Doctor X (Warner Bros.) (1932)

8 CORKING FEATURE STORIES Advance Saturday or Sunday Feature Mystery Thrillers Act as Tonic on Ductless Glands Mystery thrillers are alw ays popular. lively comedy they are “sure fire.” rE This is the opinion offer next week th Studios, “Doctor X,” If you don’t like m ager vee “Either you of curiosity is under-developed.” aca my timbers,” wa ——1t was a suppressed i Ninety-nine a eitks dredth per cent of tl = mystified and thri pleasure are sisters under i th and along the back of your ees Ga inside the ductless glands When the hands of the mysteri osha re out of a surgi Wass circle a lovely neck, your w nervous system is getting aun ercise and your tired reason is enJoying a vacation. That is why, accordin » ace g to Dr. H Andresen, famous nerve dpecialist. mystery thrillers on stage or screen, or on the printed page, are good for you. Those ductless glands, so long a puzzle to the medical profession unction best when the owner becomes an i ae frightened or tremendously ex forty-four hun1€ people like to lled. Thrills and “All the elements of a 7 story strike a responsive Pe ln ed where in the mind of every member of the audience,” Dr. Andresen declares. “The heart action quickens the eyes and ears are made more alert; the mind races ahead to try to solve the mystery. The very pores of the body tighten and ‘goose flesh’ appears. Subconsciously all the ‘inner man’ is being speeded up and exercised while the body actually rests. Mystery a Mental Tonic f “It is a mental tonic. It is good or you. It puts to work the ductless glands that aid your health” More important even than these Scientific discoveries about “thrillers,” is the fagt thot +h ie ‘ a : mystery tisasaacad ad pUUd entertainment. Producers have found this out and are making better and bigger screen melodramas. The final word in such entertainment is said to be “Doctor X,” a most unusual mystery-melodrama. “Doctor X” is calculated to keep the ductless glands working overtime in any audience and to raise more “goose flesh” than there are geese, accordng to Director Michael Curtiz. It involves a whole colony of halfmad scientists, each a master in his own line, all of them suspicioned and suspicious. With Lee Tracy, famous for his “reporter” roles, again seen as a newspaper man, plenty of laughs are assured. Tracy, Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Preston Foster, Arthur Edmund Carewe and George Rosener are members of the unusual cast in this mystery melodrama, adapted from the stage play of the same name. eal LIONEL ATWILL Cut 15¢ Mat 5c Cut No. 9 Lionel Atwill, noted stage star, recently seen in several screen successes, has the leading role in the current Strand thriller, “Doctor X. Lee Tracy and Fay Wray are also featured in the film. Page Eighteen of Manager . When they are enhanced by . of the .... Theatre, who will € newest screen sensation from the First National a mystery-melodrama, produced in Technicolor. ystery thrillers, consult a specialist,” r ductless glands 4 tice aren't functioning or your bump sn’t a complaint in the old buccaneering days a hope expressed out loud. Short Current Feature Members of “Doctor X” Cast Felt Its Mystery For several reasons, psychological as well as physical, | the Technicolor mystery-thriller “Doctor xX,” ae at the tee Theatre, with which irst National is making a bid for the tonor of making the super-mystery picture of all time, was filmed at night. The physical reasons were that many scenes call for night exteriors. Lhe psychological reasons were, according to director Michael Curtiz, that no cast can effectively set an audience on edge from the screen unless the cast itself and the individual members of it are themselves set on edge at times by the developments of their own story. Cut No. 7 Cat 15¢ Mat Se FAY WRAY Appearing in “Doctor X,” current Strand mystery thriller. By\such a rule “Doctor X” should be the most mysterious and thrilling film ever offered, because the members of the cast and crew which made it had many bad half hours on dark locations and in poorly lighted night sets. When a picture company works late at night the studio furnishes a midnight supper to all connected with the work. While “Doctor X” was filming, this midnight meal was the scene of exchanges of exciting experiences either connected or not connected with the picture in hand. Director Curtiz encouraged these shivery stories and even added a few of his own. The net result was that the cast was on edge nervously and reacted with greater intensity on account of it. Few members of the cast ever had the temerity to leave a night set for “Doctor X” alone, and if dismissed earlier than the others, generally waited to leave with the rest, anyhow. Fay Wray and other women members of the cast and crew were furnished with cars and escorts both to and from each set. This atmosphere of eeriness which occasionally swept over the whole cast and crew of “Doctor X” while the picture was in progress, was the most valuable of all external influences in the filming of a master-mystery, according to Director Curtiz. When he found that by working nights this feeling of suspense could be maintained, he changed the picture’s schedule so far as possible to work more nights and fewer days. The cast of “Doctor X” is made up of famous and experienced players, but this did not mean that any of them were found to be immune from the influence of an atmosphere of mystery about a night set. The cast includes Lionel Atwill, Lee Tracy, Fay Wray, Preston Foster, John Wray, Arthur Edmund Carewe, Harry Beresford, Robert Warwick and George Rosener. Advance Saturday or Sunday Feature Special Sets Used for Thrill. Effects in “‘Doctor X ”’ Building menace into motion picture sets has ] ong been a hobby with Anton