The Devil-Doll (1936)

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).

Two escapes 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.www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

I thought "The Devil Doll" was really pretty good. It didn't sound like it from the description in the TV Guide, but sometimes you can get surprised. Of course, it was an MGM production, with MGM production values, supporting cast and staff.Movies in Hollywood's Golden Age of the 30's and 40's were mostly substance over form, unlike today's movies, which feature special effects over storyline. The miniature people and animals in this picture are primitive by comparison, but the story is so well written and the cast so competent that the picture succeeds on its own. Lionel Barrymore has the lead here as a man who was framed and sent to prison, escapes and plans his revenge with the help of a fellow-escapee. This picture is so old Barrymore walks upright instead of being confined to a wheelchair. Maureen O'Sullivan was OK in a small role, but I thought Rafaella Ottiano as his assistant was a little over-the-top. The rest of the cast was more than competent.It is very worth your time, and Director Tod Browning keeps the action moving at a good clip, so that the 79 minutes running time seems even shorter. It is a fascinating example of an MGM excursion into a genre dominated in the 30's by Universal.

MGM's THE DEVIL-DOLL (1936) is a campy sci-fi/horror classic. Perfect for those late-night curiosity viewings. The movie is preposterous, but elevated by impressive 1930s special effects along the lines of those in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1935).THE DEVIL-DOLL tells the story of a man bent on revenge who gets mixed up in the outlandish schemes of a mad scientist. Hiding from the police, the man (a prison escapee) uses the mad scientist's strange experiments in his systematic plan to destroy those men who did him wrong.It seems the scientist had developed a technique that would shrink living things to one-sixth their normal size. Once shrunken, however, the subject lay paralyzed until willed to do something by the strong mental power of an outsider. The scientist had hoped to shrink everyone in the world to make the food supply last longer, but having miniature mind-control zombies has its uses, too.Oscar-winner Lionel Barrymore stars and spends much of the film in his disguise as an old woman. (I'm being totally serious.) The wonderful Rafaela Ottiano plays the crazed wife of the scientist, devoted to his twisted vision. Ottiano seemed to know what kind of movie she was making, going all-out in her performance. Maureen O'Sullivan plays Barrymore's daughter, with Frank Lawton as her taxi driver boyfriend. Among the rest of the cast, it's good to see Robert Greig play something other than a butler.The B-level cast does a good job with the B-level material, but the most impressive part of THE DEVIL-DOLL is the special visual effects. Creating the effect of miniaturized people required composite shots with an eye on camera angles and perspective. (Mixed, it seems, with some huge-furniture sequences.) A modern eye can often find the seams, but this kind of stuff is hard to do and I believe they did it as well as anybody could in 1936.The story, with its attempted father-daughter redemption arc, is just ridiculous. Barrymore is hardly a hero in this one. Nor is he even a nice guy. There's no one to root for, really. This is the kind of movie to pop in some late night and just enjoy with a bucket of popcorn and the company of your choice. A campy horror classic for anyone curious to see Lionel Barrymore dress in drag. Not one of the high points of Barrymore's career.