The Most Dangerous Game (1932)

A famous hunter (Joel McCray) is on yet another adventure when his ship crashes into a reef and sinks. He is the only survivor. He finds a creepy mansion owned by a strange man who is also hosting guests who were shipwrecked earlier that week. Something of an epidemic.

Turns out our host is an avid hunting fan but he’s grown bored with regular hunting. He wants to hunt The Most Dangerous Game, and would love to go on a hunt for our hero Bob. With Bob. He wants to hunt with Bob. Yea, that’s what I meant.

The most famous adaptation of the popular short story, we see Hollywood shoe horn a love interest into an adventure story, because why not. Fay Wray and screen brother Robert Armstrong were already on location filming King Kong, so let’s go make another film during the downtime. Some of the same set pieces are recognizable like the log Kong shakes Fay’s rescuers off to their deaths.

Our villain is played by character actor Leslie Banks. He suffered a facial injury during the Great War and used it to his advantage, playing menacing characters to the end. With McCray acting like the handsome piece of wood that was the custom of the day and Wray doing little more than screaming, Banks’ Zaroff was by far the most interesting character. Armstrong played a drunken buffoon. I don’t think it was until James Bond that the stock Hero character was allowed to be at all clever.

Not a super memorable film. It was short and served its purpose. I appreciate that they kept some of the anti-hunting theme from the source material. Zarloff was interesting but we pretty much know how it would all pan out. AMRU 3.

The Vampire Bat (1933)

A small European village in an indeterminate time period has a problem. Locals think the town is cursed by vampires! I mean, look at all the bats! The police chief (Melvyn Douglas) thinks there's a bad man at work. Much to his surprise, the scientist boss (Lionel Atwill) of his hottie girlfriend (Fay Wray) lends scientific credence to the locals wild superstitions.

Hey, look! A vampire movie! Back to my theme, and just in time. I requested a collection from the library containing the rest of the Universal Dracula collection back in September, and may get it before Christmas. Can't wait to put this franchise to bed.

It appears that I've seen this before. I remember the tragic simpleton whom the locals first suspect. This well may have been Dwight Frye's best performance, and remember how much I liked him in Dracula. He was completely believable in the role. Atwill and Wray were teamed up again (they did three together) because of their previous success. Strange pairing actors like that when the characters are never a couple, but that's what they did.

What's interesting? Not a whole lot. Eastern European town fears the supernatural, modern thinkers try to convince them otherwise, typical investigation, typical climax, roll credits. Not entirely to formula, but close. A fun B-horror for Halloween.

TCM typically has the better copies and the poor quality of The Vampire Bat implies that this is the best out there. It was very viewable, and apparently complete, but the soundtrack was a long, annoying hiss. Not sure if a pristine copy would have made this more memorable. Interesting, short, no major flaws. AMRU 3.

"No, no, no, no! Bats no do! They soft, like cat. They not bite Herman!"

Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933)

Obsessed London wax artist Ivan Igor (Lionel Atwill) is going broke and doesn't seem to care. Business partner certainly does and has a solution. Burn the house down for the insurance money. They fight but the poor artist is knocked unconscious.

Years later in New York, Igor reappears with a new museum, but because of injuries sustained in the fire, he cannot walk or use his hands. He trains young artists to do his sculpting for him. A young socialite dies and the reporter covering the story (Glenda Farrell), also the roommate of the fiancee (Fay Wray) of one of Igor's young artists, happens to notice that the Joan of Arc sculpture resembles the dead socialite, and that her body was stolen from the morgue ... well, you get the picture.

After seeing Vincent Price's House of Wax, I wanted to see this version for comparison. Apart from a couple character constructs, there is little difference in the stories. The biggest difference was the tone. As the main character is a 30's reporter, there was lots of that quick witted, wise-crackie, Front Page-esque dialog. The tone, in fact, was very similar to Doctor X, also starring Atwill and Wray and released the year before. Another similarity was that both were filmed in the two-strip technicolor process, which I happen to like.

Mystery of the Wax Museum is listed as a pre-code film, that is, released prior to the full enforcement of the MPAA production code, but I'm not sure what rule it violated. There is a reference to a bootlegger, but who cares. Only thing I can think is that some of Igor's sculptures were (horrors!) topless. Got that sexy clay going on.

