Review #638: 'The Devil-Doll' (1936)

Two escaped convicts - Paul Lavond (Lionel Barrymore), who was wrongly imprisoned for robbing a Paris bank and killing a night watchman, and Marcel (Henry B. Walthall), a genius scientist who has worked out a formula that can shrink people to a sixth of their size - flee from Devil's Island. They wind up at Marcel's wife Malita's (Rafaela Ottiano) place, where Lavond witnesses Marcel's scientific experiment on his inbred, mute serving girl, shrinking her into a doll size. The plan is to shrink everyone in the world down to this size and control the Earth's food supply, but when Marcel dies suddenly, Lavond convinces Malita to come to Paris with him to seek revenge on the three bankers that wronged him.

The plot has no credibility at all. Even by 1930's horror standards, this is extremely weak plotting. But Tod Browning's solid, reliable direction (here still piecing together his career after 1932's Freaks) and Lionel Barrymore's excellent, if camp, performance, makes The Devil-Doll is a must-see curiosity for horror buffs. The early MacGuffin is set aside in favour of Lavond's revenge, and when in Paris, he cross-dresses and becomes a dear old woman who runs a little toy shop. It's in this disguise that helps him to infiltrate the three suspecting bankers - high-pitched voice, Mrs. Doubtfire-style. Barrymore certainly doesn't shrink from the task, tackling this ludicrous plot device with gutso, and rather it coming across as simply preposterous, the film becomes memorable for it.

The special effects deserve a mention also, as the three set-pieces where Lavond uses his miniature people dolls as instruments of death provide some nice moments. Of course, when compared to the CGI wonders that modern-day film-making provides, it's laughable, but for it's day, The Devil-Doll uses some impressive effects. The whole experience is certainly an odd one. It's not scary or mysterious, nor does the plot makes much (if any) sense, but there's a real heart to the film. Lavond's daughter Lorraine (Maureen O'Sullivan) has hated her father all her life for a crime she believes him to have committed, so the film becomes more than a simple revenge film. The final scene between Lavond and Lorraine is actually quite touching. This won't make any Best Of... horror lists, it's too obscure for that, but it's one of many stand-outs on Tod Browning's filmography, and a true curiosity.


Directed by: Tod Browning
Starring: Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan, Frank Lawton, Rafaela Ottiano
Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie

Review #198: 'Night Mail' (1936)

From 1933, the GPO (General Post Office) Film Unit produced many documentaries, inspired by the likes of Nanook of the North (1922), to promote their service. The films had many talented British film-makers working for them, including the likes of Basil Wright and Alberto Cavalcanti (both on the production team here), and have recently been released in three DVD collector's editions by the British Film Institute. As well as producing some damn fine films, they are key works in understanding the mentality and living conditions of a Britain long gone, when we took pride in our work. They are both uplifting in their detail and wholly depressing given the state of Britain today. I'm only 26 and feel this way, so God knows what the old folk must think.

Night Mail follows the midnight postal train from London to Scotland, looking at various things such as the sorting room, the loading of the train, and the inspired way of collecting mail from various places by catching the bags at high speeds in a retracting net. The last ten minutes features a now famous poem by W.H. Auden, read to the music of Benjamin Britten, that is read rhythmically to the sounds of the train. Starting slow, it gradually picks up pace as the train gets faster, and ends at a breathless pace.

Finishing at around the 30 minute mark, it leaves a great impression regardless of its slight running time. As mentioned before, it manages to capture the spirit of old Britain, and of a time when our public services were actually efficient. Now, the Post Office seems to lose more mail than it delivers, and if you're lucky to catch a train that arrives on time, you have the pleasure in sitting near some gormless scumbag listening to his shit dance music out loud, or some lazy fat single mother who won't deal with their screaming baby. But anyway, the quality of the film-making is often overwhelming for a documentary short, using interesting camera angles, lovely cinematography, and informative narration. I was surprised to see that the average user rating for this on IMDb is 6.8, considering this is one of the best, and most important documentaries to come out Britain. Ever.


Directed by: Harry Watt, Basil Wright
Narrator: John Grierson, Stuart Legg
Country: UK

Rating: *****

Tom Gillespie

Review #117: 'Things to Come' (1936)

Everytown, Christmas 1940. The world is on the brink of war. So begins William Cameron Menzies' film of H. G. Welles's own loose screen adaptation of his book, 'The Shape of Things to Come'. The film looks at a projected theory of the future of mankind. Everytown (like, we assume, the rest of the world), has been bombed. Technology has seemingly been destroyed. The survivors carry on in a new dark age. By 1970, Everytown is visited by the 'Wings Over the World', a group, headed by engineers and scientists, who have developed a new civilisation of progression - both technologically and socially. If these seeming primitive types won't join their civilisation, they will perish. This 'super-race' will dominate the planet.

This concept of the super-man, was first posited by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzche, as a prediction of a future human race, the idea was formulated in genetic science as Eugenics. This ideology looked at how Man could improve, through genetic research, to advance on natures "mistakes". This in turn influenced the Third Reich, culminating in the systematic destruction on non-Aryan individuals. H. G. Welles was a supporter of eugenics. It has since been displaced and condemned by the 20th century, in all its lamentable genocide. But the pre-Nazi concept lives in this film. The idea of progression and improvement could be taken from this idea.

The film passes through 100 years of predicted human existence until 2036. It perhaps perfectly illustrates the path of mankind, in the sense that no matter where science and technology leads us, there will always be factions of man that will want to oppose this. Things to Come has a group beginning a revolution against progression. A fight against technology and all it brings. Perhaps a future we have yet to experience.

A beautifully extravagant Alexander Korda production, with lavish sets, and a future cityscape clearly influenced by Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927), the film is a fantastical look at 'what might be'. Whilst Menzies will probably be mostly remembered as a production designer (winning an Oscar for work on 1939's Gone With the Wind), he did also direct a personal favourite '50's science fiction classic, Invaders From Mars (1953), which also highlighted political fear like Things to Come, in the shape of communism - and the ever-growing concerns of senator Joseph McCarthy.

Directed by: William Cameron Menzies
Starring: Raymond Massey, Edward Chapman, Ralph Richardson
Country: UK

Rating: ***

Marc Ivamy