Unjustly imprisoned Paul Lavond (Lionel Barrymore), escapes from Devil’s Island with mad scientist, Marcel (Henry B. Walthall), who has discovered a way to reduce animals to one sixth their size. Marcel plans to use this to help humanity, but when he dies, Lavond teams up with Marcel’s wife, Malita (Rafaela Ottiano), supposedly to continue the work, but really to get revenge on his three ex-partners who framed him. Disguised as a woman, he opens a doll shop in Paris where he sets his plans in motion, but things are complicated by his bitter daughter (Maureen O’Sullivan), who refuses to marry her kind boyfriend (Frank Lawton) because of her connection to a murderer.
The first, and best, of the many killer doll pictures that have popped up over the years, The Devil-Doll has quite a bit of The Count of Monte Cristo in it, only instead of money, the “hero” has the ability to shrink people. OK, that’s a big difference, but consider: there is the unfairly imprisoned protagonist, the escape with a man who’s secret will give the protagonist power, the compulsion for revenge against the three who cheated him, the plan that takes each separately and proves the protagonist’s innocence, and the young lovers that need some nudging.
Director Tod Browning, who assured his name in film history with Dracula (1931), is a bit more reserved than normal, but puts his ample skills into the project, if not his artistic temperament. The lighting, with ranges of shadows, is wonderful. It’s a good looking and sounding film.
Barrymore is a more substantial actor than you’ll find in most “mad scientist” movies. I could have done with less of his old lady routine, but it’s a fast paced movie, and I never got overly annoyed. I always love Maureen O’Sullivan (have you seen her in Tarzan and His Mate? The Thin Man? The Big Clock?), but her bratty daughter role is too melodramatic. Only the actress’s beauty keeps her watchable. The most Browning-like character is the loony Malita, who is played with comical flamboyance by Rafaela Ottiano.
No question this picture earns its way onto the mad scientist list as these are about the nuttiest scientists I recall seeing. Not evil, just fruitcakes. Frankenstein is a reasonable Joe by comparison. After breaking out of prison, Marcel’s first words to his wife are about his work. Yes, he will save humanity by shrinking everyone because…well…people will have more space…and food will be… I give up. It’s a goofy plan.
The special effects are pretty good for 1936, which still means they aren’t great. But when the shrunken people move about on their own (without normal sized ones in the frame), they’re fun to watch.
None of this was the plan. The Devil-Doll was intended to be a full-on horror picture, but Joseph Breen, hit man for the Production Code, had decided the entire horror genre had to go. He went after The Devil-Doll hard, forcing changes to it until is was a light fantasy movie.
Not a classic of early horror, but a step above the B-movie mad doctors that were filling screens, The Devil-Doll is an intermediate genre picture, and one of the last films that even approached horror that would be made for the next two years.