MAD LOVE (1935)

Karl Freund, 1935

Starring: Peter Lorre, Frances Drake, Colin Clive

“Each man kills the thing he loves.”

An actress at the Parisian Théâtre des Horreurs, Yvonne Orlac, celebrates her final performance before she and her pianist husband prepare to travel Europe together. Her most devoted fan, the surgeon Dr. Gogol, is horrified to learn that she is married and leaving the theater. He purchases the wax statue of Yvonne to have a reminder of her. Before she can reunite with her husband, he is in a bad train accident that has damaged his hands. Another doctor prepares to amputate, but Yvonne begs Orlac to help. He prepares Orlac for an experimental hand transplant and gives him the hands of Rollo, a knife thrower executed the same day. 

Orlac and Yvonne are nearly destitute after the expensive surgery and rehabilitation process combined with Orlac’s inability to work. To further complicated things, Orlac inexplicably begins throwing pens and knives when he becomes angry or upset. He visits his stepfather, Henry, to ask for money, despite the fact that they are on bad terms. They argue and Orlac throws a knife at him, but misses and flees, embarrassed and frightened. Orlac asks Gogol why his hands behave so strangely and Gogol suggests potential childhood trauma is to blame, concealing the fact that his hands belonged to Rollo. Gogol also tries to win Yvonne away from Orlac, but repulsed and outraged, she rejects him. 

Orlac’s stepfather is murdered during the night and someone sends Orlac a mysterious note. He meets a man wearing a heavy muffler, dark glasses, and metallic hands. The man clams to be Rollo and tells Orlac that his hands killed his stepfather. After this disturbing meeting, a somewhat defeated Orlac explains to Yvonne that he has Rollo’s hands and has killed his father without remembering. He turns himself into the police, while Yvonne flees to Gogol’s home for help, but his drunk housekeeper mistakes her for the wax statue and locks her in the house. Gogol returns, now totally mad, and also believes she is the statue come to life. He tries to strange her to death, but Orlac and the police arrive in time for Orlac to throw a knife at Gogol before he can kill Yvonne.

Written by regular Universal scribe John L. Balderston (Dracula, Frankenstein) and Guy Endore (The Werewolf of Paris), Mad Love is a remake of Robert Wiene’s German expressionist classic The Hands of Orlac (1924), starring the first true horror star, Conrad Veidt. That film was based on Maurice Renard’s story The Hands of Orlac. Though not a perfect film, this is one of the most interesting ‘30s horror films and marks the American debut of Hungarian actor Peter Lorre. Lorre developed his career by acting in a number of German plays, mainly by Bertolt Brecht, and starring in Fritz Lang’s landmark classic film M. Like many other actors and filmmakers living in Germany in the early ‘30s, Lorre fled to the U.S. and continued his film career in Hollywood. 

Lorre is the undeniable center of the film and it’s strange that this debut didn’t instantly make him a star in the U.S., though he would go on to appear in Hitchcock’s The Man Who Knew Too Much, Casablanca, and a number of other lesser known horror films. Gogol is one of his finest roles and inspired Charlie Chaplin, after seeing the film, to declare Lorre the greatest living actor. His impersonation of Rollo is absolutely terrifying, thanks in part to the whisper that insinuates that Gogol tries to reattach Rollo’s head after decapitation, but wasn’t entirely successful. 

Gogol is an oddly complex character. Though he has elements of the mad scientist trope growing in popular at this time, there is no villain that comes close to him in all of ‘30s horror, though Bela Lugosi tries in The Black Cat (1940). Gogol is strangely poetic, literary, and intellectual. He references the Greek myth of Pygmalion and Galatea, and quotes the poems of Robert Browning and Oscar Wilde. Though he is a monster, he is melancholic and sympathetic. 

Colin Colin Clive (Frankenstein) overacts, as always, but is generally likable as Orlac. He could be a lot more pathetic, as he has essentially lost his passion and livelihood, but he makes the best of things overall. Frances Drake is also enjoyable. She isn’t able to keep up with Lorre, but she has an appropriate mixture of fire, intensity, fear, and loathing throughout the film. She is not portrayed as an innocent; she knows exactly what the nature of Gogol’s interested in her is all about, but keeps him at arm’s length until she needs his surgical skills. 

