WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Doctor X 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:10.080 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:17.000 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. My name is Rob Lamb. 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:19.840 And I'm Joe McCormick. And today I think we're going 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.840 to be doing the chronologically earliest film that we've done 0:00:23.920 --> 0:00:25.000 so far. Isn't that right? 0:00:25.239 --> 0:00:26.560 I believe so. 0:00:26.560 --> 0:00:29.800 So today we're going to be talking about Doctor X, 0:00:30.000 --> 0:00:34.839 a nineteen thirty two American pre code horror film that 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:39.519 shocked my soul and conscience and I thought was just 0:00:39.560 --> 0:00:40.720 a fabulous ride. 0:00:41.159 --> 0:00:44.960 Yeah. Yeah, this one was a pleasant surprise for me 0:00:45.040 --> 0:00:48.400 as well. I was only vaguely aware of it. I'll 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:50.479 get into into some of that in a bit, but 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.400 I was vaguely aware that it existed, knew basically nothing 0:00:53.400 --> 0:00:55.840 about it. You suggested it, I saw a couple of 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:57.600 the people that were involved in it, and I just 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.000 signed on side unseen and went in without any spoilers 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:04.440 or anything. Watched it this morning and it was fabulous. 0:01:04.520 --> 0:01:07.760 So while it might seem to start out as a 0:01:07.840 --> 0:01:11.800 rather traditional film, and it ends fairly to traditionally as well, 0:01:11.959 --> 0:01:15.040 it gets just heavily weird in the middle in a 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:17.160 way that it really has to be experienced. 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:20.240 Yeah, well, there's one scene in particular. I mean, I 0:01:20.280 --> 0:01:23.280 would say that there is a like five minute sequence 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:26.319 in this movie that you should watch the movie for, 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:28.680 even if for nothing else. But there's some other fun 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.320 stuff in there as well. Absolutely, and we'll get into 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:34.839 what that is later on. But I thought at first 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:38.640 we should talk for a little bit about the historical 0:01:38.720 --> 0:01:42.160 context of this era of movies. So this is a 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:45.320 pre code movie. You might have heard that term used 0:01:45.319 --> 0:01:48.880 by film historians before pre code, and that code there 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:53.800 refers to something called the Haze Code. So basically from 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:57.760 about nineteen thirty four until roughly the end of the 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:01.280 nineteen fifties. I think sometimes the movie Some Like It 0:02:01.360 --> 0:02:05.240 Hot in nineteen fifty nine is held out as sort 0:02:05.240 --> 0:02:08.560 of like the demise of the Hayes Code era. But 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:12.119 for this period, from the mid thirties through the fifties, 0:02:12.560 --> 0:02:16.959 American film studios sort of agreed to be governed by 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:20.200 censorship guidelines that were known as the Hayes Code. So 0:02:20.240 --> 0:02:23.120 this prohibited a lot of stuff that you might, you know, 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:27.200 automatically think of, of course obvious R rated content like nudity 0:02:27.320 --> 0:02:31.480 and profanity, but it also banned content that was considered 0:02:31.600 --> 0:02:35.639 objectionable to conservative social values, so that might be all 0:02:35.720 --> 0:02:40.240 kinds of you know, references to cannibalism and things. You 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.400 weren't supposed to have movies in which the audience would 0:02:43.440 --> 0:02:47.560 be asked to sympathize with criminals or crime, which is 0:02:47.680 --> 0:02:52.480 just a great guideline for complex moral cinema. You weren't 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:55.720 supposed to have movies that ridiculed the church or religion, 0:02:56.840 --> 0:03:00.720 or movies with interracial or same sex romance. But there 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:03.920 was a time before this code was implemented, before it 0:03:04.000 --> 0:03:06.760 was started, before it started to be strictly enforced in 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.320 around nineteen thirty four, and that brief period between the 0:03:10.360 --> 0:03:13.920 spread of talkies, so movies with synchronized sound, which was 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:18.000 mainly in nineteen twenty nine, and then the stricter enforcement 0:03:18.040 --> 0:03:20.280 of the code in nineteen thirty four, that like five 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:23.480 