(Untitled)

[moon_custafer]

Last night we watched Devil Doll (1936), starring Lionel Barrymore. A bank executive framed for robbery and manslaughter escapes years later in the company of a mad scientist, who wants to solve overpopulation and world hunger by shrinking everybody to doll size. They join his wife and fellow mad scientist, who's been carrying on their work, but

Comments

[sovay]

I thought for sure it had to be a pre-Code picture, given the weirdness and the ending in which Barrymore pretty much gets away with everything, but Wikipedia says it was made in 1936.

It was directed by Tod Browning! That explains everything.

[teenybuffalo]

There is a ton of wasted effort in this movie. Lionel Barrymore in drag feels like it's serving someone's (very specific) fetish and is otherwise pointless as far as I'm concerned, since, as you say, there's no real reason.

The part I enjoyed was the aged mad scientists in love. They only had a moment, but they were so cute together!

Here's a review of this movie that you might enjoy reading:

http://www.aycyas.com/devildoll36.htm

"To give this film its due, with the reuniting of Marcel and Malita we see something that the cinema, to this point, had never given us before: Mad Scientists In Love. Indeed, this is almost the very first suggestion in a genre film that a scientist could actually be capable of having a normal relationship."

[teenybuffalo]

Oh, I see -- doll-Lachna is dressed as an "Apache." That at least explains why she comes with a stiletto.

[teenybuffalo]

Yeah. I still wonder why parents would buy their kids a doll dressed as a street criminal, but if that's the biggest problem I have with this movie, I'm doing OK.