There are a number of overt pre-Code elements at play here and Gogol’s obsession with Yvonne can’t be mistaken for anything but sexual. The wax statue he keeps of her is incredibly disturbing, combined with his obvious thrill at seeing her Grand Guignol-esque state performance in which she is whipped and tortured. It is also clear that, aside from obsessing over Yvonne, Gogol’s primary hobby is attending executions.

As I said, the film is not quite perfect and the plot has some weak moments, which I wholeheartedly blame on the scriptwriters. They changed a lot of things from The Hands of Orlac for better and worse. The ending feels a little rushed, but this a relatively minor issue. There is some unfortunate comic relief, including the extraneous character of the American journalist, though Gogol’s drunk house keeper is actually quite funny in some scenes.

Mad Love is benefitted by plenty of black comedy, such as the opening with a hanging man that turns out to be a gag for the theater. There are a number of great moments at the theater, including a coat check girl without a head, and a birthday cake with skeletons on it. This is an incredibly stylish film with beautiful costumes and lovely, German expressionist inspired visuals from director Karl Freund (The Mummy) and cinematographer Gregg Toland, who would go on to work on Citizen Kane. 

Mad Love comes with the highest possible recommendation and is available in the Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection along with Doctor X, Return of Doctor X, The Mask of Fu Manchu, Mark of the Vampire, and The Devil-Doll. Peter Lorre is one of the finest actors working in horror, noir, suspense, and even comedy, and is work should be celebrated by younger generations of cinema fans.

MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM

Michael Curtiz, 1933

Starring: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Glenda Farrell, Frank McHugh

Sculptor Ivan Igor owns an artsy wax museum in London, but his business partner is frustrated that he won’t make more lurid sculptures and draw bigger crowds that are only interested in the macabre. To recap on his investment, his partner burns down the museum with Igor inside it, leaving him for dead and ruining his prized creations. Over a decade later, Igor reopens a museum in New York, though his hands were damaged in the fire and he is unable to sculpt. He hires a number of assistant, whose work he directs. A local reporter, Florence, who would rather spend her time drinking than working, is investigating the story of a model’s suicide when her corpse is stolen from the morgue. 

Charlotte, Florence’s roommate, happens to be dating one of the assistants at the wax museum, Ralph. She and Florence attend the museum’s opening and Florence notices that the Joan of Arc figure bears a disturbing resemblance to the missing model. She also discovers that, aside from Ralph, there are a number of questionable people working at the museum, including a drug addict. She gets the police interested and they bring Professor Darcy, the addict and sculptor, in for questioning. He eventually admits the horrible truth: he and Igor have been murdering people and stealing bodies, then dipping them in wax for the museum sculptures. 

Charlotte goes to the museum to visit Ralph, but Igor surprises her and traps her, because she resembles his old Marie Antoinette sculpture. She hits him in the face and is shocked to learn that it is made of wax and a horrible, twisted and burned visage remains underneath. He straps her to a table, intending to submerge her into boiling wax and transform her into his next masterpiece: Marie Antoinette. 

Based on “The Wax Works” by Charles Spencer Belden, Warner Bros. decided to make another horror film after the success of Doctor X. Though unrelated in terms of plot, these two films bear a number of common elements. Both use the two-strip Technicolor process and highly underrated director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca) was reunited with stars Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill. Several crew members also returned, namely art director Anton Grot and his work here is even finer than in Doctor X. Due to the two-strip Technicolor, Mystery of the Wax Museum has a wonderfully pulpy look. While the film may seem dated in some regards, it is well worth watching simply for the great visuals. The sets are absolutely incredible, namely Igor’s wax museum and his hidden laboratory filled with some very German expressionist-looking staircases and hallways, and a massive vat of boiling pink wax. There are numerous creepy wax figures throughout the film. Interestingly, these could not be portrayed by actual wax dummies, because the intensely hot lights used for Technicolor would melted the wax, so real actors stood in. Keep your eyes peeled for moments where they accidentally breath, blink, or move slightly. 

