THE MAD DOCTOR: Blu-ray (Paramount, 1941) Kino Lorber

Basil Rathbone enjoyed a rather fascinating career. For although he played the imminent Sherlock Holmes in a spate of highly profitable classics for 2oth Century-Fox and Universal throughout the 1930s and 40s – the quintessence of Arthur Conan Doyle’s classy crime-solver - and would frequently be cast in noble bits of business elsewhere, occasionally, also to prove adept at comedy in a movie like Bathing Beauty (1944), Rathbone easily transgressed into the realm of wicked usurpers and villainous roues in pictures like Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) – doomed to lose the girl and his life to dashing Errol Flynn. At the very least, he could be counted upon to forecast a sort of resplendent reptilian moral ambiguity in melodramas like Anna Karenina (1935) and The Last Hurrah (1958).  Prolific, the Shakespearean-trained Rathbone appeared in more than 70 features throughout his life time, running the gamut from period pics to horror flicks and everything in-between.

There was nothing in his early life to suggest such glories yet to follow. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Rathbone’s first appearance on the stage in 1912, resulted in a life-long passion for the craft of acting. This was to be interrupted by ‘character-building’ military service in the First World War three-years later, where he met fellow/future Brit-based legends, Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall and Ronald Colman. At war’s end, Rathbone resumed his acting career. But the death of his beloved brother, John in the war somehow had altered his perspective on life, creating a noticeably harder edge to his acting style. The movies came a-calling in 1921 and, by the dawn of the sound era, Rathbone’s visage was already trademarked. Ah, but what the ‘silents’ had concealed, the early microphones revealed, a mellifluous voice, intermittently capable of cutting glass with its clipped and stylized diction, to add a commanding presence to Rathbone’s already imposing physical stature.

Director, Tim Whelan’s The Mad Doctor (1941) falls smack in the middle of Rathbone’s transition from chronically being cast as Flynn’s fatalist fallen baddie and his more ambitiously ambiguous roles soon to overtake and advance his reputation within the industry as a fully-fledged and multifaceted talent with whom to be reckoned. Rathbone is moodily magnificent as Dr. George Sebastian (a.k.a. Dr. Frederick Langamann), a menacing psychiatrist who drives his first wife to suicide via hypnosis after discovering she has been unfaithful to him. If hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, then it may just as well ignite the tortured perversions of a man overcome by jealousy, as Sebastian’s sole aim in life thereafter is to court rich women, lightening their purses while bringing about their untimely demises under the guise of scientific orchestration. Set in a small hamlet of Midbury, Howard J. Green’s screenplay wastes no time introducing us to Dr. Downer…holy mackerel, what a name… (Ralph Morgan), called in haste to the home of fellow physician Dr. Sebastian to treat his ailing wife, Ida of pneumonia. Alas, too late for Ida, who is already dead. Something about her passing continues to niggle at Downer who recalls an instance where Ida feared her fate was fast approaching. Indeed, not long after the funeral, Sebastian pulls up stakes with his co-conspirator, Maurice Gretz (Martin Kosleck) – the pair moving to New York where Sebastian quickly establishes a new practice.  There, at the insistence of one of his patients, Louise Watkins (Barbara Jo Allen) he counsels her sister, Linda Boothe (Ellen Drew), a socialite who is suicidally depressed. Observing Linda casually at a charity bazaar, Sebastian strikes up a conversation. But although Linda finds him quite charming, she later attempts suicide, narrowly averted by Sebastian’s arrival in the nick of time, and, soon thereafter, to be placed in his care for treatment of her mental malady.

A wrinkle: Linda already has a boyfriend - Gil Sawyer (John Howard) who becomes highly suspicious of Sebastian whom he jealously regards as a ‘half-baked soul-meddler’. Determined to prove this theory, Gil begins to investigate Sebastian by delving more deeply into his past. Nevertheless, under Sebastian’s frequent hypnosis therapy sessions, Linda’s outlook remarkably improves.  As Linda comes to trust Sebastian more, she begins to fall in love with him. He, in turn confides of a case in which a ‘male patient’, having discovered his wife and best friend together, murdered them both. In the killer’s mind, the wife became the personification of all women who therefore must be destroyed before their love can corrupt men. Although Linda does not know it, Sebastian has just described himself. However, having genuinely fallen in love with her, Sebastian desires to pursue a normal, married life. Meanwhile, Gil journeys to Midbury where he discovers from Dr. Downer that Sebastian once practiced psychiatry in Savannah until the untimely death of his first wife. Two wives. Two deaths? Coincidence? Gil thinks not especially when both women’s cause of death is pneumonia. A little too convenient, indeed! Downer decides an autopsy of Ida Sebastian is warranted. When Sebastian and Maurice read of the pending exhumation in the papers, they are terrified. Sending Maurice to Midbury to ‘take care’ of their problem, Sebastian arranges for a whirlwind proposal and marriage to Linda the next day.

If you know anything of classic Hollywood hokum, then you already know how this one will end – with an ‘eleventh hour’ intervention/rescue from Gil and the end of Sebastian’s dreams for a normal life, being a highly abnormal serial killer and therefore not entitled to such rights and privileges, especially when a more viable, and venerable candidate is waiting in the wings. The Mad Doctor is quite good up until this penultimate ‘damsel in distress’ vindication of Gil’s suspicions, if only because it was always a foregone conclusion, and thus, reduces all of the looming, gloomy suspense into a mechanical exercise where the necessary roadblocks are set up, then – rather predictably – torn down to make way for the hero’s reprieve. There is some good solid setup to Downer’s suspicions, and John Howard plays the frustrated suitor rather well. But Whelan becomes too engrossed in the medical machinations of cause and effect, weighing down whole scenes with far too much symbolism and scientific analysis for a slender 90-mins. to evaporate into thin air and the standardized ‘I’ll save you, baby!’ finale. Basil Rathbone is the driving force and his performance is solely commendable and worth the price of admission here. Alas, Ellen Drew and John Howard are mere window-dressing. Martin Kosleck is ominously effective as Sebastian’s…well…we’re never quite sure. Certainly, the relationship here goes well beyond mere master and mate or stock-and-trade henchman. Could it be? Is Sebastian bisexual? Not sure…and nobody’s talking. But Kosleck gives a nuanced performance as someone who knows far more than he is telling, and it makes for some very spooky and disturbing scenes along the way.

