Good story, Not enough for a whole film

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

It's certainly wonderful to see this hitherto lost work of director Michael Curtiz. True, it has been available in black-and-white, but who in their right senses would want to look at Doctor X without color? I agree the picture might still deliver a few odd thrills, but its obsessive mood, its genuinely spooky atmosphere — not to mention all its splendidly Gothic pictorial effects — are utterly lost. In monochrome, maybe a passable chiller. In color, a minor yet fascinating masterpiece of almost unbearably tingling horror.Take the cast. Thanks to her appearances in this one and "The Mystery of the Wax Museum", plus "The Most Dangerous Game" and "King Kong", Fay Wray is the only female film star of the early 1930s who has a greater reputation today than way back then. She looks lovely. And most attractively dressed too. The imperiled heroine par perfection.Lee Tracy is hardly our first choice for the role of comic newspaperman, but he handles that assignment with such skill that he ingratiatingly delivers thrills, laughs and romance in liberal yet almost equal measure. The ever-reliable Lionel Atwill is handed a made-to-order part as the suspicious doctor-in-charge. Few actors can deliver lines with such commendable speed and authority. Robert Warwick makes a game try here, but comes nowhere close. As for Preston Foster, his startling performance will have audiences cheering. Leila Bennett is also effective as a scared-witless maid. And A.E. Carewe has a small but vivid role to play.For me, however, there are two actors in "Doctor X" who truly excel way, way beyond the call of duty. The other is George Rosener. Admittedly, he's handed a colorful role as a sadistically servile Otto-of-all-work, but Rosener plays it with an edge that is absolutely riveting.It's a bit mean to single out a few players when Curtiz has drawn such vividly convincing portraits from the whole cast. Notice how he adds to the realism by sometimes causing one player to break in on someone else's dialogue, or cues a number of actors to all speak at once.Curtiz has also made fine use of Grot's magnificently atmospheric sets and — assisted by Amy's smoothly sharp editing — paced the picture to a really palm-sweating climax. Ray Rennahan's superb camera-work adds immeasurably to the bizarrely enthralling atmosphere of ultra- chilling suspense.Finally, I will mention that Atwill, Foster and company all rejoice in titles of both "doctors" and "professors"; that Miss Wray is usually called "Joanne" but that she is twice addressed as "Joan"; that Mae Busch is obviously the madam of a brothel, not a speak- easy; that Tom Dugan is best described as a plainclothesman outside the Mott Street Morgue; that Harry Holman of the exploding cigar (which plays a neat part in the cleverly menacing plot) is indeed Patrolman Mike; and yes, it is Selmer Jackson in the not-credited bit part as the Globe's night editor.The play opened on Broadway at the Hudson on 9 February 1931, running 80 performances. Howard Lang starred.

. . . in order to watch his daughter being strangled? Someone said "It takes all kinds," but the team of freaks assembled by DOCTOR X plays like a geriatric version of the X-MEN. Whenever the title character "Dr. Xavier" can tear himself away from the Wolverine's shenanigans with his daughter Joanne, he's beating the bushes for the INVISIBLE MAN. In the guise of Clark Kent, SUPERMAN saves KING KONG's mistress from a Fate Worse Than Death. DR. JEKYLL has smeared himself with Henrietta Lacks to become MR. HYDE, and FRANKENSTEIN's not far behind. Clark keeps on greeting JACK THE RIPPER with a joy buzzer before changing the channel from BEACH BLANKET BINGO to BONFIRE OF VANITIES. This DOCTOR X is an evocative trifle, suggesting much but fleshing out little. Though color movies may have done okay 83 years ago without any shades of blue, clunkers and groaners apparently never go out of fashion at the American Cinema.

A wisecracking New York reporter (Lee Tracy) intrudes on a research scientist's quest to unmask The Moon Killer.This film has it all: a monster composed of "synthetic flesh", a murder mystery, an investigative reporter who could be Abbott or Costello. Even just a hint of romance (thanks to a pre-Kong Fay Wray).Many have remarked on the two-strip Technicolor process and how great (or awful) it looks. Indeed, it is worth noting that this green and brown technique makes an interesting alternative to black and white, and in many scenes really heightens the mood and makes a few things pop.But color or not, this is just a great film, in many ways a 1950s-style science fiction feature decades before its time.

Based on the previous reviews, Lee Tracy evidently is one of those actors that one either thoroughly enjoys or finds highly irritating – to me, he's entertaining and a joy to watch. I liked his wisecracking reporter character a lot – it was a pleasant relief from what was a rather dark and dreary movie. The plot of this early sound horror film is Dr. Xavier's search for which of his colleagues is the serial killer dubbed The Moon Rise Killer. Dr. Xavier runs a scientific research academy – all of the doctors working at the academy act odd including Xavier himself and the police have narrowed their search for the killer to the academy researchers and give Doctor Xavier 48 hours to uncover him. I'm not a big fan of early horror films (and no fan at all of contemporary horror films) but I must say that this one was particularly creepy due to, as others have noted, the wonderful sets, the excellent and scary make-up used at the end of the movie, and spot on acting by Atwill and Foster. The early Technicolor added to the spookiness. Lucky for Fay Wray that she was in King Kong for otherwise she would probably be virtually forgotten rather than fairly well known - at least among old movie buffs. As it is, Fay Wray is probably better known than Lee Tracy, which is a shame.