Wed 31 Jul 2013
A Movie Review by Dan Stumpf: THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET (1942).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[10] Comments
THE MAD DOCTOR OF MARKET STREET. Universal, 1942. Una Merkel, Lionel Atwill, Nat Pendleton, Claire Dodd, Anne Nagel, Hardie Albright, Richard Davies. Director: Joseph H. Lewis.
There`s a certain art to making an enjoyable bad movie, to which The Mad Doctor of Market Street bears witness. Directed by the redoubtable Joseph H. Lewis and written by someone named Al Martin (not exactly a name to conjure with, but he deserves his due) this one offers the eponymous medico-maniac (ably impersonated by Lionel Atwill, the second-greatest mad doctor of his time) against backdrop of a delightful studio-made luxury liner, followed by an equally bogus tropical island.
Native Devil-Worship, shipwreck, unconvincing leading players (Claire Dodd and Richard Davies, admirably stiff as cardboard cliches) and capable comedy relief provided by Una Merkel and Nat Pendleton.
The show really revolves around Lionel Atwill as a self-styled genius whose ground-breaking experiments in suspended animation seem to be breaking ground only in cemeteries. After a particularly egregious cock-up, Atwill takes it on the lam and ends up shipwrecked on a tropical island with the rest of the cast, where the natives decide he’s the God of Life and Death, with all the privileges and perquisites pertaining thereunto.
None of this is to be taken seriously for moment, but everyone involved really seems to act their little hearts out, putting commendable pace and energy into what is, after all, a forgettable time-killer. Director Lewis throws in the odd camera-angle and an occasion bit of mood one doesn’t expect in this sort of thing, and it emerges as quite a worthwhile effort.
July 31st, 2013 at 10:49 pm
I’ve always been a fan of Lionel Atwill and I like just about all his work. This is a very enjoyable movie.
August 1st, 2013 at 11:11 am
I’ve no interest in Lionel Atwill but Claire Dodd and Anne Nagel are generally excellent performers.
August 1st, 2013 at 12:04 pm
Claire Dodd I know only for playing Della Street in a couple of the 1930s Perry Mason movies, and Anne Nagel for playing Lenore Case in the early 1940s Green Hornet serials.
But even so, if you’d asked me yesterday who the actresses were who played either part, I’m sure I would have been stumped. Thank goodness for IMDb!
August 1st, 2013 at 5:22 pm
If Atwill was the second greatest mad doctor who was the first?
August 1st, 2013 at 6:43 pm
Well Bela Lugosi played mad doctors and so did George Zucco. Also Vincent Price.
August 2nd, 2013 at 2:55 am
Randy, I’m sure when I wrote this I had a madder scientist in mind (perhaps even in an accompanying review)but the allusion is now quite obscured in the creeping mist of what I call my memory.
August 2nd, 2013 at 9:49 am
Dan, I’ll accept your comment since Walker’s would move Atwill to fourth place. I always have the image of him with one arm in The Son of Frankenstein as well as Prof Moriarty in at least one Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movie.
August 2nd, 2013 at 10:24 am
Boris Karloff.
August 2nd, 2013 at 10:29 am
August 2nd, 2013 at 3:48 pm
Boris Karloff, it is!