Universal horror regular Lionel Atwill is at his best as mad sculptor Ivan Igor and Fay Wray gives one of her most enjoyable performances as the sweet, innocent Charlotte Duncan. The woman sure can scream. While I loved the sassy, ball busting Glenda Farrell (Little Caesar and a number of other MGM gangster films) as Florence, she might annoy some viewers. She certainly seems more like a gangster’s moll than a reporter, but she makes the performance her own.

There’s some very fast dialogue, most of it from Florence, and this film feels much more pre-Code than Doctor X. Florence frequently complains of a hang over or the need for a drink and later steals a few bottles of gin from a coffin filled with bootleg alcohol (!!!). She asks a police officer about his sex life, while he is looking at some dirty magazines, and there are numerous references to drug use throughout the film. 

The only element of the film I actually found annoying was the attempt to shoe-horn a slapstick romantic comedy into the latter half of the film. Glenda flirts with a number of men and leads us to believe that she might marry the millionaire wrapped around her finger, but the film bizarrely ends with her engagement to her newspaper editor, despite the fact that they have fought throughout the entire film and seem to hate each other. 

Mystery of the Wax Museum comes highly recommended. The film moves quickly and doesn’t waste a single scene and though it isn’t one of the classics, it is a solid example of pre-Code horror. Considered a lost film for some time, private collection prints were discovered over the years and it is finally out on DVD as an addition to the House of Wax release. House of Wax is a 1953 remake of the film starring Vincent Price, which I somewhat sadly have to admit is a superior film that sheds a lot of the annoying side plots in favor of stronger horror elements. 

KING KONG

Merian C. Cooper, 1933

Starring: Fay Wray, Bruce Cabot, Robert Armstrong

“It was Beauty killed the Beast.”

Filmmaker Carl Denham (based somewhat on director and writer Merian C. Cooper) has hired a ship to travel to an island near Indonesia to make a film. He is having trouble casting his lead actress, because of the unpredictable, potentially dangerous nature of the shoot. He finds an unemployed young woman, Ann Darrow, who eventually agrees to take the job. It takes them weeks to travel to the island and in the mean time, a romance begins to develop between Ann and Jack Driscoll, the ship’s first mate. Denham reveals that they are looking for a secret, uncharted island with rumors of a mysterious being known as Kong. They arrive at the island and are greeted by natives. The chief promptly tries to purchase (or trade for) Ann, but Denham evades him.

Later, Ann is kidnapped by the natives and prepared as a sacrificed to Kong, where she is left tied to stone columns. He arrives and carries her off. Some of the crew attempts to rescue her, but discover the giant gorilla, as well as dinosaurs and a number of other terrifying beasties. Most of the crew are killed off, except for Driscoll and Denham. Meanwhile, Kong protects Ann from a dinosaur and Denham plots to rescue Ann and kidnap Kong. Driscoll manages to rescue Ann and they return to the village. Kong pursues, but is knocked out by Denham, who reveals his plan: to capture Kong and force him back to Manhattan, where he will be presented as the Eight Wonder of the World. 

In Manhattan, things predictably become a disaster. Kong is presented in an elaborate show. He mistakenly thinks Ann is being harmed and breaks free, in a rage, and rampages through the city, desperate to find her. He causes major catastrophe and the police and military planes are called in. He eventually finds Ann and flees with her to their final tragic meeting place at the top of the Empire State Building. 

There is not a whole lot to say about King Kong that hasn’t already been said. It is one of the finest fantasy-horror-adventure films and was one of my early favorites (and the first film that I can remember that made me cry). Though King Kong has not aged particularly well, it has a certain special magic that no film before and certainly few films after have been able to match. At the time, William O’Brien’s special effects were incredibly innovative and certainly helped to change the face of what was possible with effects in cinema. Using a combination of stop-motion animation, miniatures, mattes, projections, and glass shots to achieve the almost non-stop effects, King Kong may look aged, but in my opinion it beats the hell out of anything I’ve seen accomplished recently with CGI. In addition to the effects, Max Steiner’s impressive score, the editing, sound effects, and direction are all impacting and impressive. 

