Where there's Atwill there's a Fay...

Written by Martin Unsworth Sunday, 14 August 2011

Horror Obscura - by Martin Unsworth

This month we go back many years to look at a few interesting films from the dawn of sound horror cinema. With only the most tenuous of linking threads, I give you some of the hidden classics you should think about seeing if you ever get the chance. Doctor X (1932) is a wonderful example of early horror masquerading as a mystery comedy (or is it visa versa?) directed by Michael Curtiz, later to direct several Oscar nominated films and gaining both best picture and director for Casablanca (1943).

Lionel Atwill plays Dr Xavier, who is called in by police to give his opinion on a recent spate of killings that have been committed by a disfigured assailant dubbed the “Moon Killer” since all the murders happen under the light of the full moon. Each body has been mutilated and there seems to be evidence of cannibalism. A very strong subject for what was billed as a horror comedy! “You will scream – then smile” claimed the trailer, and in fairness, the comic relief, provided here by wise cracking news reporter Lee Taylor (played by Lee Tracy) is not too bad. The humour in old films sometimes fails to carry well through the years, but there's nothing too dated here, except maybe the use of the good old “hand buzzer” gag, and an exploding cigar. At least it is not Jim Carrey.

Xavier is horrified to discover that the police suspect the murderer may be amongst his staff at his Academy of Surgical Research, as a scalpel used was exclusive to his facility. He guides the police around to meet the rest of his staff. Each of them are under suspicion.

Wells (Preston Foster) has a heart in a jar that he has “kept alive for three years by electrolysis” made a study of cannibalism, leading the police to almost rush into arresting him. “Is your arm troubling you?” Dr X asks Wells in an attempt to stall the cops. “Why yes, if you don't mind...” to which he removes a prosthetic arm, “An empty sleeve is revolting to most people” he says, while poking at the space remaining with a pen. The police smile at each other and move on, the strength and viciousness of the killer proved he must have had two hands. Haines (John Wray) an academic hiding a girlie magazine in his notebooks and a laboratory full of animals “mankind's benefactors” - something that no doubt would have him hung today. Duke (Harry Beresford) is a wheelchair bound club footed and grumpy assistant to scar faced Rowitz (Arthur Edmund Carewe) who are doing studies on the effect of the moon on the mind. Xavier can not resist telling police that Haines and Rowitz were both shipwrecked with another man who, they claimed, had died and had to be thrown overboard. Although it was suspected that they had, in fact, eaten him. Even the butler, Otto (George Rosener) is a creepy sinister looking chap. The doctor convinces the police to allow him 48 hours to find out if the killer is a member of the academy.. In the meantime, the reporter Taylor, proving that news 'hacks' (ahem) always think themselves above the law, is caught snooping around by Xavier's daughter, Joanne (the screens' first scream queen, Fay Wray). When Taylor is caught trying to steal a photo of the doctor for the paper (and one of Joanne for himself) the action is moved to an even more atmospheric location, the doctor's mountain top luxury laboratory hideaway. What? You don't have one of those? Not so much of a secret place though since Taylor follows and manages to brake in.

It is here that the doctor reveals his plan to catch the killer. Each suspect, himself included, will be hooked up to an elaborate machine that will measure his heart rate during a re-enactment as one of the murders is played out in from of them. The guilty party's heart will force the liquid in tubes to overflow and prove it conclusively. Wells, already eliminated by reason of his one arm:

“What about me? A hopeless paralytic!” proclaims the wonderfully cantankerous Duke, who, in his chair, could be dead ringer for Jonathan Adam's Dr Scott in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The murders are to be staged by Otto the butler and the doctor's maid, Mamie (Leila Bennet). Otto teases and scares the screeching maid with the clothes she has to wear, which just happen to be the real dead woman's, “look, Mamie, there's still some blood on them!” to the point of her teeth very audibly chattering. All strapped in and connected to the equipment, with mounting bickering between the doctors, the moon makes her appearance, right on time for the stage show to begin, the tension and the atmosphere build up and suddenly the power is cut. In the confusion and panic, the liquid overflows, the killer is... Rowitz! Except, when the lights come back on, Rowitz is lying on the floor with a scalpel puncture in the base of his brain. “The way the other's were killed”. They later discover his body too has been cannibalised. They must conduct a further test to flush out the killer. This time Joanne volunteers to replace the terrified Mamie. Taylor is discovered hiding and allowed to stay, developing a relationship with Joanne along the way. The scene is set for the climatic showdown, all the doctors are handcuffed to chairs or behind locked doors. The big reveal does seem to come a little too early, but at least it is not a cop out “Scooby Doo” ending, and the murderer manages to explain everything to the other doctors before meeting his inevitable fate.

