Doctor X isn't the story of just one but five mad scientists, all complete with mad scientist laboratories: simmering flasks, bubbling beakers, sizzling Jacob's Ladders, popping power breakers & crazy theories. Director Michael Curtiz (Casablanca, Captain Blood, Yankee Doodle Dandee) uses shadow effectively to throw us red herrings, cast menace and provide a rich atmosphere. Lionel Atwill is Doctor X (Xavier), owner of a seaside mansion that is home to four more great scientists happily working away until a series of murders throws suspicion on the gaggle of geeks. Lee Tracy is a newspaper reporter with a fondness for practical jokes (hand buzzer, exploding cigars) looking for a scoop and determined to do anything to get it. Fay Ray is Joanne Xavier, Doctor X's daughter. Here she is strong, determined, confident and independent; although still gets some opportunities to exercise her exquisite screams. Fay Ray could display an unmatched sensuous vulnerability that played so well in King Kong and which we get to see for a few seconds near the end of Doctor X. The downside is that the story is preposterous, sometimes goofy and has trouble deciding if it wants to be a comedy or suspenseful thriller. Doctor X, determined to prevent bad press, rigs a silly experiment to find the killer himself and when the experiment goes fatally wrong, decides to up the ante and do it again. What I found implausible is that the other scientists would risk their lives, again, and that Doctor X would risk his daughter's life without adequate precautions but that is what happens. In a dark comedy this would work but here it just seems silly. Lee Tracy's many scenes of practical jokes not only drags the pace but seem out of place against the otherwise dark and serious tone.