An incredible work of fantasy, King Kong ranges from drama to action to fantasy with the inclusion of Skull Island, the natives, and the numerous other creatures on the island aside from Kong, including dinosaurs and a giant snake. There are also many moments of horror, such as a disturbing scene when Kong snatches a woman in a building several stories off the ground from her bed and simply tosses her aside to her death when he realizes she isn’t Ann. There is also a certain wonderful surrealism about the scenes of a giant gorilla wreaking havoc on downtown Manhattan. The romance in the film is equally disorienting, as Cooper seems to care very little about the human romance and puts the majority of the focus on Kong’s passion for Ann. 

Though a blonde was required for the role and brunette Fay Wray had to wear a wig, she made her career with this film. Though her screams are truly iconic, she hated being known as a screen queen. She appeared (and screamed frequently) in two other horror films during this time, Doctor X and Mystery of the Wax Museum, and Cooper’s other horror-flavored classic, The Most Dangerous Game. Though the rest of the cast is serviceable, none of them are particularly memorable beside King Kong, who is the absolute star here. This is a major achievement considering that he is not played by an actor in a suit, he is simply a conflagration of fur, metal, rubber, etc. He is a sympathetic and tragic character, a monster, and an innocent. There hasn’t been a giant movie monster to match Kong with the possible exception of Godzilla, who is beloved despite the fact that he isn’t very sympathetic. 

Famed British mystery and fantasy novelist Edgar Wallace was hired by Cooper to write the script with the hope that his name would bring the project some recognition. The original story was based on an idea by Cooper, stemmed by a childhood interest in gorillas, particularly gorillas battling Komodo dragons. While this is far from the first adventure film set in the jungle, it has remained far more enduring than most of those films from that period, such as Tarzan of the Apes or The Lost World. 

The film opened in two of New York’s largest theaters, Radio City Music Hall and the RKO Roxy, with screenings regularly selling out. It received generally high praise, though did not receive any Academy Award nominations, partly because no special effects section existed at the time. Hilariously it was banned in Nazi Germany because of the threat to Aryan women. King Kong was remade twice, recently by Peter Jackson, and was followed by a sequel, The Son of Kong (1933).

The special edition, two-disc King Kong DVD release from 2005 is one of the most memorable special editions and includes a mind boggling amount of features. There are commentary tracks from special effects master Ray Harryhausen and Ken Ralston, a number of featurettes, a seven part documentary called The Making of Kong, Eighth Wonder of the World, and so much more. It is also out on Blu-ray, but I would be hard pressed to part with the special edition DVD. 

THE MASK OF FU MANCHU

Charles Brabin, 1932

Starring: Boris Karloff, Lewis Stone, Myrna Loy, Karen Morley

“I am a Doctor of Philosophy from Edinburgh. I am a Doctor of Law from Christ’s College. I am a Doctor of Medicine from Harvard. My friends, out of courtesy, call me ‘Doctor’.”

Based on the novel by Sax Rohmer, Fu Manchu (introducing himself in The Mask of Fu Manchu in the quote above) was a popular literary and cinematic villain from silent cinema through horror films of the ‘60s, who also made appearances in radio, comics, and television. Called “the yellow peril incarnate,” Fu Manchu is certainly a racist vision, but, like Rohmer’s direct influence Arthur Conan Doyle and his arch-villain Professor Moriarty, prefigures a lot of the cinematic evil masterminds that would populate spy, horror, and action films throughout much of cinema. While Rohmer wrote over a dozen novels and some short stories, the filmic adaptations began in 1923 with two silent British movies before traveling across the Atlantic for three films starring Swedish actor Warner Oland (he would also go on to play detective Charlie Chan). MGM produced The Mask of Fu Manchu in 1932, begrudgingly entering the horror genre. This was followed by a serial in 1940, a five film series in the ‘60s starring Christopher Lee, as well as a few spoof films. 