The film was filmed in an early two colour Technicolor process, but was also filmed in black and white at the same time, and side by side screenings show some very different angles of filming in every scene and, on occasion, a different take is used. In fact, the black and white version has a better scare moment in the scene where the reporter hides in a stock cupboard filled with skeletons. In the colour version we clearly see two either side of the frame, one of which he backs up into, giving him a jolt. In the monochrome version the jump is for the audience too as we no longer see the skeleton on the right. The colour version was believed lost for many years, much like Curtiz' follow up, Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), with Atwill and Wray returning. Colour versions of both films eventually turned up in the vault of Jack Warner (from Warner Brothers Studios, whose First National Pictures released these) in 1978. What is also remarkable is the make up effects for Dr X were provided by Max Factor, who at the time had made cosmetics specifically for films, rather than the thicker greasepaint used in stage plays. The film plays well in black and white though, with its exaggerated shadows and brooding atmosphere, an amazing achievement since the early Technicolor films needed three times the amount of light to register images on film! It also touched on some very taboo subjects for its time: cannibalism, sexual perversion and mental illness. Among the victims are a prostitute - “a woman of the streets” -  and a dope fiend. Even the images of a scientist with only one arm working on a beating heart in a jar would have shocked audiences in the '30s. It is films like this that paved the way for enforcing the infamous 'Hay's Code', the forerunner for all censorship and film certification in the States.

It does contain some stilted acting from Lionel Atwill. He had been a well known stage actor and Dr X was one of his first major film roles. He looks as if he's reading his lines just off camera, and he does almost fumble a couple of lines in this but with some of the techno babble he has to come out with I don't blame him! Add to that a shooting schedule of about two weeks, and I think we can let him off. I also feel, to be honest, it adds to the film's charm. The colour version is available on DVD, in a fantastic box set, along side other classics Mad Love (1935), The Devil Doll (1936), Mark of the Vampire (1935), The Mask of Fu Manchu (1932). Dr X coupled with its sequel in name only, The Return of Dr X (1939) which had a pre-fame Humphrey Bogart in the lead role. The set is region free, except for disc one for some reason (the Mark of the Vampire/Mask of Fu Manchu coupling), but if you have the capability, it's a set worth owning. As well as returning in Mystery of the Wax Museum – remade as House of Wax (1957) - Fay and Atwill also starred in The Vampire Bat (1933) which is notable for also having Melvyn Douglas and the wonderful Dwight Frye in the cast.

On the subject of lost and found horror movies, a mention must be made to The Ghoul (1933). The first British sound horror movie, this starred Boris Karloff as Professor Morlant, an Egyptologist who is dying from an unnamed disease causing his face to become disfigured. He insists on being buried with a rare jewel, The Eternal Light, bound to his fist so that he will receive eternal life with the god Anubis. Aga Ben Dragore (Harold Huth), is an Arab looking for the jewel which had been stolen from an ancient tomb. Morlant's servant Laing (Ernest Thesiger) takes the jewel, disbelieving his master's warning that he will return from the grave if his wishes are not carried out. When Morlant seemingly rises from the dead to seek revenge, Laing passes the jewel into the luggage of Morlant's heiress. The final fifteen minutes of the film are a passing of the jewel from one person to another at break neck pace. Considering it's age, The Ghoul has a surprisingly graphic image of Karloff carving an Egyptian symbol in his chest, no doubt causing contemporary audiences to recoil in horror. Ernest Thesiger is as brilliant as he usually is, this time with a Scottish accent rather than his trademark plummy camp tone, and worried of his master's “queer fancies”. Cedric Hardwicke has a great turn as a weasel-like solicitor and The Ghoul boasts the very first screen appearance of Ralph Richardson. It's also worth pointing out that the film has nothing to do with Freddie Francis' The Ghoul of 1975 - covered brilliantly last month in Cleaver Patterson's The Fright of Your Life column - but it was remade, in a fashion, as the comedy What A Carve Up (1961) with a fantastic cast of both genre veterans and Carry On stars. Its this comedy version that gets played more on television, I notice! The Ghoul was considered lost for almost 30 years, until a scratchy, Czechoslovakian subtitled, incomplete print was found. For many years this version was the only one to be seen until, like a miracle, a perfect uncut English print surfaced in a forgotten vault at Shepperton Studios in the early 80s. It is this version that is available (very cheaply) on DVD, and it is in amazing condition for a film of its age. Who says we don't sometimes get a happy ending?