year period is known as the pre Code period in 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:27.880 American film, and it's characterized by movies that experimented with 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:32.360 more controversial content of multiple kinds. So you had sillacious 0:03:32.440 --> 0:03:35.320 content in terms of sex and violence and crime, the 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.600 normal R rated kind of stuff that shocks the morals, 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:41.480 but it was also I think it's worth pointing out 0:03:41.480 --> 0:03:46.640 a period of increased experimentation with progressive social themes that 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:50.440 would mostly fade from American movies in the following decades, 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.240 only to re emerge in the sixties. So I think 0:03:53.240 --> 0:03:55.440 that's an interesting parallel that in the same time you 0:03:55.480 --> 0:03:59.600 see this brief early flowering of kind of like racy, 0:03:59.840 --> 0:04:04.160 r rated content, you also see things that we would 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:07.520 later think are like good social values that were prohibited 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:11.440 at the time, and they were sort of struck down 0:04:11.480 --> 0:04:13.200 with the same stick in thirty four. 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:17.200 Yeah, it's interesting too when you think about film, the 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:21.560 film output, the cinematic output as an indicator of what 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.880 the underlying culture is there was, you know, because once 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:28.520 you have the code in place, Yeah, to a certain extent, 0:04:28.560 --> 0:04:31.480 the code is a product of the culture, and therefore 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:33.240 you can see those films that come out of it 0:04:33.279 --> 0:04:35.360 as a reflection of what the culture wanted to see 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.200 itself as. But it also means you have this inauthentic 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:40.880 view of what was actually going on in the zeitgeist 0:04:40.880 --> 0:04:42.680 of the time. You know, we just go back when 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:45.839 we watch films from the nineteen fifties, American mainstream films 0:04:45.839 --> 0:04:48.000 from the fifties, and you get this kind of vision 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:52.160 that's like, oh wow, it looks looks pretty dry, and 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:55.679 you know, it's you know, it's pretty, it's pretty square. 0:04:56.920 --> 0:05:00.599 I don't know, it's very sanitized in many respects. 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.200 Well, people often harken back to they say there was 0:05:03.240 --> 0:05:05.680 a time where movies were more innocent. Have you ever 0:05:05.720 --> 0:05:08.360 heard that there was a more innocent age and cinema, 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.520 which I think is a horrible way of putting it. 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:12.400 I mean, that's not really what it was. What you're 0:05:12.400 --> 0:05:14.960 saying is there was a time when American movies were 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:16.320 more censored. 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.280 Right, yeah, because I mean and certainly when you look 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:22.080 at films from the fifties, there's plenty of horrible stuff 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:26.920 going on, like socially that's reflected in those films. But 0:05:27.320 --> 0:05:29.760 but yeah, you have this code in place is preventing 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.520 this racier content from taking place, and it kind of 0:05:33.680 --> 0:05:38.440 limits the palette that artists of that time had to use, 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.160 you know, that were at their disposal to bring their 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.040 message across, be it like a really highly thought out 0:05:44.120 --> 0:05:47.840 artistic message or the B cinema message, which I think, 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:51.520 as we've discussed before a lot of times, B cinema 0:05:51.640 --> 0:05:55.360 that is where the in genre cinema, cinema, horror cinema, 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:58.840 science fiction cinema. That's sometimes the first place where some 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:01.000 of these cultural ideas are explored. 