Grot, a hobby which he has been able to anes fully for the first time in the making of “Doctor X,”’ which comes to the Atwill, Lee Tracy and Fay Wray heading an all star cast. the First National mystery-melodrama, .... Theatre next .... with Lionel This picture satisfies Grot’s yearning to try his hand at thrilling audi ences with interior and exterior design alone, because his company gave him a free rein i i : Ye ich i = the planning of “Doctor X,’ which is in Technicolor. Cut No. & Cut 30c Mat 10c Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray and John Wray in “Doctor X” “The primary purpose of set designing,” says Grot, whose office walls carry a vast assortment of sketches from the great number of pictures on which he has worked as art director, “is to establish the mood of the storv.” “In ‘Doctor X,’ that mood is mystery, of course, but we have tried to build menace into the sets. Those criss-cross ° , £ give a cr 29 “ar Warp be ale g too, is most suggestive. “Many of these effects are not particularly planned. We know the general effect we want and many details involved in getting that effect are almost automatic. “For instance, when we design a set for mystery and melodrama we know that it must be of heavy construction with dark colorings and shadows. When we want to add menace to that we put in a top-heavy effect over doors and windows, we build in low arches which give the feeling of overhanging danger. We design a set that imitates as closely as possible a bird of prey about to swoop down upon its victim, trying to incorporate in the whole thing a sense of impending calamity, of overwhelming danger. We put this into the design of the rooms, the furniture in the rooms and even into the gables and trimmings on the outside of houses. But it is done more or less subconsciously, after we have determined upon the ‘mood’ we are to use for the picture.” The amount of work done by the art department of a studio in planning such a production as “Doctor X” is seldom realized. It involves almost as much actual technical draftsmanship as a moderate-sized skyscraper and it must often be completed within the course of a few weeks. The art director establishes the “mood” with sketches and preliminary plans; and, having had these approved by the studio heads, the director chosen for the picture and by the studio manager responsible for keeping the picture within budget limitations, he turns them over to a dozen draftsmen to translate into blue prints for the mill workers and feet and inches for the carpenters. The files for “Doctor X” show 192 sketches and blue prints, many of them extremely complicated, but all done with the exactness used in designing a state capitol or a government postoffice. More important still, they are planned to provide desired camera effects not noticeable to the layman’s eye. The principal set designed for “Doctor X,” known as the interior of “Cliff Manor,” is the most expensive and difficult interior Grot has done. The set occupied almost one complete sound stage and is supposed to be the attic floor of the old Manor house. Grot can have plenty of fun with attics, as will be remembered from the Paris attics in “Svengali”; but in “Doctor X” he has thrown all previous records away. The center of the set is occupied by a great room, which the title character of the story has fitted temporarily “into an electrical’ laboratory, with the addition of a-small curtained stage at one end fais main teen magnificent — traverses avs = vpales. eating a Slowly a monstrous, twisting ballustrade, so ugly and preposterous as to give the whole room an evil atmosphere. Low doorways and sagging arches lead from the various landings into half finished, timbered store rooms under the eaves of the great house. ‘The floor rolls in these attic passages, the ceiling sags and the walls lean menacingly, so that the very house seems to be in league with the devilish element set loose therein. But it is in planning and furnishing the electrical laboratories spread about this sinister attic that Grot has exceeded himself. One man from his department was assigned to make sketches of the most advanced electrical equipment in use. From these Grot let his imagination wander into the future with the result that he has equipped the laboratories of Doctor Xavier with an appalling array of scientific and pseudo-scientific apparatus, every item of which is designed to heighten the effect of mystery and the feeling of suspense for the audience. Little of this equipment could be bought, less could be rented. So Grot designed it all. Glass blowers, metal workers and cabinet makers were told to cOpy these designs. Grot designed a glass table, bi at the top than at the bation. = carry out the top-heavy design, and over it suspended a terrible array of glass retorts and condensers. Great glass columns, convoluted into weird designs in which electric currents play, screened the stage from the rest of the room. In dressing this and other sets in the picture, the draperies used carried out the same general “feeling” which Grot had built into the rooms Draperies used were dark and of heavy materials with protruding over drapes at the top of the windows to give the effect of over weight above toppling toward the floor. __ Furniture was chosen with the same idea in mind. Chairs with high backs and “wings”; beds which seem shone to collapse upon the occupant; he bronze pieces on high pedest and many other items maint atmosphere of avy als; these ained the menace which G ) rot carried throughout the production . , ‘ Built-in menace is Grot’s contri bution to “Doctor xX.” It may ] sé re ; é , ‘ ay eac ee to poe happiness, built omance and built-ir : n 1 comedy. It’s Anton Grot’s hobby, but it has limit. less possibilities. ‘ a os