DOCTOR X

Buoyed by his studios success with talking pictures alter the phenomenal success of The Jazz Singer in 1927, Jack L. Warner of Warner Bros., seized upon Technicolor as the n ext novelty that might attract the movie-going public. (This was the original two-color system introduced by Dr. Herbert Kalmus and a team of Boston researchers in 1922, not the more lifelike three-color Technicolor introduced ten years later). Warner signed contracts for more than 20 features to be produced in Technicolor, and other producers and studios (including Paramount, which produced Vagabond King) followed suit. The limitations of the two-color system, which reproduced everything in shades of red-orange and blue-green, became increasingly apparent to audiences and filmmakers alike, however; and production of two-color films stopped almost entirely in the early 30s while Dr. Kalmus and his associates concentrated on perfecting their three-color system. Fittingly, Warner Bros. was one of the last companies to release films in the old process. Doctor X and his companion feature, Mystery of the Wax Museum (also directed by Michael Curtiz and also starring Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray), used the artificiality of two-color Technicolor to good effect in horror stories that made no pretense at realism. A mysterious killer known as the Full Moon Strangler has the police baffled in Doctor X. The alternately silly and repellent story benefits considerably from Curtiz's brisk direction, which seldom lingers long enough for us to ponder the absurdity of the situations, Anton Grots atmospheric sets and Max Factor's special make-up for the killer (no one who has seen this movie can ever forget the transformation scene and the killer's exultant cry "Synthetic flesh"!) contribute to the mood of fairytale gruesomeness. (Charles Hopkins)

Director: Michael Curtiz.
Screenplay: Robert Tasker e Earl Baldwin, dalla commedia di Howard W. Comstock e Allen C. Mille.
Director of photography: Ray Rennahan.
Editor: George Amy.
Art director: Anton Grot.
Music: Bernhard Kaun. La Vitaphone Orchestra è diretta da Leo F. Forbstein.
Sound: Rob Lee.
Trucco: Max Factor.
Cast and characters: Lionel Atwill (dottor Xavier), Fay Wray (Joan Xavier), Lee Tracy (Lee Taylor), Preston Foster (professor Graham Wells), John Wray (professor Haines), Harry Beresford (professor Duke), Arthur Edmund Carewe (dottor Rowitz), Leila Bennett (Mamie), Robert Warwick (il commissario Stevens), George Rosener (Otto), Willard Robertson (ispettore O'Halloran), Thomas Jackson (cronista), Harry Holman (il poliziotto Mike), Mae Busch (signora), Tom Dugan (sceriffo), Selmer Jackson (direttore del giornale), Josephine Gillerman (donna assassinata).
Production company: First National Pictures.

Conservazione e restauro: Realizzati dall'UCLA sulla stampa originale in Technicolor a 35mm.

Preservation history: Preserved at UCLA from original 35mm nitrate Technicolor print.