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.080 Yeah, totally before they reach the mainstream. Now I don't 0:06:05.120 --> 0:06:07.799 wanna say so, we're gonna be talking about this movie 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:09.800 Doctor X, which is a horror movie in the pre 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:13.279 code era, and for that reason for it it's time 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:17.080 and place. It does feel very weird and edgy and 0:06:17.440 --> 0:06:19.840 unlike movies, you know, horror movies that would be put 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:23.240 out by American studios a decade later. It feels much 0:06:23.279 --> 0:06:27.479 more dangerous than that. But at the same time, I 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:31.960 don't want to imply that this movie particularly embodies any 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:35.200 like at the time controversial progressive social themes that I 0:06:35.200 --> 0:06:37.000 can think of. I don't think it really does. I mean, 0:06:37.000 --> 0:06:40.360 it's just like a horror, murder, mystery movie. But it 0:06:40.400 --> 0:06:43.120 does have this this harder edge from being in that 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:45.760 early thirties period that I think serves it quite well. 0:06:46.160 --> 0:06:47.720 Yeah. Absolutely, it's just. 0:06:47.640 --> 0:06:51.000 Got a darker, weirder, more dangerous sensibility than stuff you 0:06:51.040 --> 0:06:54.800 would normally expect to see from movies of the thirties. 0:06:54.839 --> 0:06:56.480 Though then again, I would say, you know, there are 0:06:56.520 --> 0:06:59.640 some that are in the postcode era that that rival 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:01.800 it in certain ways, Like I don't know, Mad Love, 0:07:01.839 --> 0:07:04.880 I think is sort of on the same level. Yeah, 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:07.719 but maybe we should give the Elevator pitch for this movie. Okay, 0:07:07.720 --> 0:07:09.200 So what's Doctor x about? 0:07:09.840 --> 0:07:14.680 Okay, So imagine yourself at a medical academy where absolutely 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:18.480 every member of the faculty is a prime suspect in 0:07:18.520 --> 0:07:22.960 the cannibalistic moon killer slayings, like serial murderers that are 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:26.560 taking place at night during a full moon. So we 0:07:26.600 --> 0:07:30.880 meet up with this character, doctor Xavier, Doctor Xavier, we'll 0:07:30.880 --> 0:07:35.520 get into the various pronunciations, and he's heading up the academy. 0:07:35.680 --> 0:07:37.360 The police have come to him and they say, hey, 0:07:37.600 --> 0:07:42.000 we think the killer is one of you guys, and 0:07:41.440 --> 0:07:44.640 the doctor x here says, give me forty eight hours. 0:07:44.880 --> 0:07:47.720 I'll find the killer myself, so the police don't have 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:49.040 to get involved and we don't have to get a 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:50.840 lot of bad pr for the academy. 0:07:51.240 --> 0:07:53.640 Yeah, it's a pretty great setup. Maybe we should hit 0:07:53.640 --> 0:07:57.920 that trailer audio. We are all under suspicion of murder. 0:07:58.120 --> 0:08:02.840 What absurd? What imbitial thought that up? I'm Lee Taylor 0:08:02.880 --> 0:08:03.760 of the Daily World. 0:08:03.880 --> 0:08:04.840 Then you did it? Me? 0:08:05.360 --> 0:08:07.480 If you in printed that horrible story father in this 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:11.760 morning's paper, don't be afraid tonight. Be sure you keep 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.520 your eyes closed and relax. 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:16.680 I'm laying ten bucks to a dime. 0:08:16.760 --> 0:08:20.080 It'ch another moon killer murder. One of us may be 0:08:20.120 --> 0:08:22.720 a murderer, a murderer who killed with the light of 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:31.960 a full moon, leaving his victim's body mutilated. Sounds good, 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:32.560 sounds good. 0:08:33.240 --> 0:08:35.960 Now we may have buried one of the leads here, 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:40.920 which is that this ced nineteen thirty two horror movie 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:47.239 about cannibalistic murders and synthetic flesh was directed by Michael Kurtiz, 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:53.800 the director of Casablanca. That's a pretty odd fact. So 0:08:54.920 --> 0:08:59.080 Michael Curtiz was a Hungarian American film director who made 0:08:59.440 --> 0:09:02.240 a lot of the most well regarded movies of Hollywood's 0:09:02.240 --> 0:09:05.199 Golden Age. He made The Adventures of Robin Hood in 0:09:05.280 --> 0:09:08.600 nineteen thirty eight with Errol Flynn, of course, Casablanca in 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.720 forty two, Mildred Pearce in nineteen forty five. He did 0:09:12.720 --> 0:09:16.800 at least one James Cagney crime movie. So we are 0:09:16.840 --> 0:09:19.840 not dealing with a Roger Korman type here. This is 0:09:19.920 --> 0:09:24.440 not a scrappy schlock production, you know, for kids at 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.120 the drive in. This is one of the era's most 0:09:27.240 --> 0:09:31.400 high profile and successful directors. But there are ways in 0:09:31.480 --> 0:09:35.720 which Kurtis I think was much like Corman. And one 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:40.760 of those ways is that Kurtis was prolific, ferociously productive, 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.720 and he put out a staggering volume of film work 0:09:45.280 --> 0:09:48.240 of sort of mixed staying power. Some of it, you know, 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:53.360 is considered classics movies like Casablanca. Other stuff is largely forgotten, 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:59.000 and he bounced all over genres. He directed musicals, westerns, swashbucklers, 0:09:59.040 --> 0:10:04.320 horror movies, biblical epics. And another thing that's interesting about 0:10:04.400 --> 0:10:08.680 him is that basically everybody who chronicles his life points 0:10:08.679 --> 0:10:11.680 out that his personal habits took the idea of staying 0:10:11.840 --> 0:10:16.360 busy to an almost fanatical extreme. There's one example of this. 