The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1942)

The greatest movie ever made..!

I gave it a 7.5 out of 10

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Lionel Atwill is the whole show here(practically) as he plays an unethical doctor whose experiments in suspended animation fail miserably. Now wanted for murder by the San Francisco police, he flees the city and boards a ship bound for the South Pacific. Unfortunately, there is a fire on board, and the ship sinks, leaving him and other survivors stranded on a remote island populated by primitive natives who come to worship him after he saves the life of the tribal chief's wife, though the worship goes to his head, really making him power "mad"! Can the other survivors expose him as a fraud? Despite Atwill's lively performance, this film is incredibly dull and forgettable.

THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET sadly marks the end to Lionel Atwill as a major star in Universal horror(and film in general)due to a sex scandal. I won't dwell on those details, instead focusing on his attributes as they pertain to THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET. He's the whole show in this rather mediocre island mad scientist thriller as the diabolical antics of Atwill's crazed, narcissistic Dr. Ralph Benson put the lives of stranded passengers in danger as the restless, superstitious natives consider him a "god of life" when he heals one of their own, a woman who had a heart attack. Benson pretends he brought this woman back from the dead and is heralded by the jungle natives who grant him all the amenities he so desires, living it up as a king, his own hut, and the ability to command the other passengers out of the village until he wishes to experiment on them in regards to suspended animation. Benson was a fugitive on the lam(his experiment led to the death of a human guinea pig), having boarded a cruise for another country. Benson causes a fire on the liner, resulting in everyone on board having to leave the ship. He boards a canoe with Aunt Margaret(Una Merkel), who expected to marry a wealthy man in Australia, her niece, Patricia(Claire Dodd), a boxer preparing for a big fight(Nat Pendleton, playing his character as if he had been hit in the head a few too many times in the ring), and two members of the cruise's crew, Jim(Richard Davies)and Dwight(John Eldridge). They must determine how to get off the island as Benson has become power mad, with designs on marriage with Patricia and experimenting on the men of the group. Atwill was always adept at portraying crazy-eyed scientists who besmirched anyone that attempted to defy him, taking advantage of the weak and vulnerable, as was the case in this film as he promised to pay his subject 1000 dollars to the man's family in exchange for his willingness to volunteer for his suspended animation experiment. The title is a bit misleading as I imagine many, like I was, will enter the film expecting a mad scientist performing his experiments on innocents in and around his laboratory on Market Street. Then the movie's plot moves to the luxury liner where we are led to believe that Benson may prey on passengers while on the cruise. And finally the film shifts to the island paradise where Benson uses the backwards customs and beliefs of natives to his advantage, later paying the price when Jim finds a dead primitive, orchestrating a revolt if the mad doctor can not revive him. It's a shame that Atwill's career, like so many other treasures icons of Universal horror, would end so badly, but we can always return to his films time and again, relishing his colorful madmen, scientists, and village policemen. His presence, no matter how small the part, always caught my attentiom, as I imagine it did to many of his other fans as well.

They say that a great movie is one which transcends all genres, what they didn't say is that a movie can cover all genres and not be great.This belief of mine is reflected best by this obscure little programmer for Universal. This utterly mad little movie can't decide just what it wants to be. This can be considered a good thing or a bad thing, but the sudden shift in tone and settings definitely makes this one worth a watch.The film begins like a noir thriller, as a man in a trench coat and fedora enters into a shadowy room in a shadowy building as lightning flashes and rain pours like a scene from a Will Eisner story. Then it shifts into horror mode as we meet mad doctor Ralph Benson( A delightfully deranged Lionel Atwill, yes our old friend from 'Doctor X'), who fouls up his experiment with suspended animation and accidentally kills his patient. Then it turns into a crime thriller as the police pursue Benson, then it becomes a murder mystery set aboard a ship where Benson kills a detective, then a romantic comedy, then a disaster movie, then a shipwreck adventure, then a redux of 'The Man Who Would Be King' with overtones of 'Hawaii' & the much later 'Gilligan's Island'. Insanity, thy name is 'Mad Doctor of Market Street'.That said, the film is fun to watch. The film's romantic lead initially starts out as yet another comedy relief character, then becomes a typical stolid hero after being upstaged by the heroine's obnoxious Aunt (Una Merkel, annoying as hell, but at least not as annoying as that other Una; 'O Connor.)and a rather likable big lug named Red(Nat Pendleton)in the comedy department. Such lines like the heading of my review abound, it's either charmingly cringe inducing, or infuriating depending on your point of view.That said, Atwill gives a suitably creepy performance despite all the comedy, knowing when to ham it up and when to keep quietly restrained. An especially creepy moment is when he comes close to pointlessly murdering a curious native only to be narrowly stopped. There are some genuinely suspenseful moment as well, and when Benson is exposed by the natives it actually is a clever plot device. For such a stylistically disjointed film, it is amazingly cohesive, plot wise.See this mad little movie to believe it.~

