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More Grr, and movies.
Mar. 29th, 2012 06:58 pmPain-killers/muscle relaxant *and* a cocktail later, and my neck still hurts; meanwhile my balance is off-kilter.
We watched Dr. X which despite the titles is nothing do with Return of Dr. X. In this Michael Curtiz-directed Old Dark Laboratory movie, the police have narrowed down the suspects in the cannibalistic "Moon Killer" case to the various scientists working at Dr. Xavier's research institute; apparently the post-murder butchering used some kind of surgical scalpel so specialized it could only have come from this one lab.
I may have missed a scene where Xavier himself was ruled out as the murderer; at any rate the cops agree to give him 48 hours to figure out which of his associates is guilty and avoid a scandal. Trouble is, they *all* seem a bit nuts. One rants a lot about holding power over life and death; on the other hand, he's missing a hand, and the victims were strangled. One seems like a nervous-but-harmless guy who keeps pinups hidden in his textbooks - but he was once lost at sea for a few weeks, and may have eaten a fellow passenger; the third guy was in the same lifeboat; also he's got a big scar and an eyepatch, and witnesses say the killer was "disfigured." The fourth guy is on crutches, and there's no special reason to suspect him, but he works there. Meanwhile, a fast-talking reporter is snooping around, and coincidentally falling for Dr. X's daughter (Fay Wray.)
Dr. X's investigation involves hooking all the suspects up to some kind of early lie detector and showing them reenactments of the crimes, but it doesn't go very smoothly...
The movie was shot in two-strip Technicolour, and pretty much every frame looks like it could be a pulp magazine cover. Curtiz is one of those directors who, I guess, suffers from not having an immediately recognizable style or a recurring theme; he ought to be a household name based on his track record (Casablanca, the 1938 Robin Hood) - curse you, auteur theory.
We watched Dr. X which despite the titles is nothing do with Return of Dr. X. In this Michael Curtiz-directed Old Dark Laboratory movie, the police have narrowed down the suspects in the cannibalistic "Moon Killer" case to the various scientists working at Dr. Xavier's research institute; apparently the post-murder butchering used some kind of surgical scalpel so specialized it could only have come from this one lab.
I may have missed a scene where Xavier himself was ruled out as the murderer; at any rate the cops agree to give him 48 hours to figure out which of his associates is guilty and avoid a scandal. Trouble is, they *all* seem a bit nuts. One rants a lot about holding power over life and death; on the other hand, he's missing a hand, and the victims were strangled. One seems like a nervous-but-harmless guy who keeps pinups hidden in his textbooks - but he was once lost at sea for a few weeks, and may have eaten a fellow passenger; the third guy was in the same lifeboat; also he's got a big scar and an eyepatch, and witnesses say the killer was "disfigured." The fourth guy is on crutches, and there's no special reason to suspect him, but he works there. Meanwhile, a fast-talking reporter is snooping around, and coincidentally falling for Dr. X's daughter (Fay Wray.)
Dr. X's investigation involves hooking all the suspects up to some kind of early lie detector and showing them reenactments of the crimes, but it doesn't go very smoothly...
The movie was shot in two-strip Technicolour, and pretty much every frame looks like it could be a pulp magazine cover. Curtiz is one of those directors who, I guess, suffers from not having an immediately recognizable style or a recurring theme; he ought to be a household name based on his track record (Casablanca, the 1938 Robin Hood) - curse you, auteur theory.