Boris Karloff’s single portrayal of Fu Manchu is the finest and most iconic. A member of the British Secret Service, Sir Denis Nayland Smith, teams up with famed Egyptologist Sir Lionel Barton to prevent Fu Manchu from discovering Genghis Khan’s tomb. If he should open it before they do, he will uncover Khan’s legendary sword, which will give him the power to wage total war with the Western world and allow him to accomplish his primary goal: wiping out the white race. Barton is kidnapped and his hysterical daughter, Sheila, insists to go on the expedition to retrieve her father and the sword. Meanwhile, Fu Manchu tortures Barton by depriving him of food, water, and sleep, and places him under a giant, ever-tolling bell. He even offers Barton his own daughter, the seductive and vicious Fah Lo See, but Barton refuses to talk. 

Smith, Sheila, her fiancé Terry Granville, and a few other archaeologists find the tomb with the sword and a number of other treasures. Sheila is desperate to get her father back and convinces Granville, in secret, to exchange the sword for her father, believing they will get it back somehow. Smith has also secretly replaced the sword with an expertly made decoy and Granville is taken captive when Fu Manchu discovers that the sword is fake. Granville is whipped and injected with a drug that brainwashes him and puts him under Fu Manchu’s control. He returns back to camp and the surviving members, including Smith and Sheila, accompany him into Fu Manchu’s lair. They are captured and tortured, while Sheila is prepared for a final, ultimate sacrifice. Can someone defeat Fu Manchu in time? Or will he raise the sword of Genghis Khan and wipe out the world?

Make no mistake, this film is incredibly racist and in so many ways it is almost difficult to describe them all. All of the white characters are annoying, unlikable, stereotypical colonialists. The Asian characters (in this film “Asian” is a lump term and seems to refer to Chinese people, but it doesn’t really make a distinction among the numerous Asian countries and cultures or seem to understand that there even is one) are almost all played by white people in make up, namely Fu Manchu (Karloff) and his daughter (Loy). Fu Manchu and his would-be Mongolian hordes are also extremely racist with a singular goal that Fu Manchu so succinctly sums up: "Kill the white man and take his women." Apparently they want to exterminate all white men, but rape and impregnate their women? Fu Manchu is also not against having black slaves, who are forced to stand around in loin cloths and are sometimes killed in experiments. 

Despite these things, The Mask of Fu Manchu is incredibly enjoyable and remains one of my favorite pre-Code horror films. MGM, so reluctant to get involved in the horror genre but willing to give the public what they wanted, really bit off more than they could chew with two of the most extreme pre-Code films: The Mask of Fu Manchu and Freaks. Both were banned or heavily censored over the years. It was difficult to see the uncut version of The Mask of Fu Manchu for a number of decades. After a very strong (and understandable) reaction from the Chinese government, MGM edited out most of the overtly racist dialogue, which is absurd, as there is no way to remove the blatant racism from this film. While I love the movie, it represents the worst of a certain era of American thinking. 

Boris Karloff, while I love him in so many other things, is incredible in The Mask of Fu Manchu and is given free range to be totally diabolical. You actually want Fu Manchu to win, despite the fact that it means his subsequent extermination of half the planet. He is charming, educated, debonair, and absolutely over the top. He delights in torture, murder, and brainwashing and relishes the same qualities in his daughter, the second major star of the film. 

Myrna Loy, who would rise to fame with her portrayal of an idealized American wife, Nora, in The Thin Man series, is fantastic here as Fah Lo See, Fu Manchu’s demented daughter. Her character represents the most overt pre-Code element of the film and numerous references are made to her sexual appetite. She plans to use the brainwashed Granville as a sex slave and is clearly is a state of orgasmic ecstasy when a number of scantily clad black slaves take his shirt off and whip him. While films of this period are typically misogynistic to a certain degree, Fah Lo See is obviously Fu Manchu’s equal, his partner in villainy and his heir. He mocks traditional roles by introducing her as his “ugly and insignificant daughter,” when she is obviously the most beautiful member of his court and the most important next to himself.  

