Diagonaldi Very well executed

Colibel Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

snicewanger Entertaining pre-code chiller that was the first color [2 strip technicolor], talking horror film. Eerie, atmospheric, with some well timed humor as well. Ray Rannahan was behind the camera and Fred Jackman Jr produced the special effects. Both were outstanding. Michael Curtiz was Warner's top director and he came through Lionel Atwill played Doctor X and was his sinister self. Fay Wray was the damsel in distress and invents the "scream queen" role. Its Lee Tracy who is the star. Playing the anything to get the story newspaper reporter he strikes the right cord , of brass, sarcastic humor, and quick witted bravery in his portrayal of Lee Taylor. He really foreshadows Bob Hope' Larry Lawrence in 1941's "Ghostbreakers". The scene where he wants to use the pay phone in the 'cat house" is a hoot.After Universal released Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931 and made a bundle and the other studio's jumped on the bandwagon. Doctor X was based on a play Howard W Comstock and was Warner Brother's first attempt to jump into the horror genera.

Leofwine_draca DOCTOR X is a hugely enjoyable murder mystery-cum-horror film, with much talent involved in the proceedings. The actors are all on top form, with Atwill (MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM) giving a super-duper performance as a distinguished yet slightly mad doctor, while all of the suspects are slightly weird and fun to watch, especially the banter between them.Typically with these sort of films, there's a wisecracking journalist involved in the proceedings, whose repeated use of a hand buzzer soon becomes tiring and makes one wish he would just buzz off. Fay Wray (KING KONG) is adept at screaming, while Otto the butler is a dead ringer for Lugosi and gives a sinister role. There are some familiar scenes in the film, such as the blood pressure test, which was used later in THE THING, and the mock play scene even recalls a similar event in HAMLET, where the young Dane tries to reveal the guilt of the king by re-enacting a murder.Along with this are some nice touches, both comedic and spooky (such as the discovery of a skull and crossbones taking shapes in the leaves at the bottom of a cup), but the standout is the main special effect of the 'synthetic flesh' which is truly memorable and earned a credit for the effects, for the first time in a film ever. Although we've seen a lot of effects like it previously, it's still slightly creepy if a bit rubbery. DOCTOR X is a classic horror romp with comic and thriller elements, and it's never boring. Watch it if you dare!

binapiraeus 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.

Robert J. Maxwell 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.