THE RETURN OF DOCTOR X (1939)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological*

If RETURN OF DOCTOR X didn't have the distinction of being "Humphrey Bogart's only horror/fantasy film," the movie would probably be no better remembered than, say, 1941's THE SMILING GHOST,  a comedy-horror vehicle for Wayne Morris. This genial actor gets headliner status over not-yet-famous Bogart in RETURN's opening credits (though oddly, not in the closing credits). 

Morris plays Garrett, a fast-talking big city reporter. He pursues a routine enough story, seeking to interview wealthy socialite Angela Merrova (Lya Lys), but he finds her dead in her apartment. Garrett duly calls in the cops, but when they show up, Merrova's alive again. At the same time, Garrett begins looking into a series of murders where the victims don't get better, but are plundered of their "Type One" blood supply. Garrett consults with a doctor-friend named Rhodes (Dennis Morgan), and Rhodes in turn consults with his former mentor, a hematologist named Flagg (John Litel). Through Flagg, Rhodes also encounters a strange, pasty-faced fellow assisting the blood specialist, and this man is named Marshall Quesne (Bogart). When Rhodes shakes the assistant's hand, he finds the other man's hand unusually cold-- which should have been enough for any viewer to target Quesne as the source of all the troubles.

Quesne is actually a Doctor Xavier, a blood specialist who conducted an illegal experiment, killing some subjects with his use of a starvation-project. This odd detail may reflect the dead doctor's fate, for after his execution Flagg uses a special artificial blood compound to bring the physician back to life. However, the blood in Quesne/Xavier's veins won't reproduce, so "Doctor X" starts playing vampire by feeding off victims with the proper blood-type.

Flagg's motivations for bringing back Xavier are pretty paltry, in that the former simply wanted to profit from the latter's immense hematological knowledge in general. But then, the film keeps things moving so efficiently that most viewers in the day probably didn't care about motivations. By "moving," I'm talking mostly about lively "talking head" scenes, since there's not much action. One never sees Xavier preying on any victims, and the side-plot of Merrova-- who must have been another Flagg experiment, since she too has pasty, clammy skin-- never serves any plot-purpose. Only at the end does Xavier prey upon a young nurse who just happens to be Rhodes' girlfriend, but this connection doesn't mean much, since it's the cops, not Rhodes, who ring down the curtain on the second life of Doctor X. Not surprisingly, while the rest of the actors acquit themselves competently, Bogart's underplayed performance of Xavier is the standout, for all that the character is something of an empty vessel.