Return of Doctor X, The
Entry updated 23 December 2024. Tagged: Film.
US film (1939). Warner Bros. Directed by Vincent Sherman. Written by Lee Katz, based on "The Surgeon's Secret" (12 January 1935 Thriller; vt "The Doctor's Secret" 30 July 1938 Detective Fiction Weekly) by William J Makin. Cast includes Humphrey Bogart, John Litel, Lya Lys, Dennis Morgan, Wayne Morris and Joan Vance. 63 minutes. Black and white.
Reporter Walter Garrett (Morris) insists he discovered actress Angela Merrova (Lys) dead from a stomach wound with the blood drained from her body, but the police are unable to find the corpse: later Merrova turns up at his newspaper's offices, pale but alive – and litigious. Garrett is sacked. He asks his friend Dr Mike Rhodes (Morgan) for help, but Rhodes is distracted when one of his hospital's blood donors is found murdered: curiously, they had the same rare blood type as Merrova; the corpse is drained of blood and, as with the actress, the wound suggests the skill of a surgeon. Blood at the scene is not the donor's type, so Rhodes wonders if it bled from the murderer; under the microscope it looks wrong, and he takes it to haematologist Dr Francis Flegg (Litel) for his opinion. Though clearly flustered by what he sees, Flegg insists it is normal blood; his assistant, Marshall Quesne (Bogart) – pallid, nervous and with a white streak in his hair which is possibly a nod to The Bride of Frankenstein (1935) – shatters a beaker when Rhodes suggests it might be artificial blood. Garrett, who had trailed his friend, notices that a distressed Merrova enters Flegg's building shortly after to receive a blood transfusion. The pair later interview her and she admits to having been stabbed, her denial being due to concerns about the effect on her career: she promises to tell them more the next day but dies "of natural causes" after a visit by Quesne.
Garrett thinks Quesne's face is familiar, and looking through old press cuttings identifies him: he was Dr Maurice J Xavier, executed for starving a child to death when attempting to find how long babies could survive without eating. Garrett and Rhodes dig up Xavier/Quesne's grave and, finding the coffin empty, confront Flegg: he admits to bringing Xavier back to life and, by way of example, revives a dead rabbit. After putting an electric charge through the body to "prepare the blood for de-coagulation" – "in Quesne's case the electric chair made this step unnecessary" – he adds a formula which includes precipitated essential blood salts; further devices are used, and the rabbit is breathing again. He chose Quesne because "he was a medical genius, and I felt he had been a martyr to science" – but also because he needed his talents: sustaining a revived body requires regular transfusions, so Flegg is attempting to create synthetic blood (see Medicine). His current attempts are imperfect, causing Quesne to kill people sharing his rare blood type. Merrova was one such; Flegg had revived her, but his synthetic blood would only have kept her alive a short while. He now accepts he has failed and that Quesne will continue to kill. After Garrett and Rhodes leave, Flegg is murdered by the eavesdropping Quesne, who takes his list of blood donors – which includes Rhodes's girlfriend (Vance). She is abducted: a chase and rescue follow, with Quesne shot.
Though their intellects are unaffected, Quesne and Merrova might be considered Zombies, whilst their need for blood – albeit by transfusion – associates them with Vampires. Quesne and Flegg's belief that scientific advance justifies reprehensible acts has them embody the Cliché of the morally blind Scientist, with Quesne also something of a Mad Scientist. There is some Humour, occasionally amusing, and the performances are solid. Though the presence of Bogart (in a role he was not happy with) is its most memorable aspect, this was a reasonable but minor sf Horror movie, mainly let down by a rushed and lazy ending. Despite the title and a couple of small similarities, this film is unrelated to Doctor X (1932). [SP]
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