As for the rest of the picture’s plot, it unravels into a finely-tuned hot mess of circumstantial evidence, kickstarted by Maurice dumping Ida’s remains into the river before an autopsy can be performed.  Alas, Maurice is concerned Downer, who is also on the train back home, will identify him. When Downer discovers Sebastian’s old school yearbook, his photo under the name of Frederick Langemann, and then manages to dig up a newspaper article in which Langemann, accused of a double homicide, has managed to vanish into thin air, he realizes Langemann and Sebastian are one in the same. He will never get the opportunity to tell his tale. Instead, Downer telephones Linda in the hopes to share his discoveries with her. She is intrigued and agrees to meet. However, as Downer exits his train he is pushed from the platform into an oncoming commuter by Sebastian. At street level, Linda observes the public pandemonium as Downer’s lifeless remains are taken away, but then spies her husband skulking off in the opposite direction. Perhaps, Downer was telling her the truth.

Determined, but fragile, Linda confronts Sebastian at home with her observations. He vaguely insinuates that ‘whatever’ he has done he did for her love. Terrified, she faints. Panged by his confession, Sebastian cradles his wife in his arms, planning to leap with her to their deaths through an open window. Mercifully, a knock at the door startles him, and he crawls out onto the window ledge alone to commit suicide. The governing board of censorship in Hollywood then was appalled by this finale and ordered a ‘gunshot’ added to the soundtrack to suggest Sebastian was nobly shot – a vindication for his crimes. Gil bursts into the room, discovers Linda unconscious and revives and comforts her. She tearfully confides, “You should have seen his face, his eyes—so cruel, and yet so sad.”

Despite some taut moments built in along the way, even at 90 minutes, The Mad Doctor outstays its welcome and is a pretty tepid affair. Rathbone’s steely performance is the real/reel reason to see the picture today - also, Ted Tetzlaff's excellent cinematography. Perhaps Rathbone's austerity here had something to do with the heinous ‘cat bite’ he suffered while on the set, to badly mangle his thumb. Either way, he’s quite marvelous here. But Howard J. Green’s screenplay (with uncredited assists from noteworthy Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur) gets bogged down in the medical jargon of an atypical whodunit potboiler. The tale concocted here is reminiscent of the real-life case of Bela Kiss – the Hungarian serial killer who stalked and killed 23 women before being caught – although there is no direct reference, or even suggestion this was Green’s aim from the outset. Ellen Drew’s shrinking violet is a real snore, as is John Howard’s nominal ‘hero’. Barely remembered today, Martin Kosleck, is supremely menacing as Sebastian’s sidekick. The outspoken anti-Nazi/German-born thespian who establish a lucrative career on this side of the pond (he appeared in more than 80 films and TV shows over the next 46 years) was oft cast as the very nemesis he had fled in 1931. While many German actors resented such typecasting, Kosleck viewed it as his own way of getting back at the regime governing back home under a ministry of fear. Herein, Kosleck’s just dark and sinister, and quite effective as the force behind the ‘great’ man whose loyalty is subliminally homoerotic. Despite its transparent flaws, I rather enjoyed The Mad Doctor for what it is, while sincerely wishing it had evolved into something more – better – strangely less methodical and with a more efficient cast to aid Rathbone and Kosleck in all their malignant details. Director, Whelan never gets the premise entirely off the ground, perhaps even slightly unsure whether his aim is to make a good suspense movie, a harrowing horror flick or a deeply disturbing noir thriller. The psychiatry backdrop gets overplayed, at times, to get in the way of what was supposed to otherwise have been an absorbing psychological murder mystery.

The Mad Doctor arrives on Blu-ray via Kino Lorber and like virtually every movie passed down to them via their alliance with Universal Home Video, gives pause to the continued bare bones efforts of that studio in their asset management of both their own studio library and the Paramount catalog, from whence this movie cometh, currently under their banner of distribution. The Mad Doctor is advertised as a ‘new’ 2K effort, and does, in fact, sport some good contrast and a modicum of fine detail intermittently to be observed. The source, however, for this 2K scan is never divulged and appears to be a second-generation element, presumably, as no first-generation quality stock survives. The results are adequate, though just, with the image frequently appearing soft to slightly out of focus, and age-related dirt and scratches evident throughout. So, no basic clean-up applied. The DTS 2.0 mono audio is, again, passable, though hardly distinguished. Extras include an audio commentary by David Del Valle - well worth the price of admission, and a theatrical trailer, looking as though it were previously fed through a meat grinder. Bottom line: The Mad Doctor is a standard ‘thriller’ with a basic 1080p transfer that settles pretty much into the ‘it’ll do’ category of video mastering Universal seems contented to peddle in lieu of doing the actual heavy lifting where their studio holdings are concerned. This might have passed in 2008, the beginning of hi-def mastering. In 2021, Uni’s decidedly behind the times and not at all interested in playing ‘catch up’. Judge and buy accordingly!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

2.5

EXTRAS

1