Thanks for the memories!

Really Surprised!

it is finally so absorbing because it plays like a lyrical road odyssey that’s also a detective story.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

From Tod Browning, the director of horror classic Dracula (1931) and the infamous Freaks (1932), The Devil-Doll is a fun horror/fantasy that, while patently absurd, is very entertaining, with a great cast and some impressive special effects.Lionel Barrymore plays convicted banker Paul Lavond, who was sent to prison after being framed by his co-workers for embezzlement and murder. After 17 years inside, Lavond escapes with fellow prisoner Marcel (Henry B. Walthall), with revenge on his mind. On arrival at the swampland cabin inhabited by Marcel's crazy crippled wife Malita (Rafaela Ottiano), Paul sees something that will make it possible to even the score with his old colleagues: the miniaturisation of human beings that can be controlled by telepathy.After Marcel dies, Levond and Malita travel to Paris, where they set up a toy shop. Disguised as Madame Mandelip, the shop's proprieter, the escaped convict sets into motion his plan for revenge.With not one person-not even the police chief with whom he converses-suspecting that Madame Mandelip is Lavond, the film stretches plausibility quite a long way, but Barrymore is so amusing as his doddery alter-ego that all is easily forgiven. And with some great visual trickery, using a combination of mattes and excellent oversized props, The Devil-Doll is a delight for anyone interested in the history of movie special effects.The film is also very touching at times, with Lavond desperately wanting to clear his name so that his daughter Lorraine (the lovely Maureen O'Sullivan) will no longer hate him. As Madame Mandelip, Lavond has several conversations with his daughter (who also sees nothing peculiar about the heavy set woman with masculine features), but even after proving his innocence, he is unable to reveal his true identity.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for the awesome line 'She's an inbred peasant halfwit'.

THE DEVIL DOLL calls to mind an earlier Tod Browning film, the Silent classic THE UNHOLY THREE- and the Sound remake (directed by Jack Conway); both featured Lon Chaney in drag, and Barrymore's performance here is a Carbon Copy thereof. Chaney actually FOOLED me the first time I saw the Sound version of THE UNHOLY THREE: there was no way, I figured, that THAT was a Man... Barrymore manages, amazingly, to pull off just such a remarkable feat in THE DEVIL DOLL. It's almost a shame that they felt they had to include the "living dolls" in the act: it would've been interesting to see Barrymore match wits with a detective hell bent on "uncovering" his cross-dressing secret (shades of J. Edgar Hoover!).

An escaped Devil's Island convict (Lionel Barrymore) uses miniaturized humans to wreak vengeance on those that framed him.This story started out from a 1934 novel by Abraham Merritt called "Burn, Witch, Burn" and a 14-page article Merritt wrote with a Dr. Lowell. The connection is loose, with the overlap being the doll shop. The script, originally called "Witch Doctor of Timbuctoo" and written by Guy Endore ("Mad Love", every werewolf film), removes any mention of Satanism. Of course, exactly what Endore contributed is unclear without reading the script revisions, because over the course of a year his work was re-written by Garrett Fort (who had written both "Frankenstein" and "Dracula"), Robert Chapin, silent star Eric von Stroheim and Richard Schayer ("Frankenstein", "The Mummy").With direction from Tod Browning ("Dracula", "Freaks"), how can you go wrong with this? Though, again, Browning's full contribution is unclear, because retakes were done not by him, but by Leon Gordon, Sam Zimbalist and William Anthony McGuire. None of these men were credited, and it seems they must have worked on it while also doing MGM's "The Great Ziegfeld".Maureen O'Sullivan (Tarzan's Jane) is here, as are Rafaela Ottiano ("Grand Hotel") and Frank Lawton, who had just finished playing the title role in MGM's "David Copperfield". Throw in Lionel Barrymore in women's clothing, and you have quite the story...Interestingly, the biggest star in the film was probably Henry B. Walthall, who played the convict Marcel. His name may not ring many bells today, but in his time he was quite the star under the tutelage of D. W. Griffith and appears on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.While a bit slow at times, and inevitably compared to "Bride of Frankenstein", this is overall a good film with fine direction and a solid story. The original novel seems hard to come by, but the film is available in a box set of horror classics (though, strangely, is the only one of six not to have an audio commentary).

MGM's THE DEVIL-DOLL (1936) is a campy sci-fi/horror classic. Perfect for those late-night curiosity viewings. The movie is preposterous, but elevated by impressive 1930s special effects along the lines of those in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935).THE DEVIL-DOLL tells the story of a man bent on revenge who gets mixed up in the outlandish schemes of a mad scientist. Hiding from the police, the man (a prison escapee) uses the mad scientist's strange experiments in his systematic plan to destroy those men who did him wrong.It seems the scientist had developed a technique that would shrink living things to one-sixth their normal size. Once shrunken, however, the subject lay paralyzed until willed to do something by the strong mental power of an outsider. The scientist had hoped to shrink everyone in the world to make the food supply last longer, but having miniature mind-control zombies has its uses, too.Oscar-winner Lionel Barrymore stars and spends much of the film in his disguise as an old woman. (I'm being totally serious.) The wonderful Rafaela Ottiano plays the crazed wife of the scientist, devoted to his twisted vision. Ottiano seemed to know what kind of movie she was making, going all-out in her performance. Maureen O'Sullivan plays Barrymore's daughter, with Frank Lawton as her taxi driver boyfriend. Among the rest of the cast, it's good to see Robert Greig play something other than a butler.The B-level cast does a good job with the B-level material, but the most impressive part of THE DEVIL-DOLL is the special visual effects. Creating the effect of miniaturized people required composite shots with an eye on camera angles and perspective. (Mixed, it seems, with some huge-furniture sequences.) A modern eye can often find the seams, but this kind of stuff is hard to do and I believe they did it as well as anybody could in 1936.The story, with its attempted father-daughter redemption arc, is just ridiculous. Barrymore is hardly a hero in this one. Nor is he even a nice guy. There's no one to root for, really. This is the kind of movie to pop in some late night and just enjoy with a bucket of popcorn and the company of your choice. A campy horror classic for anyone curious to see Lionel Barrymore dress in drag. Not one of the high points of Barrymore's career.