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:18.760 It's a paragraph that I came across when I was 0:10:18.800 --> 0:10:21.800 reading an article in the La Times by Kenneth Turan 0:10:22.400 --> 0:10:25.000 that was a review of a book called Michael Kurtz, 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.240 A Life in Films by Alan k. Rhade, and so 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.360 Turin writes the following, both on camera and off, Kurtes 0:10:32.480 --> 0:10:36.560 wanted things always to be moving, hurtling cars and trains 0:10:36.600 --> 0:10:40.080 and propulsive people figure prominently in his films. Even the 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:44.640 dark factory smoke in the movie Female moves purposefully across 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:48.000 the screen rather than just evaporating lazily into thin air. 0:10:48.520 --> 0:10:52.160 Someone who is likely easily bored and reportedly needed only 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:56.640 four hours sleep. Kurtes only wanted to be doing, doing, doing, 0:10:56.920 --> 0:10:59.800 which led to difficult situations with his cast and crew. 0:11:00.320 --> 0:11:03.280 It's not just that the director believed lunch breaks were 0:11:03.320 --> 0:11:07.760 for whimps. Road notes that Curtiz's quote demonic work ethic 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:11.960 approached savagery and working conditions on his sets are said 0:11:11.960 --> 0:11:14.120 to have been set, or said to be one of 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.120 the reasons that the Screen Actors Guild was formed. 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:23.600 Oh wow, So yeah, just a hyperactive filmmaker who just 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:26.320 wanted to be working all the time and perhaps just 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:30.120 did not understand that other human beings either could not 0:11:30.240 --> 0:11:32.960 do that or did not want that right as the 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:34.520 defining energy of their life. 0:11:34.720 --> 0:11:37.280 Yeah, there was a whole other thing I was reading 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.439 about his war against lunch. Like, he hated lunch. He 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.679 thought lunch was a stupid waste of time, and that 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:47.319 actors were lazy after lunch, and so he encouraged people 0:11:47.360 --> 0:11:49.720 to skip lunch because then they would be more productive 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:55.840 in the afternoon. I don't know, it sounds borderline pathological. 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:58.240 You know, I have to say that I'm ultimately not 0:11:58.440 --> 0:12:02.360 super familiar with with his work. I saw Casablanca once 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:04.840 for a film class in college and and enjoyed it. 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:07.920 You know, it's an important film. But I've seen Overdrawn 0:12:07.960 --> 0:12:11.040 in the memory Bank so many times, and so many 0:12:11.080 --> 0:12:15.560 more times than Casa Blanca that the simulated Casablanca scenes 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.920 in Overdrawn are the ones my mind goes to when 0:12:18.960 --> 0:12:22.520 I think of Casta Blanca. I think of Raal Julia right, 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:29.080 as as as Rick. It's not Ricker, yes, Rick, Rick, Yes, Fingle. 0:12:29.120 --> 0:12:31.319 I get Rick, Rick and Fingle are one in my mind. 0:12:31.480 --> 0:12:34.320 Wait, who's Peter Laurie and Overdrawn? In the memory Bank? 0:12:35.400 --> 0:12:39.960 They have some guy doing like a really really you know, 0:12:40.559 --> 0:12:44.800 stereotypical Peter Laurie impersonation. I don't remember if anybody connected 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:45.920 to the plot role. 0:12:46.000 --> 0:12:48.120 Julia was actually a good actor, and I bet he 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:50.319 could have done a good Peter Lourie impression. 0:12:50.600 --> 0:12:52.360 Oh I bet, yeah, he could have played every role 0:12:52.400 --> 0:12:55.400 in that film. But uh, I mean, Raal Julia is 0:12:55.400 --> 0:12:58.880 great in that film. He's great in everything, but I would. 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:01.920 Say Curtis's talent comes through in Doctor X. This is 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:05.480 a This is a movie that is busy. It moves. 