That was an excellent one.

Sadly Over-hyped

A Disappointing Continuation

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Dr. Cyclops is a unique film in several regards, having been released in 1940 it's one of the very first (if not the first) Sci-Fi films to be shot in 3-Strip Technicolor, as far as it's special effects go it was certainly an innovative film for it's time (specifically it's "little people" footage), and lastly the highly-excitable music of film maestro Ernst Toch. Special mention must be made regarding the music that's heard during this film's most exciting and distinctively off-kilter of moments - and there are many. Because at the drop of a hat, this film often finds itself bouncing off the walls but in a most delightfully playful and fun-spirited kind of way. This is in large part do to the films eccentric combination of it's numerous processed shots/optical effects, it's oddball scenarios, and a most hyper-active musical score, which has a way of whipping the film into a frenzy of unfettered lunacy and whimsical eccentricities. Ultimately what this all adds up to is a film that's unique in both look and feel or to put it another way, Dr. Cyclops comes off like a live-action cartoon, in TechnicolorUnfortunately... aside from it's obvious strong-points, Dr. Cyclops I'm afraid, is a rather average movie. For instance it's casting (with the exception of Albert Dekker in the title-role) is serviceable at best and it has no "big names" in it's cast. My guess is that most of the films budget went to it's special-effects photography, which surprisingly enough was filmed in Technicolor no less - a prohibitively expensive process at that time. I find the acting of the film is often workman-like in it's mediocre quality, which ranges from the pompous and super-serious Dr. Bulfinch to "Pedro" a modestly effective comic-relief character, then there's Janice Logan as Dr. Mary Robinson and well she simply makes for a very unconvincing scientist. Once you get past the films spectacular opening credits sequence (all that green mist!), Dr. Cyclops starts out rather slowly as it's cast members, one-by-one, are introduced and the movies scientifically-based back-story is laid out. In that respect Dr. Cyclops, like most movies, does get a lot more exciting in the second half which leads to some truly unique and inspired action sequences. Having seen this movie several times over the years, it tends to leave an impression on you (especially if you see it at a young age) and when considering the subject-matter at hand, well... I think the term "live-action cartoon" is a particularly apt description, with what one can expect from this eccentric Hollywood relic from yesteryear, as it is all to often a VERY whimsical affair.If you enjoy Dr. Cyclops you'll probably like "The Incredible Shrinking Man"(1957) as well, as both deal with micronized people, in fact at his smallest The Incredible Shrinking Man stands at a mere 1 inch tall; much smaller than what's seen in Dr. Cyclops. Also "Attack of the Puppet People"(1958) though not as good as the others is also worth checking out. When one weighs this films many merits and innovative nature Dr. Cyclops does indeed seem more worthy than most for the re-make treatment (I typically don't like re-makes) and with Ant-Man making waves recently, the time seems right or "primed" for a lavishly produced re-make of Doctor C; one that dials-up the craziness and is truly and absolutely unhinged.

There is no method to the madness of reclusive scientist Albert Dekker, a man so determined to fight against the laws of God that he drive himself mad in the process, giving truth to the old saying that whom God intends to destroy he drives mad first. While Decker does not play an actual character named Cyclops, he will ultimately be exactly like the legendary creature of Greek myth. This colorful Paramount science fiction/horror movie is one of the gems of the silver screen that has simply not gotten its due except from a cult following rather than becoming an all-time classic on the lines of the Universal horror movies of the 1930s. However Dekker is up there with Karloff and Lugosi in the characterization of evil he plays here, and unlike Lugosi's Dracula, he is very much alive and unlike the undead Karloff in "Frankenstein", there is no sympathy at all for the creature that he becomes. The reclusive Dekker wants to continue his evil experiments in private, killing one rival, and turning a group of people trying to stop him by simply shrinking them to doll size versions of themselves, placing them in a world of terror that we as full grown men and women do not understand. However, in the world of the film of Dr. Cyclops, the audience is put into their shoes, seeing what would happen, if all of a sudden we were 1/10 of our size, or as it often seems 1/50 of Cyclops' size. With Dekker sleeping nearby, the little people escape his clutches, manage to avoid a ferocious cat, and end up outside where the most vicious thunderstorm hits all at once, showing the audience the fear of full grown animals who even in their own element are petrified. Shots of two spider monkeys consoling each other in a tree, lions, bears, various birds, and other wildlife critters, is intertwined with the footage of the miniature victims of Dekker's evil plans to find shelter. The doctor himself takes great glee in teasing these men and women over their predicament, informing one of the victims that they are about to be attacked by a giant rooster. The special effects are outstanding, and the cleverness of these little people is as equal as in the evil of Dekker's mad scientist. The tension arises in how these creatures will deal with their plight, and how they will ultimately stop Dekker from continuing his mad reign of terror. Filmed in beautiful color, Dr. Cyclops is one of the gems of its era, and is a must for all fans of science fiction and horror.There's also the presence of an adorable loyal dog who looks at his master in bewilderment as he sees him as a tiny version of himself, too confused to acknowledge him but still trained in loyalty to see him as anything else but who the dog knows him to be. The fate of this one particular character is quite tragic, and the impact of what. Of what the Cyclops does will immediately affect you.Unlike the earlier "The Devil Doll" which had little creatures being used by Lionel Barrymore to cause paralysis to their victims, and the later "Incredible Shrinking Man". Dr Cyclops uses a great deal of imagination in addition to intelligence to create a story that while fantastic and beyond belief, is a reminder that human beings should there not head down this path of knowledge, and find out secrets which God intends we do not find out. I am glad that this is never been remade, because no film creator could ever hope to reproduce the impact that this film has had, and it remains a true sleeper of the science fiction and horror genre.

