Dr. Cyclops (1940)

Simply Perfect

Fresh and Exciting

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Albert Dekker stars as Dr. Alexander Thorkel, an obsessed scientist in Peru who encounters four explorers who have come to see him. They are disturbed by the direction his experiments are taking, which involve radium, so in order to get them out of the way, he shrinks them to one-fifth their normal size with an invention of his, placing them in a life or death struggle to restore their normal size, and stop the mad Dr. Thorkel. Filmed in color, Albert Dekker delivers a strong performance, but all the other characters are too bland and poorly characterized to become involved with their plight, and film as a result just isn't believable or compelling.

Brilliant, but deranged physicist Dr. Alexander Thorkel (splendidly played with deliciously wicked relish by Albert Dekker) shrinks his enemies down to miniature size after they take him to task for his unconventional experiments. Director Ernest Schoedsack, working from a taut and engrossing story by Tom Kilpatrick, relates the gripping story at a brisk pace, maintains a generally serious tone throughout, and builds a good deal of suspense and momentum. The bald, burly, and bespectacled Thorkel makes for a marvelously ruthless, haughty, and sinister mad scientist. While Dekker clearly dominates the movie with his sterling performance, his co-stars nonetheless do respectable work in their roles: Charles Halton registers strongly as Torkel's most gutsy and vehement opponent Dr. Rupert Bulfinch, Thomas Coley is likable enough as handsome layabout Bill Stockton, the lovely Janice Logan impresses as the feisty and resourceful Dr. Mary Robinson (and looks quite fetching in her purple toga), and Victor Kilian contributes a solid turn as gruff trail guide Steve Baker. The scenes with the tiny people fending off giant animals and fighting back against Thorkel are extremely tense and exciting. The nifty special effects hold up quite well. Henry Sharp's vivid Technicolor cinematography gives the picture a pleasingly vibrant look. The robust and rousing score by Gerard Carbonara, Ernst Toch, and Albert Hay hits the stirring spot. The tight 77 minute running time ensures that this movie never gets dull or overstays its welcome. An immensely fun film.

"Dr. Cyclops" is known as one of the better "early sci-fi" films, made in '39 and released in 1940. (It is also in color.) But while the story has potential and there are some good moments, this is a very confused film.The plot is simple - crazy mad scientist on some remote island can shrink animals, and wants to try it on humans. He manages this on a scientific team that came to check things out. They get angry, and the crazy scientist eventually gets really angry because his new shrunken subjects won't cooperate.The thing is, the film doesn't seem to know if it wants to be a thriller, or a goofy movie. Dr. Cyclops (never called that but referenced to a Cyclops after one lens in his glasses breaks) looks cool in his "30's style sci-fi helmet" as he performs experiments and can be chilling at times. But there is so much "Disney-style goofy music" going on that it is hard to take anything seriously. The music belongs in a family comedy for the most part, and is played when the shrunken people do things like try to survive, and creep around the floor. Add that a few of them have pretty gruesome deaths and that just adds to the confusing atmosphere.The FX aren't so bad but nothing special. The giant sets built are pretty impressive though. There is a scene where little fires are tossed at a real crocodile's head which probably made animal activists angry.It also takes a long time for anything to really happen. This movie could have been done in a nice tight half-hour. Good for a viewing, but you probably won't watch again. The performance of the guy who plays Dr. Cyclops is definitely the main attraction.

Let me say that I have a love/hate relationship with this film since I first saw it way back in the late seventies at the age of eleven. I LOVE the general concept of a mad scientist conducting miniaturization experiments deep in the Amazon jungle of Peru. I also LOVE that the film had the most impressive special effects,of it's time, and was made in "glorious" Technicolor. But I HATE that the film used an ugly, bald and smelly cockroach of a man in the title role of the insane biologist. As far as I'm concerned, this is one of the great injustices of modern film. It is never explained why this disgusting nut case is attempting to play GOD. Nor, are the backgrounds of any of the other two-dimensional characters ever fleshed out. And this ruins any chance the story has to offer any type of credibility. Had the story been told another way, it probably would had been more successful during it's initial run, thus gaining greater public awareness. How dare the very talented film-making team who produced one of the greatest films ever-KING KONG- make such crap. And it is now my life's ambition to correct such a travesty. Finally, in my humble opinion, Dr. Cyclops is one of the worst films ever made just for the reasons I stated. And as one noted reviewer wrote, "dr. cyclops is a classic example of a missed opportunity".