Atwill excelled, as he frequently does, in his role. Wray got second billing, but didn't get much screen time or any good dialog to speak of. Her job was to scream when Igor tries to turn her into Marie Antoinette. This was really Farrell's movie, being in the lion's share of the frames and getting almost all the clever dialog.

So, how does it stack up to the 1953 remake? I'd match Atwill's performance up against Price, which is high praise, but overall the silly tone and mystery focus of the former has it falling short. Still a worthwhile watch, but doesn't offer much that the remake doesn't do better. AMRU 3.

"I offer you immortality, my child. Think of it: in a thousand years you shall be as lovely as you are now!"

Doctor X (1932)

"... Doctor X will build a creature ..."

No he won't. Sixth movie referenced in the song Science Fiction/Double Feature. Eleven down and item from the bucket list complete.

People are being strangled and partially eaten during the full moon. Papers are calling it the Moon Killer Murders. The police are investigating. They speak with eminent Doctor Xavier (Lionel Atwill), or Doctor X to his homies. He runs a prestigious medical academy and the police both need his expert opinion and suspect that the murder is one of them. So, they interview his posse.

And what a motley crew they are, just bubbling with suspicion. Into the mix arrives a reporter trying to get a scoop and the good doctor's hot daughter (Fay Wray). The cops give Doc X 48 hours to unmask the killer or else they'll start doing their job. Doc invites his five suspects to his spooky mansion for an experiment. Along for the ride are the amusing butler and maid.

Since I started this-here blog, I've greatly expanded my sources of movies. Initially all I had was the trusty public library plus my own humble collection. Then I went to Netflix. Last Christmas I got a Roku box that allowed me to watch Netflix and Amazon Prime from the bedroom, as well as sources of public domain movies via Pub-D-Hub and the like. At the beginning of this month I made the giant leap into the 21st century and subscribed to digital cable. Within that first week two movies I haven't been able to lay my filthy hands on were on TCM. Doctor X was the first.

Doc X was filmed in an early two color Technicolor process that lacks the vibrant colors we know today but worked well in the horror genre. For years the movie was only shown in black and white but the color version was discovered and restored, and that's what TCM is showing. It looked great.

Technically a comic horror, and in many ways a crime drama, Doctor X is both somewhat interesting and somewhat amusing. The early thirties comedy showed through with great comebacks as "What that? Haaaaaay!" Were this movie not in color and not on the Science Fiction/Double Feature list, it would be quite skipable. But that's not the case and it was nice to see Fay in color and Lionel in a leading man role. AMRU 3.

Cop: No one goes in there except stiffs.
Taylor: Oh yea? What's keeping you out here?
Cop: What the? Haaaaay!

King Kong (1933)

Forth movie mentioned in the song Science Fiction/Double Feature. The classic gorilla finds girl, gorilla loses girl, girl's friends drug and kidnap gorilla to use in a New York side show story. It's the classic tale.

Robert Armstrong plays Carl Denham, a risk-taking movie director who learns of an uncharted island off Africa's coast (Google Earth was in pre-beta back then). He needs a lead actress so at the last minute he nabs the homeless waif Ann Darrow (Fay Wray). Every damsel needs a hero, and Fay's is Seaman John Driscol, played by Bruce Cabot, who apparently was a robot in real life. Oh, and by the way, Fay Wray was HOT! 

Many of the models of the dinosaurs and the animation techniques came from the 1925 silent film The Lost World, taken from the Arthur Conan Doyle story. Guess which movie I do next. Silent films are weird. 

But, let's touch on the silly, shall we? All this has been pointed out before, but what the hell. If you are going to build a giant wall to keep giant monsters out, WHY BUILD A GIANT DOOR FOR THEM TO GET THROUGH? If a giant ape can scale the Empire State Building, WHY CAN'T IT SCALE A WALL BARELY TALLER THAN ITSELF? And while we are bringing logic into the conversation, why live on a tiny part of a giant island populated by monsters? That was fun, wasn't it? Seriously, it wasn't? Not even a little? Oh, bother. 

This movie is great. I watched it on an old VCR tape and I'm dying to see it fully restored in high-def. The action is intense, the story interesting, the pacing great, and Fay Wray's wardrobe pre-code. 

King Kong held the record at the time for the biggest opening in history and is credited with saving RKO from bankruptcy. AFI lists it as the forth best film in the category of Fantasy and it's ranked 11th in IMDB's list in the category of Horror. In my ranking, it's higher. I love this movie. AMRU 5.0.