This is old-fashioned fun.
Lionel Atwill is Dr. Xavier who runs the experimental "Academy for Surgical Research" on a cliff top on the Long Island shore. His three colleagues, each a physically impaired, troglodytic drone, are hard at work on their searches for new discoveries. The three weirdos include a one-eyed man, a cripple, and Preston Foster, who has only one hand. Atwill's daughter runs around breathlessly, as only Fay Wray can be breathless. A spooky servant named Otto lurches around in the background. Lee Tracy is one of those scurrying reporters from "The Front Page." The Madam in the cat house is played by the ever popular Mae Busch.
A couple of murdered bodies show up and are taken to the Academy for examination. Atwill concludes that they were subject to cannibalistic gnawing after being strangled. The police determine that all signs point to the murderer's being a member of the Academy. Only Foster is exempt from suspicion because the killer used two hands. ("Note the deep depressions on the sternocleidomastoid.") Fortunately, Atwill has a device -- I forget what he calls this sublimely typical piece of 1930s-movies electronic junk -- that will uncover the identity of the murderer by reenacting the last murder, the killing of a young woman, using his daughter as the victim. At a critical moment during the demonstration the lights go out. There is a shriek, a scuffle, furniture tumbles over, and when the lights come back on nobody has been exposed, not even Fay Wray.
With the cops pressing him, Atwill goes through the routine a second time but the protocol has been changed. Otto will lock the laboratory door from the outside, so no one can get in. Atwill himself will participate in the experiment. He and the two other suspects will be handcuffed to their bolted chairs. Only Preston Foster will be loose to manage things.
Medical ethics prevent any further plot revelations except maybe for one hint. Letting Foster and Fay Wray be the only two people not handcuffed to their chairs? That was a big mistake.
It's short, recklessly headlong in its pace. Director Michael Curtiz was never known for slow slogs through metaphysical swamps. The two-strip technicolor images are not bad for their time. You have your choice of tints -- ghoul green or cadaver mauve. The set borrows heavily from German expressionism. There's hardly a right angle in the joint, so to speak. And you must admire the way every wall looks shabby, dirty, like that of a tenement kitchen.
Your final paragraph, Buckie, is here. I recommend the movie. I mean, what the hell. We've all spent less pleasant hours than we'd spend watching this. Why, I remember once, the dentist asking me to "Turn this way a little." What an hour THAT was.
Lionel Atwill is Dr. Xavier who runs the experimental "Academy for Surgical Research" on a cliff top on the Long Island shore. His three colleagues, each a physically impaired, troglodytic drone, are hard at work on their searches for new discoveries. The three weirdos include a one-eyed man, a cripple, and Preston Foster, who has only one hand. Atwill's daughter runs around breathlessly, as only Fay Wray can be breathless. A spooky servant named Otto lurches around in the background. Lee Tracy is one of those scurrying reporters from "The Front Page." The Madam in the cat house is played by the ever popular Mae Busch.
A couple of murdered bodies show up and are taken to the Academy for examination. Atwill concludes that they were subject to cannibalistic gnawing after being strangled. The police determine that all signs point to the murderer's being a member of the Academy. Only Foster is exempt from suspicion because the killer used two hands. ("Note the deep depressions on the sternocleidomastoid.") Fortunately, Atwill has a device -- I forget what he calls this sublimely typical piece of 1930s-movies electronic junk -- that will uncover the identity of the murderer by reenacting the last murder, the killing of a young woman, using his daughter as the victim. At a critical moment during the demonstration the lights go out. There is a shriek, a scuffle, furniture tumbles over, and when the lights come back on nobody has been exposed, not even Fay Wray.
With the cops pressing him, Atwill goes through the routine a second time but the protocol has been changed. Otto will lock the laboratory door from the outside, so no one can get in. Atwill himself will participate in the experiment. He and the two other suspects will be handcuffed to their bolted chairs. Only Preston Foster will be loose to manage things.
Medical ethics prevent any further plot revelations except maybe for one hint. Letting Foster and Fay Wray be the only two people not handcuffed to their chairs? That was a big mistake.
It's short, recklessly headlong in its pace. Director Michael Curtiz was never known for slow slogs through metaphysical swamps. The two-strip technicolor images are not bad for their time. You have your choice of tints -- ghoul green or cadaver mauve. The set borrows heavily from German expressionism. There's hardly a right angle in the joint, so to speak. And you must admire the way every wall looks shabby, dirty, like that of a tenement kitchen.
Your final paragraph, Buckie, is here. I recommend the movie. I mean, what the hell. We've all spent less pleasant hours than we'd spend watching this. Why, I remember once, the dentist asking me to "Turn this way a little." What an hour THAT was.