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.400 I mean, it's got a lot of action. It is, 0:13:07.600 --> 0:13:08.559 it does not lag. 0:13:09.000 --> 0:13:11.120 Yeah, there's not a lot of space to be bored 0:13:11.200 --> 0:13:14.280 in this in this film. Oh another thing about Kurtz. 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:15.800 I don't know if you ran across this. This is 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.840 an IMDb fact, So I don't know to what extent 0:13:18.880 --> 0:13:21.200 we can take this as absolute truth or it's just 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.199 a story about him. But supposedly he fell out of 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.199 a moving vehicle once because he had to He had 0:13:27.200 --> 0:13:29.320 some idea that he had to jot down. He had 0:13:29.320 --> 0:13:32.559 to write down on some notepad paper he was driving 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:33.800 the vehicle at the time. 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:39.079 That sounds about right. 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:42.920 So another interesting thing about this This film is not 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:45.720 interesting because of the names attached to it, but for 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:50.199 what it tells you about about various storytelling mediums of 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:53.440 the time. This was based on a play by Howard 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.719 Warren Comstock and Alan C. Miller. So back in the 0:13:56.800 --> 0:13:59.400 day when I guess you just had more genre plays 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.760 you could. You could have a cannibalistic serial killer play 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:04.360 that one might view. 0:14:04.840 --> 0:14:07.560 Yeah, that's interesting. Today, if one goes out to see 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:10.760 a play, it's almost certainly going to be of you know, 0:14:11.160 --> 0:14:14.280 either a classical plays like you know, Greek or Shakespeare 0:14:14.400 --> 0:14:17.160 or something, or if it's a modern play, it's like 0:14:17.200 --> 0:14:21.440 a character driven drama, or it's a comedy. But yeah, 0:14:21.480 --> 0:14:25.560 we forget the early twentieth century like genre plays in 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:30.040 terms of like bloody gory horror productions for the stage 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:34.840 were extremely common, like the grang gin y'all in Paris. 0:14:35.680 --> 0:14:38.120 I don't know, in a way I miss this tradition, 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.320 Like why don't high school theater groups do viciously bloody 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:44.320 grangin y'all. I'm sure you can still get those scripts somewhere. 0:14:44.360 --> 0:14:46.040 They're probably even in the public domain. 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:48.520 Yeah, and they'd probably be pretty fun to put on. 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:52.800 You get some kids to do the special effects, all 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:55.160 the eyeballs squirting out and stuff. I mean, that could 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:55.480 be good. 0:14:56.120 --> 0:14:58.720 Yeah. Well, let's get into some of the players in 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:00.000 this picture. 0:15:00.480 --> 0:15:03.760 Okay, Well, you had an actor named Lee Tracy in 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:05.480 one of the main roles in the movie. Now, Lee 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:07.840 Tracy is not one of He doesn't play any of 0:15:07.880 --> 0:15:11.880 the scientists. Instead, he plays Lee Taylor, who is sort 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.920 of the everyman anchor for the story. He is a 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.120 reporter for a newspaper called The Daily World. He is 0:15:18.160 --> 0:15:22.560 a street wise, fast talking newspaper hack, the kind of 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.560 sardonic crime reporter character who appeared in a lot of 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.040 movies of this era and then would later be sort 0:15:30.080 --> 0:15:34.640 of imitated or parodied for nostalgic recreations, like the character 0:15:34.680 --> 0:15:37.320 of Alexander Knox in the Tim Burton Batman. 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.520 You remember that guy, Oh, yes, yeah, yeah, played by 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:42.280 an airless guy. 0:15:42.680 --> 0:15:47.680 Yeah, Robert Woohl, Yeah, that guy I think is supposed 0:15:47.680 --> 0:15:50.760 to be a throwback to this stock character from thirties 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:51.960 and forties movies. 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:54.600 Yeah, Like, you know, at the instant, the instant, a 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:56.480 character like this walks on the screen because they're like, Hey, 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:57.960 what you got there, partner, Let me talk to you 0:15:57.960 --> 0:15:59.440 about this murder. This happened in all of it out 0:16:00.000 --> 0:16:02.200 I'm afraid to go out a night because you know, 0:16:02.240 --> 0:16:06.920 it has this whole rhythm. This cadence is an obvious trope. 