Let's be realistic.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

It's certainly wonderful to see this hitherto lost work of director Michael Curtiz. True, it has been available in black-and-white, but who in their right senses would want to look at Doctor X without color? I agree the picture might still deliver a few odd thrills, but its obsessive mood, its genuinely spooky atmosphere — not to mention all its splendidly Gothic pictorial effects — are utterly lost. In monochrome, maybe a passable chiller. In color, a minor yet fascinating masterpiece of almost unbearably tingling horror.Take the cast. Thanks to her appearances in this one and "The Mystery of the Wax Museum", plus "The Most Dangerous Game" and "King Kong", Fay Wray is the only female film star of the early 1930s who has a greater reputation today than way back then. She looks lovely. And most attractively dressed too. The imperiled heroine par perfection.Lee Tracy is hardly our first choice for the role of comic newspaperman, but he handles that assignment with such skill that he ingratiatingly delivers thrills, laughs and romance in liberal yet almost equal measure. The ever-reliable Lionel Atwill is handed a made-to-order part as the suspicious doctor-in-charge. Few actors can deliver lines with such commendable speed and authority. Robert Warwick makes a game try here, but comes nowhere close. As for Preston Foster, his startling performance will have audiences cheering. Leila Bennett is also effective as a scared-witless maid. And A.E. Carewe has a small but vivid role to play.For me, however, there are two actors in "Doctor X" who truly excel way, way beyond the call of duty. The other is George Rosener. Admittedly, he's handed a colorful role as a sadistically servile Otto-of-all-work, but Rosener plays it with an edge that is absolutely riveting.It's a bit mean to single out a few players when Curtiz has drawn such vividly convincing portraits from the whole cast. Notice how he adds to the realism by sometimes causing one player to break in on someone else's dialogue, or cues a number of actors to all speak at once.Curtiz has also made fine use of Grot's magnificently atmospheric sets and — assisted by Amy's smoothly sharp editing — paced the picture to a really palm-sweating climax. Ray Rennahan's superb camera-work adds immeasurably to the bizarrely enthralling atmosphere of ultra- chilling suspense.Finally, I will mention that Atwill, Foster and company all rejoice in titles of both "doctors" and "professors"; that Miss Wray is usually called "Joanne" but that she is twice addressed as "Joan"; that Mae Busch is obviously the madam of a brothel, not a speak- easy; that Tom Dugan is best described as a plainclothesman outside the Mott Street Morgue; that Harry Holman of the exploding cigar (which plays a neat part in the cleverly menacing plot) is indeed Patrolman Mike; and yes, it is Selmer Jackson in the not-credited bit part as the Globe's night editor.The play opened on Broadway at the Hudson on 9 February 1931, running 80 performances. Howard Lang starred.

From that idiot reporter to the scheme they tried to catch the murderer, this is so off the wall that it utterly fails. I know it was made in 1932, but there were lots of very good movies made that year. I always enjoy Lionel Atwill, but to see him as some sort of hero after all the trouble he's caused is ludicrous. And those scientists he surrounds himself with are equally silly. Of course, we have the romance. There's the pretty young daughter who must not have much of a social life, hanging around with all those ghouls, who falls for a guy who has no redeeming qualities. He represents that anything-for-a-story mentality that pervades so many movies of that era. I was surprised how attractive the film was. That must have been somewhat enticing to early movie goers, but, it's not enough. Don't bother. Oh, all those guys handcuffed to their chairs. If that isn't as bad as it gets, I don't know what is.

When Warner Brothers made their first two-color Technicolor talkie in 1932 on a VERY high budget, they took an enormous risk (Douglas Fairbanks had taken that risk already 6 years before with the FIRST - silent - Technicolor movie ever; but it was a great box office hit, of course, since it was one of his great swashbucklers) - especially since they chose the horror genre for their venture. Since Universal's horror movies were great hits at the time, they decided to make their color movie a horror movie as well; but not the good old-fashioned vampire superstition Gothic horror, but a NEW kind of horror in every sense of the word: the 'scientific' horror - and of course, there's a big potential of horror in that field as well...For some time, dreadful "Moon Murders" have been going on, where the victims are all literally being cannibalized and pieces of flesh cut out of their bodies with surgery instruments - and they all happen near the isolated house of Dr. Xavier, who has turned it into a laboratory where he and his colleagues work on various strange experiments... And cheeky (or at least, seemingly cheeky) young reporter Lee Taylor (Lee Tracy, who's setting the standards here for the typical 30s' movie reporters whom we all know and love so well) is determined to investigate in that curious 'lion's den' with skeletons, bubbling chemical substances and a bunch of weird scientists...At the same time, he still finds an opportunity to flirt with Xavier's pretty daughter Joanne (Fay Wray, who would co-star with her 'father' Lionel Atwill in another two very successful horror movies, "The Mystery of the Wax Museum" and "The Vampire Bat") - and eventually, when during a criminological experiment that Doctor X. arranges in order to find the murderer she gets into mortal danger, he gets the chance to prove his 'heroism'; but will he really be able to do so??This 'new' kind of horror proved VERY successful as a movie, highly suspenseful and yet at the same time entertaining, particularly well directed by Michael Curtiz, with a superb cast - and of course those fantastic colors that must have seemed like a miracle to the audience back then. And so it became a smash hit at the box office - and remains one of the very greatest horror classics until this day.

Lionel Atwill stars as Dr. Jerry Xavier, head of a surgical academy that has come under suspicion when a gruesome series of murders committed by the "moon killer" are traced there. Dr. X decides to conduct his own investigation, which lead to two different tests to find the culprit, one of which involves his daughter Joanne(played by Fay Wray) A wisecracking newspaper reporter(played by Lee Tracy) is also investigating. Is the killer at the Academy, and will he be caught before another killing? Michael Curtiz directed this early "2-strip" Technicolor film, but it wasn't worth the effort, despite the good cast, this is mostly dull and talky, though (at times) amusingly melodramatic.