A rare non-screaming Fay Wray film worth seeking out, while not strictly horror, but certainly interesting is The Clairvoyant (1935), known as The Evil Eye in the States, this has Claude Rains (fresh from The Invisible Man) as Maximus, a music hall mind reader who suddenly begins to correctly predict the future. Fay plays his long suffering wife, who has to prompt the answers from his fake act, and starts to feel left out when it turns out he can only predict events when in the company of another woman (Jane Baxter). A train crash, derby winner and his mother's death are all predicted, but when faced with losing his wife he decides to give it up, until he suddenly has a vision of a mining disaster. When he fails to prevent the accident, he is accused of causing it. There are some genuine chills, especially when Maximus is having his visions, complete with glowing eyes.

Another favourite of mine, but again rarely seen, Secret of the Blue Room (1933), is Universal Pictures utilising the sets from The Old Dark House (1932) and Frankenstein (1931) again to good effect. Lionel Atwill is Robert Von Helldorf, the owner of the big spooky house in which three suitors gather to vie for the attentions of his daughter, Irene (Gloria Stuart, straight from The Old Dark House, and many years before Titanic). It is Irene's 21st birthday, and after they toast the birthday girl and sit around looking bored while she sings to them. Sitting around afterwards the youngest, Thomas (William Janney), brings up the subject of the blue room and Helldorf explains that twenty years ago his sister was staying there, and at 1am she screamed and was found dead below the window. Two more deaths, both at 1am followed, and the room had been locked since. To prove their courage, it is decided each must spend a night in the room. Young Tommy decides to be the first to stay there. Meanwhile, the butler (Robert Barrat) keeps getting visits at the back door by a mysterious stranger. Helldorf seems to have gone out during the night, and acts suspiciously the next day. They go to check on Tommy and he is nowhere to be seen, so they assume he has fallen to his death from the window. Between the servants with things to hide, and Helldorf refusing to go to the police about Tommy's disappearance, the culprit could be anyone. Frank (Onslow Stevens) decides he and his revolver will now stay the night in the room, convinced the ghost is flesh and blood. This leaves Irene in the care of Walter (Paul Lukas), who attempt to stay awake all night but this plan is foiled when a shot rings out and they dash to the room to find Frank dead. The police are finally called and everyone is interrogated and everyone has something to hide. Just when you think you have worked out what's going on and who did what, another revelation pops up to throw you off the scent. Atwill is at his best here, his nervous delivery works better than ever. When I first saw this back in the early 80s it really impressed me and, like my off air recording of Dr X, I wore the tape out re-watching it. It stills holds up well watching it now, the atmosphere and the mood are perfect, and the brief running time just flies by. It was remade twice by Universal, which was itself a remake of a German film from 1932. Kurt Neuman directs here perfectly, and in fact he was due to helm The Bride of Frankenstein until Universal insisted on James Whale returning to the job. He would later go on to make Rocketship X-M (1950) and The Fly (1958) so at least his talents did not go to waste. It is also nice to hear Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake used in the opening credit sequence, just as it was on Dracula (1931).

Lionel Atwill teamed with Bela Lugosi in a Universal Pictures old dark house type film, Night Monster (1942) (aka House of Mystery). Both only have fairly small roles in this well made story of a group of doctors called to the house of Kurt Ingston (Ralph Morgan, whose brother Frank was the Wizard of Oz!) who,after suffering a rare (unnamed) disease has been left a paraplegic. He has been treated by a mystic Agor Singh (Nils Asther) to regain power to his limbs. A psychiatrist (Irene Hervey) is there to treat his daughter Margaret (Fay Helm) and a local writer of horror/who done it stories (Don Porter) has dropped in too. In the meantime, the police are investigating a spate of murders near the Ingston property. Lugosi is great, but underused as the butler, Rolf, although he gets some good scenes early on. There is a lecherous and obnoxious chauffeur, Laurie (Leif Erickson, later to appear in the 1953's Invaders From Mars) and over bearing housekeeper, Ms Judd (Doris Lloyd). Atwill is killed off fairly early on, and from then on the scares and murders soon mount up. There are some wonderful spooky scenes with shadows, skeletons materialising and frogs that suddenly stop croaking. Some cracking dialogue too, amongst the chills, “she's as crazy as a hooty owl” and the police captain (Robert Homans) has some brilliant facial expressions. You might want to take notes while watching this one though, as the characters are introduced at such a break neck pace it's quite hard to keep up! Alfred Hitchcock was apparently quite impressed with the film and cast Janet Shaw, who plays Milly, the maid who is killed off early in the film, in his Shadow of a Doubt (1943). Night Monster ended up being released as the second feature with The Mummy's Tomb (1942).

It's quite well known that a scandal involving one of Atwill's Hollywood parties put a major blight on his career, but it is worth noting that even after this, Universal still cast him in the monster tag team movies that made up their horror quota in the 40s.

Now, if we had a TV channel with the baubles enough to schedule the much missed horror double bills, I am sure these films would not be as rarely seen as they are now, and much more appreciated.