting to how the process was done. How they did it was the reels were dyed with color. When they put it together, it would immediately pop up. As I continued my research, only the big cities had the luxury of seeing the color version of the movie. Which means that there’s two version, since the small cities and towns just saw the black and white version. 

3. Overall

        Doctor X is a product of its time. Not to say it’s dull, but it’s a good watch. You know it’s a classic Warner movie when people talk fast and used the transatlantic accent.