As some of you may know, for the longest time I was only familiar with the more popular of the classic Universal horror/sci-fi films; recently, however, I managed to get my hands on a number of their lesser and/or non-monster outings – needless to say, few if any of these proved as rewarding in the long run…though they were never less than entertaining, something which the vintage Hollywood product could always be relied upon to deliver.This, then, marks Lionel Atwill’s last starring role as a result of his fall from grace in a trial which exposed scandalous behavior in private – and which would subsequently relegate him to Poverty Row or virtually nothing parts in Universal chillers! In any case, he gives the titular role his all – in fact, I don’t think I’d seen Atwill being so arrogant (spouting lines such as “I’ll be the most important man to have ever walked the earth” with complete immodesty, as if it was second nature to him!) and wild-eyed since the delightfully Pre-Code MURDERS IN THE ZOO (1933). Incidentally, I may be attributing undue importance to the fact but I wonder whether the script intended to give his character’s ‘control’ over death a religious undertone – at one point, Atwill mentions that he’ll be able to bring back to life someone who’d been dead for three days (a reference to Jesus Christ?), while the unwilling ‘guinea pig’ hero is buried in the rocks and the entrance to the tomb covered by a huge stone (as we’re told in the Bible that Lazarus was)…!Not knowing all that much about the film beforehand, I was surprised to see this turn out to be more of a jungle adventure (especially given the title) – following the opening moments set in the city and a brief stint on board ship which, pretty soon, ends up submerged and the only six survivors eventually land on a tropical isle. Atwill is a “pseudo-doctor” whose notorious experiments with suspended animation (recalling the Boris Karloff vehicle THE MAN WITH NINE LIVES [1940]) has landed him in professional disrepute, not to mention in hot water with the Law – I’m sure the irony of the situation wasn’t lost on the beleaguered actor!; anyway, he flees on a cruise-liner traveling all the way to New Zealand and, as I said, ends up ashore in uncharted territory with a bunch of other passengers. This doesn’t stop him from continuing his experiments (for one thing, finding the locals convenient and gullible subjects) – actually, he’d been traveling incognito but, when the native leader’s woman goes into a coma from a heart attack, he can’t resist impressing them with his life-giving ‘magic’…after which they name him “God Of Life” and, naturally, he appoints himself there and then supreme ruler of the island (these obvious Fascist attributes more than anything expose it as a product of the war years)! The film falls into a category best described as comedy-horror or, if you like, horror comic; neither element is really all that successful – though the former (provided by Una Merkel, top-billed despite her character being clearly of secondary interest[!], and Nat Pendleton) isn’t overly intrusive, the latter is too familiar to generate much suspense…while the jungle setting eschews the fog-laden atmosphere usually representing the ‘in-house’ Universal style! The remaining members from the civilized world are a selfish ship’s officer who leaves the others behind when attempting to flee the isle in a canoe – only to be killed by a native, and the obligatory romantic couple (Merkel’s niece and another former crew member of the sunken liner) – typically, the two had gotten off on the wrong foot but are slowly drawn together…especially after Atwill is persuaded into taking a wife by the native woman he ‘resuscitated’ and, naturally, singles out the heroine for this role. By the way, the film’s biggest laugh is an unintentional one: during Atwill and Claire Dodd’s marriage, following the native custom, some doubt is deliberately thrown by his companions on the unethical activity he leads, which causes the celebrations to cease abruptly – at which, perplexed, Atwill asks the native leader to order his men to “dance…or something” (as delivered by the actor in his inimitable high-strung fashion, it not only shows all too clearly the character’s disdain of their lot but definitely edges the film into camp territory; I know I couldn’t stop giggling for a good five minutes afterwards!).His status on the island takes further beating when the native who killed the escaping officer also turns up dead; the hero – belatedly introducing himself as being well versed in medicine himself (a plot point so contrived as to smack of lazy scripting!) – knows that Atwill’s miracles were performed on people who only had the semblance of death, so that he’ll never be able to reap results in this particular case (though, up until this time, it was never intimated that he could be a charlatan but rather came across as typically misguided but genuinely obsessed!) and the natives will turn on him as a result…which they do in a fiery climax that barely registers (incidentally, some rather important exposition in the fast-paced 61-minute film is entirely by-passed or taken for granted). Tying with my comments about the same director’s CRIMINALS WITHIN (1943), which I’ve also just watched, Lewis’ hand is apparent here via his choice of odd angles on a number of occasions (though the shot of an intense Atwill approaching the camera, holding a chloroformed cloth to subdue an intended victim, is unfortunately diluted through sheer repetition!). By the way, the music for the film – credited solely to “Musical Director” Hans J. Salter – includes recognizable cues from Frank Skinner’s classic SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939) score (Universal shamelessly, and habitually, re-cycled these…as hardened genre fans are surely aware!).