0:16:07.200 --> 0:16:10.640 I will say that that Lee Tracy is quite good 0:16:10.680 --> 0:16:13.840 in this role, though, and and while it does contain 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:16.600 all these elements of the trope, it seems to have 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.080 some other fun Quirks added to it as well. So, 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.840 not only is he this snappy newspaperman, but there's this 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:23.640 whole thing where he's a He seems to be a 0:16:23.640 --> 0:16:27.480 practical joke enthusiast who often forgets that he's wearing one 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:28.840 of these handshake buzzers. 0:16:29.160 --> 0:16:31.040 Yeah, you know where he's like his wedding ring. He 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:32.160 just forgets it's on there. 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.080 He just forgets it's on. And and this gag actually 0:16:35.120 --> 0:16:37.080 works quite well in the picture and plays into the 0:16:37.120 --> 0:16:40.280 plot a bit. So I applaud that for making for 0:16:40.440 --> 0:16:44.680 making a trope that I'm instantly not interested in actually entertaining. 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.000 Yeah, yeah, I got to hand it to him for 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:52.000 that as well. And Tracy, I mean, he is this role. 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:54.680 I mean it's just in his bones, you can tell. 0:16:55.680 --> 0:16:58.320 Yeah, I read that he apparently played a lot of 0:16:58.360 --> 0:17:01.240 snappy newspaper men. There's a attributed quote I found on 0:17:01.280 --> 0:17:04.280 IMDb quote, I should have quit playing newspaper man after 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.480 three or four parts in the movies, but the money 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:07.960 kept coming in and I liked it. 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.480 He liked it. It almost sounds like a line his 0:17:11.560 --> 0:17:13.080 character would say in Doctor X. 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:14.639 Yeah, I should have done it in his voice. But 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.119 I even I can't do that voice too often. 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.800 Okay. So then the next major player you've got is 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.600 Lionel Atwill, who plays a doctor. Oh my god, So 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.520 they pronounce his name like five different ways in this movie. 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:31.879 It is like Professor Charles Xavier. It's Xavier Xavier or 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:34.879 Exavier is how I think most Americans would say it today. 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.640 But in the movie they call him doctor Xavier. They 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:42.040 call him doctor Xavier. I don't know how many different 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:42.840 ways they say it. 0:17:43.080 --> 0:17:45.919 And then of course he is the titular doctor x 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:48.920 But then in a way, the title also has another meaning, 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:50.840 which we'll get to, and that is doctor x is 0:17:50.880 --> 0:17:54.760 in Doctor Unknown, right, yes, So Adwell is one of 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:57.400 these actors who played a ton of characters who are 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:01.200 either inspectors or doctors. In this he gets to play both. 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:05.560 He's a doctor who acts as an inspector, and sometimes 0:18:05.560 --> 0:18:07.760 he played villains as well, such as the role of 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.959 Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes and The Secret Weapon from nineteen 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.520 forty three. And he's also in a string of horror 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:16.399 films in the nineteen thirties. He played the one armed 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:20.240 Inspector Krag and son of Frankenstein in nineteen thirty nine, 0:18:20.920 --> 0:18:24.840 which I believe was later parodied in what is it? 0:18:24.880 --> 0:18:28.159 The Melbrooks film Oh What in Young Frankenstein. Yeah, I 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:30.560 believe they parody that role a bit in there. Oh 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.680 I see, okay, Yeah, but in this yes, he is 0:18:33.720 --> 0:18:36.679 a doctor who acts as an inspector, so he has 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:38.959 a lot of screen time. He's just constantly talking. 0:18:39.560 --> 0:18:42.639 Yeah, and he's got a little bit slightly off brand 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:45.879 Christopher Plumber vibes. You know, he's a little bit Christopher Plumber, 0:18:45.880 --> 0:18:47.560 but slightly less dashing. 