Albert Dekker is a reclusive mad scientist hiding away in a laboratory in the Peruvian jungle. Boy, are three scientists back in the states surprised to get an invitation from Dekker to join him. The three surprised scientists are Charles Holton, Janice Logan, and Thomas Coley. They make the arduous journey to Peru and are joined by a lowbrow miner, Victor Kilian, for reasons the script doesn't bother to deal with. At Dekker's laboratory they meet Pedro, Frank Yaconelli, a lovable and sometimes comic Peruvian peasant. I knew the minute I saw him that he was a tostada. That's the function of minorities in movies like this. Dekker, in a padded suit and thick spectacles, greets them and asks them to look through his microscope and tell him what they see. "Iron crystals." Thank you -- and good-bye. The visitors are aghast. They made this trip just so that they could spend 30 seconds looking through Dekker's microscope? Well -- yes. The scientists are offended and curious about what's going on. They discover that Dekker has built his lab next to a super-rich vein of radium ore, which he is using in experiments that shrink living organisms. When Dekker discovers that they have discovered the nature of his discovery, he shrinks them too. Alas, he finds that his now-shrunken five human beings are beginning to grow imperceptibly back to their normal size, so he asphyxiates one, blasts another with his shotgun, and pursues the remaining three until, with pluck and ingenuity, they send Dekker tumbling into a bottomless well. They grow back to normal size and return to civilization, vowing not to tell anyone because who would believe them? Who would believe them indeed? The set designer was obviously influenced by Universal's earlier monster movies because Dekker's lab is a crumbling stone affair like Frankenstein's castle. Most of the movie consists of the tiny humans running around, trying to escape. First they are dressed in white, toga-like strips of cloth, except for the Peruvian peasant who wears what appear to be diapers. Later, they appear in designer clothes of various colors, still modeled after the Romans, nicely tailored for Janice Logan, who looks awfully cute prancing around in her little ensemble.It's too bad she's not much of an actress, but then nobody in the story is particularly magnetic. Dekker huffs and puffs and does everything but cackle like a maniac. Thomas Coley, as the male lead, is a lankylooking galoot, to borrow a phrase, whose performance is actually embarrassing. To be fair, nobody could do much with the dialog. For some reason the main players don't use contractions when they speak, so that "can't" is always "can not", and "I'll" is always "I will." I don't know how important any of that is, though, or whether it was important at all to contemporary audiences. The special effects are the thing. And considering the period, they're not too bad: mattes, rear projection, over-sized sets -- sometimes a combination of effects. Not as good as "King Kong," but still an extravaganza for the 1930s. And it's in Technicolor too. (Supervised by the ubiquitous Natalie Kalmus, who never contributed anything to Technicolor except her name.) Winton Hoch, a real scientist, had a hand in the photography. He was later to win awards with films like John Ford's "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon." The runaways survive all kinds of threats or, in some cases, they don't. They're attacked by cats, alligators, a berserk blind man, and they're threatened by a chicken. Only Pedro's faithful dog plays it straight with them, man's best friend after all.One wonders if the people who made "The Incredible Shrinking Man" saw this film. It's difficult to believe they didn't. The improvised togas look familiar, and there's that pet cat, Satana, who tries to eat them in a frightening scene.An amusing diversion.

"Dr. Cyclops" is masterful science-fiction from the golden era of cinema, containing all the prime ingredients in order to be ranked amongst the genre's most timeless classics. The script is excellent, there are at least two highly memorable acting performances (Albert Dekker and Charles Halton), the use of (Techni)color still stands as groundbreaking and the special effects are – at least 'were' for that time – phenomenal and faultless to the smallest detail. Youthful horror and Sci-Fi fans, exclusively swearing by the use of computer-animated techniques, can't possibly imagine how much time, effort and sincere devotion it must have cost here to scale down the sets or to endlessly edit all the matte works together. The effects in "Dr. Cyclops" are so terrific and so ahead of times they actually form a worthy equivalent for the visual art in "The Incredible Shrinking Man", which got released more than 15 years later and had a larger budget to work with. Doctor Thorkel is a brilliant albeit slightly eccentric scientist investigating the possibilities of freshly exploited radium in the middle of the Amazonian jungle. He develops a way to miniaturize living tissue, but he requires the help of three fellow scientists because his declining eyesight causes miscalculations. The scientists naturally refuse to leave without knowing the essence of Thorkel's research and, paranoid over the idea they'll steal his lifework, he shrinks them to a mere twelve inches. With Thorkel going increasingly berserk, the group has the choice between either facing their mad opponent or flee into the immense and dangerous jungle. The script features a couple of slower parts but, generally speaking, "Dr. Cyclops" is a vastly compelling and intellectually challenging film. The references towards the Greek mythology in the title and, more elaborated, in the script are fantastic, and Albert Dekker's performance is a stellar tour-de-force. His diabolical role also compensates for the weak and hammy supportive players.