It’s a lot easier to enjoy the film if you ignore the fact that Fu Manchu is a horrible Chinese stereotype, meant to embody the “Yellow Peril,” and take him at face value as essentially a comic book villain and the precursor to some of James Bond’s more extreme villains or Ming from Flash Gordon. Elements of this type of villain and his Grand Guignolesque tortures also appear in the original Batman television series, Indiana Jones, and Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy remake, which blatantly lifts several scenes from the film and seems to have based its hero on an updated version of Granville.

Charles Starrett is a handsome but bland Terry Granville, and like the male stars of Universal horror, is able to accomplish little on his own without the help of an older, more experienced male (in this case Smith). Though most of the heroic characters are either uninteresting or unlikable, Lewis Stone is compelling as British Secret Service agent Sir Nayland Smith, unafraid to leap into danger at any moment. 

Karen Morley’s performance as Sheila Barton is, frankly, hysterical. She is one of many blondes in gauzy white dresses about to be sacrificed during this period. Though she is less famous than Fay Wray in King Kong, the scene of her intended sacrifice is quite impressive and involved an ecstatic horde of Fu Manchu’s followers, his artfully designed court room, and Myrna Loy bearing an elaborate headdress, smoking opium, and looking serenely out at the proceedings. 

The pulpy and fantastic visuals from production designer Cedric Gibbons are another strong point of the film. They run the gamut of everything from the British Museum to Fu Manchu’s ominous laboratory, throne room, opium dens, and elaborate torture chambers. Fu Manchu and Fah So Lee have some incredible costumes and some of his cronies are even disguised as mummies at one point.

If you can excuse or ignore the racism, The Mask of Fu Manchu comes highly recommended and I am not ashamed to admit that it’s one of my favorite action-horror-crime mashups. It is available in the Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection along with Doctor X, The Return of Doctor X, Mad Love, The Devil Doll, and The Mark of the Vampire.

SATÁNICO PANDEMONIUM

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DOCTOR X

Michael Curtiz, 1932

Starring: Lee Tracy, Fay Wray, Lionel Atwill

A number of strange murders are being investigated by reporter Lee Taylor and the local police. The “Full Moon Killer” dispatches his victims only by the light of the full moon and, horrifyingly, cannibalizes them. According to witnesses it is a monster, not a man, responsible for the murders. A local doctor, Dr. Xavier, is contacted by police to consult on the murders, but they also want to investigate his medical academy after evidence is traced back there. The police learn that Xavier’s academy (haha) is teeming with potential suspects. First is Dr. Wells, who is missing his left hand and thus cannot physically carry out the murders, but ardently studies cannibalism. Dr. Haines is a known voyeur and all around pervert, and Dr. Rowitz is doing a psychological study about the effects of the moon, among others. The latter two may also have cannibalized a man while at sea. 

While the police give Xavier sometime to narrow down the suspect pool, Taylor does more investigating of his own and meets Xavier’s lovely daughter Joan. The detectives bring all the suspects together at Xavier’s estate and re-enact the crime with Xavier’s maid and butler, while the suspects are chained down and hooked up to heart monitors in order to figure out which doctor is guilty. Of course this is a disaster as the killer has prepared and causes a black out. One of the suspects is killed in the darkness and Taylor, who has snuck into the house, almost dies. Desperately hoping to clear her father’s name, Joan begrudgingly asks him for help solving the murders. Will they find the real killer before more people are cannibalized?

This was a pre-Code film and there are a number of incredibly lurid elements, though they unfortunately aren’t used to the utmost extent. There are mentions of rape, cannibalism, serial murder, and the murderer gruesomely experiments with synthetic flesh, something the camera does not shy away from in one particularly wonderful scene. Most interestingly, Doctor X seems to mock other horror films from the period that begin with the possibility of supernatural evil, but always end up revealing human perpetrators. Though the killer in Doctor X is human, he is a monstrous example, warped into something non-human by the misuse of science.

