The Devil-Doll (1936)

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Escaped from prison, an ex-con learns from his partner that he can seek revenge on those who wronged him with a special voodoo spell to turn them into miniature dolls, and armed with the knowledge to do so, sets out to accomplish his goal.This one has a few really good parts to it. The most telling is the great special effects work, as this has a large amount of scenes where the dolls are interacting with their surroundings, and the scenes where the dolls are running around in shots as the life-size humans are interacting with them look great overall. The early scenes where they're running around on the counter-tops are fun, but the real joy comes when they start playing around at the end where they turn into killers and stalk the unsuspecting victims. These are all wonderfully fun scenes, as they come into very active parts of the film and really manage to work so great because of the ingenious way of accomplishing this task. The ability of getting them on the same screen with the life-size characters as well as their centric scenes are convincingly done and really manage to impress in every well as there's no hitch in anything of these scenes. This one also features some great action scenes here with the dolls carrying out the revenge here where the one dolls does through the house and stealing the jewelry from the wife before engaging in the actual revenge of the miniature doll scurrying along the bedding to carry out in the attack on the banker which is quite a fine scene here. The attack on the last banker is quite fun as well with the stalking in the grand, elaborate mansion decorated in Christmas regalia as the protective guards wander around until the fateful moment where it finally pulls the whole revelation together in a fine sequence. It even has a really great ending that comes with a fine resolution to matters and a really fun fight that really manages to provide some excitement and really make the movie entertaining. This one only has one mild flaw, and that is the large section of time taken up to get through the middle segment. This is mostly through the romance angle of the daughter being interrupted by her hatred for him which doesn't need to be there. They could've done the daughter subplot without having the romance thrown in by merely keeping the two separate, focusing solely on each other and not really offering much of a chance to spill over as the constant inferences in every scene means it's tiring and clichéd. As well, this manages to further another minor flaw as it really makes a short movie feel really long with an overabundance of such scenes when it really doesn't need to be. This lone gripe is the movie's flaw.Today's Rating/PG: Mild Violence.

An escaped Devil's Island convict (Lionel Barrymore) uses miniaturized humans to wreak vengeance on those that framed him.This story started out from a 1934 novel by Abraham Merritt called "Burn, Witch, Burn" and a 14-page article Merritt wrote with a Dr. Lowell. The connection is loose, with the overlap being the doll shop. The script, originally called "Witch Doctor of Timbuctoo" and written by Guy Endore ("Mad Love", every werewolf film), removes any mention of Satanism. Of course, exactly what Endore contributed is unclear without reading the script revisions, because over the course of a year his work was re-written by Garrett Fort (who had written both "Frankenstein" and "Dracula"), Robert Chapin, silent star Eric von Stroheim and Richard Schayer ("Frankenstein", "The Mummy").With direction from Tod Browning ("Dracula", "Freaks"), how can you go wrong with this? Though, again, Browning's full contribution is unclear, because retakes were done not by him, but by Leon Gordon, Sam Zimbalist and William Anthony McGuire. None of these men were credited, and it seems they must have worked on it while also doing MGM's "The Great Ziegfeld".Maureen O'Sullivan (Tarzan's Jane) is here, as are Rafaela Ottiano ("Grand Hotel") and Frank Lawton, who had just finished playing the title role in MGM's "David Copperfield". Throw in Lionel Barrymore in women's clothing, and you have quite the story...Interestingly, the biggest star in the film was probably Henry B. Walthall, who played the convict Marcel. His name may not ring many bells today, but in his time he was quite the star under the tutelage of D. W. Griffith and appears on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.While a bit slow at times, and inevitably compared to "Bride of Frankenstein", this is overall a good film with fine direction and a solid story. The original novel seems hard to come by, but the film is available in a box set of horror classics (though, strangely, is the only one of six not to have an audio commentary).

Although much has been said about Barrymore in drag, there can be too much of a good thing. The performance is outstanding but on screen so much, with that irritating but realistic cackling voice and hunchback, it comes dangerously close to a detrimental domination and detraction from the bizarre, that is the backbone of the film. The film as a whole has so much more interesting and odd characters, horror, and sci-fi elements, and just plain creepiness that it comes off as an excellent example of the the depression era 1930's proliferation of pictures that are completely removed from the everyday. It is a supernatural stew. The magical and the mystical, the supernatural and dementia, are all in view with believable special effects and a suspenseful script.The Director's lovely obsession with the dark side and physical and psychological abnormalities are an obvious, predominantly personalized vision that was his greatest asset and his greatest liability. Always on or beyond the cutting edge his movies are seen today with more respect and serious consideration than this renaissance man received while he was creating his work of the weird and wonderful.

No need repeating the plot. About the third time the spooky Malita (Ottiano) popped her eyes at the camera, I started ducking for cover. She's the scariest thing in the movie. Actually, this mix of horror, heartache, and revenge plays like a vehicle for Barrymore (Paul). He gets to emote in most every scene, while the horror dimension appears secondary to his close-ups. Nonetheless, the special effects with tiny figures are unnerving for the time. And I get the feeling that atmospheric director Tod Browning could have done creepy wonders if he weren't tied down with a big name star. But, it's an intriguing premise-- using miniature people as instruments of revenge. At the same time, watching them stalk their full-size victims remains oddly fascinating. But, I'm still wondering whether the under-the-chair assassin planned on attacking Matin's ankle. Also, catch that knock-about Apache dance with the shrunken couple—how's that for tabletop entertainment.No wonder Tarzan fell for O'Sullivan (Lorraine). She's charming, full of sparkle and personality. Too bad she's saddled here with a sappy romance. I don't blame Dad for wanting to win her back. And I agree with the perceptive reviewer who finds the ending unusual for the time (Production Code, 1936). But then Dad is a sympathetic figure even if he does dress in drag and fool around with dolls. All in all, the movie remains an oddball mix, proving, I guess, that all those creature features over at Universal were affecting even highbrow MGM.