0:18:48.000 --> 0:18:51.439 Yes. And then there's also he does have this quality 0:18:51.480 --> 0:18:54.959 too where you're not sure if you can trust him 0:18:55.040 --> 0:18:56.840 or not either. Like a lot of this film is 0:18:57.119 --> 0:19:00.159 centers around a who done it scenario, And indeed you 0:19:00.160 --> 0:19:02.520 don't know what doctor X's deal is as well doctor 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:03.439 Xaviu's deal is. 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.600 Yeah, it's great. There's a cast of like seven different 0:19:06.680 --> 0:19:09.919 creeps who are all testifying to each other's integrity. But 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.520 they're all just like the most ominous, menacing people you've 0:19:13.560 --> 0:19:14.160 ever seen. 0:19:14.600 --> 0:19:17.479 Yeah, it's a real rogues gallery, this medical academy. We'll 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:19.639 get in like even without getting into the details of 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:22.680 their spoil, which we'll get to, they all just look 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:26.680 wonderful and grow grotesque in their own ways. It's a wonderful. 0:19:26.760 --> 0:19:28.320 We're not going to list their name, the names of 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:30.680 the actors, because most of those names are probably not 0:19:30.720 --> 0:19:33.440 going to really resonate with with listeners. They're worth looking 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:35.840 up though, if you're if you're curious, but yeah, they're 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.119 like there's so many scenes where you'll have like our 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:40.520 leading lady, who are about to get to and she's 0:19:40.600 --> 0:19:43.879 talking like a foot away or less with one of 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:47.080 these characters and their the lighting between the two characters 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:49.919 is so distinct because of course she is illuminated and 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:53.199 beautiful like an angel, right, and then these various character 0:19:53.240 --> 0:19:56.240 actors are illuminated in ways to like really bring out 0:19:56.320 --> 0:19:59.520 the rugged definition of their face and all the lines 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:03.120 and make them look like hollow, gaunt, haunted skeletons. 0:20:03.200 --> 0:20:06.440 It's quick, wonderful, that's very well put. Well, we should 0:20:06.480 --> 0:20:08.399 get to the leading lady because she I think is 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:11.560 without a doubt, the most well known member of the 0:20:11.600 --> 0:20:16.240 cast here. It's Fey Ray faey Ray plays Joan Xavier, 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:19.600 the daughter I think the daughter, yeah, the daughter of 0:20:19.760 --> 0:20:21.400 doctor doctors doctor Zaber. 0:20:21.480 --> 0:20:23.520 I wasn't clear on that for about half the Picture 0:20:23.760 --> 0:20:24.960 in the same years as the Daughter. 0:20:25.200 --> 0:20:28.399 Yeah, and I mean god, this is Fay Ray from 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:29.000 King Kong. 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:33.520 That's right, one of the original Scream queens. Yeah, she 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.920 played Anne Darrow in the nineteen thirty three film King Kong, 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:39.760 so she hadn't like fully exploded like King Kong was 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:44.119 the film that really launched her into the spotlight in 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:46.760 a major way. But she had a very long career. 0:20:46.800 --> 0:20:49.679 So she was born in Canada, they raised in Hollywood, 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:52.359 so she intered acting at an early age, at sixteen, 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:55.600 I believe in the nineteen twenty three short Gasoline Love. 0:20:56.440 --> 0:20:59.000 She acted in one hundred and twenty three titles up 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:02.639 through nineteen eighty. And as for standout roles, she was 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.720 in nineteen thirty two is the Most Dangerous Game, and 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.119 a standout role for us anyway, would also be Mystery 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:12.560 of the Wax Museum from nineteen thirty three, which we've 0:21:12.560 --> 0:21:14.919 mentioned on Stuff to Blow your Mind before. She was 0:21:14.960 --> 0:21:19.160 in The Vampire Bat in nineteen thirty three, and yeah, 0:21:19.200 --> 0:21:22.560 she's a legend there. You can't deny her. In fact, 0:21:23.200 --> 0:21:26.440 she is mentioned twice in the lyrics to The Rocky 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:30.800 Horror Picture Show. So there's the whole there's a whole 0:21:30.800 --> 0:21:32.919 bit at the start of one of the songs, whatever 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:36.440 happened to Fay Ray that delicate satin draped frame as 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:38.640