Though there are some great elements in this film and a number of beloved horror tropes, those things sadly do not add up to a great film. Probably the worst part of the movie is the inclusion of the journalist (Lee Tracey) who is supposed to provide the bumbling comic relief, but instead brings the horror and suspense to a grinding halt. And I mean grinding. The script doesn’t help matters and is convoluted, overly talky, and full of obvious red herrings. Part of the problem is that Doctor X doesn’t seem to know what genre it belongs in: horror, comedy, sci-fi, police procedural, mystery, etc. It is based on a mystery play, Howard W. Comstock and Allen C. Miller’s The Terror, and overall feels like a twisted version of The Old Dark House, namely during its second half. 

Though the script lacks the subtlety, wit, social commentary, or the true horror and subversion of the genre classics from the period, it does attempt to pack in as many horror tropes as possible. In addition to the spooky old house, a creepy laboratory, skeletons, taxidermied animals, brains in a jar, a deranged butler, a scene in the morgue, wax dummies, and experiments with synthetic flesh, we have a serial killer who cannibalizes his victims during the full moon. 

This was one of the last films to use the older two-strip Technicolor process and, as a result, the film looks a bit unusual and almost like an old comic book or pulp magazine. There was also a black and white version shot to accommodate theaters, but most preferred the color version. The coloring is complimented by some nice sets from Anton Grot, namely the doctor’s house, which looks particularly foreboding and fantastic. Grot who would return to work on The Mystery of the Wax Museum with director Michael Curtiz, Fay Wray, and Lionel Atwill. Doctor X was produced by Warner Bros. under their First National label, and was surprisingly successful in the box office. It encouraged Warner to make another horror film, the above mentioned, Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), which was also shot in two-strip Technicolor.

Fay Wray essentially launched her career in this film and her famous scream appears regularly. She would return to horror for her most famous role in King Kong. Lionel Atwill, a Universal horror regular and genre mainstay through the ‘30s and ‘40s, also kicked off his signature role as the mad scientist in this film and is clearly having a great time. Director Michael Curtiz is mostly known for Casablanca, but he also directed a number of classic films: Captain Blood, Angels with Dirty Faces, The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex, The Sea Hawk, Yankee Doodle Dandy, and Mildred Pierce. He did a decent job with Doctor X, despite the lackluster script, and deserves to be remembered as one of the better directors of the period. 

I can’t really recommend Doctor X, but if you want to take your chances, it is available in the Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection along with its loose sequel The Return of Doctor X, Mad Love, The Devil Doll, The Mark of the Vampire, and The Mask of Fu Manchu. 

MANOS: THE HANDS OF FATE

Harold P. Warren, 1966

Starring: Harold P. Warren, Diane Mahree, Jackie Neyman, Tom Neyman, John Reynolds

"I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away."

Last week I had the pleasure of seeing the brand new, digitally restored version of Manos: The Hands of Fate at Philly’s best cult film spot, PhilaMOCA, the Philadelphia Mausoleum of Contemporary Art. Co-presented by film writer Travis Crawford of Danger after Dark! and excellent new film label Artsploitation, Manos has long been regarded the worst film ever made (though I think Nomads is far, far worse). 

Michael, his wife Margaret, their daughter Debbie, and her dog Peppy are on vacation in the Texas desert when they make a wrong turn. Determined he can find it on his own, Michael accidentally drives them to an isolated house where a strange man named Torgo stands guard and tells them that the Master wouldn’t like it if they were there. Because the car won’t start, night soon falls, and they are stranded, they have no choice but to spend the night against Margaret’s better judgement. Peppy goes missing and is presumably killed by some animal in the darkness. Debbie wanders off into the night and befriends a doberman pincher, but returns safely. A creepy portrait of the Master and his dog, which looks suspiciously like Debbie’s new friend, lords over the house. Torgo’s intentions toward Margaret becomes increasingly distressing. 

They soon meet the Master and his wives, all of whom are asleep in a bizarre circle out in the desert. Torgo captures Michael and the Master and his wives awaken. He is determined to take Margaret as his new bride and sacrifice the rest of the family to his god, Manos, but his wives debate whether or not they should kill Debbie. His first wife, the most headstrong, insists that she will not kill a child or allow the others to sacrifice one.

The Master’s wives break out into a full on fist fight in the sand that lasts about an hour and involves a lot of hair pulling, enforced sand eating, and dress tearing. Meanwhile, the Master puts Torgo in a trance and lays him out to be sacrificed because he tried to take Margaret for himself, but he is instead viciously attacked by the wives. The Master performs a ritual and burns off one of Torgo’s hands and he runs screaming into the night. The Master continues the ritual and sacrifices his troublesome first wife. Meanwhile, Michael, Margaret, and little Debbie run off terrified into the desert. They trip a number of times and are accosted by a rattlesnake. For some reason they decide that the best place to hide will be in the Master’s house, where he confronts them, is immune to bullets, and puts them under a trance before the screen fades to black. In the epilogue, Michael has taken Torgo’s place and welcomes two lost women into the house where events will theoretically repeat themselves.

Manos was basically created as the result of a bet and writer, director, and producer Harold Warren also stars in the film. Filmed in a pretty short amount of time on a friend’s El Paso ranch with rented equipment, Warren tried what worked so well for William Girdler: using friends, family members, and locals as cast and crew on his film. While Manos is certainly inferior to the similarly themed Asylum of Satan (1972), it has a certain lovable charm and is definitely not the worst film of all time. There are some particularly great sound effects and moments of dialogue. Because everything was recorded in post-production and dubbed into the film, a number of that scenes that could have been fairly normal (re: terribly boring) are transformed into some completely ridiculous moments. A prime example would be all of Debbie’s scenes, where an adult male is clearly speaking her lines in falsetto. Other than this, of course, there is no proof that any other post-production work done, namely editing. Scenes jump and skip all over the place with little regard to continuity and others simply go on for what feels like ten hours.

While there are any number of questions one could ask about the production or the script, something brought up by Mystery Science Theater is the fact that Torgo has hilariously giant thighs. It turns out that, as I suspected, he was intended to have satyr legs under his clothing, though this revelation was later removed from the film. It also explains his bizarre walking patterns, as he was wearing elaborate rigging and a fairly cumbersome costume. El Paso theater actor John Reynolds (Torgo) is clearly the star of the film and sadly died of a drug overdose not long after Manos’s release and abject box office failure. 

Aside from the bright point that is Torgo, the rest of the characters are unlikable, forgettable, or simply played by such lousy actors that there is little choice but to laugh at them. Michael was played by director and creator Harold P. Warren. The less said the better The Master (theater actor Tom Neyman, who also did the set design on Manos) is outdone by Torgo at nearly every turn, but he does have an amazing costume and some tremendous dialogue. Margaret, Michael’s wife (Diane Mahree) seems on the verge of laughter or total confusion throughout filming, and their daughter Debbie (Jackey Neyman, presumably Tom’s daughter) could probably have been played by a cardboard cut out. The wives were all from a modeling agency; enough said. There are a few nice repeat cameos, such as from some cops who drive around aimlessly, unaware of any danger, and two teenagers who spend half the film making out in a convertible.

Manos was featured on a very popular episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Shout! Factory gave it a lovely, 2 disc release with a bunch of extras, including the original film and a documentary, Hotel Torgo. Last year film student Ben Solovey discovered the original 16mm work print and resolved, despite all odds, to restore the film. He accomplished that with the help of crowd funding on Kickstarter (earning almost five times his goal). He blew the original up to 35mm for the restoration, which looks fantastic. Of course the expected age damage isn’t completely gone, but it looks far better than any existing print. Later this year (or early next year) there will also be a Blu-ray release of the restored version of the film. 

To learn more about Manos check out Jackie Neyman-Jones’ blog (she played little Debbie), visit http://www.manosinhd.com/ for more info about the restoration, check out the soundtrack here, and read this interesting Seattle Star article about the restoration that features some interviews with cast members. 

The next PhilaMOCA and Danger After Dark! collaborating is a double feature of Frank Henenlotter’s (Basket Case) new documentary, That’s Sexploitation, and Doris Wishman’s cult classic, Let Me Die a Woman.