A textbook example of Universal's streamlined approach to churning out quickie "horror" products in the early 1940s is The Mad Doctor of Market Street: backlot sets, truncated run time, a script that disintegrates upon scrutiny, familiar contract players, and recycled musical cues. It is also a wonderfully entertaining movie that merrily skips about disregarding logic while stitching together two popular topics of the day: mad scientists and South Seas jungle adventures. What separates the wheat from the chaff in this case is a delicious performance by Lionel Atwill, sometimes dubbed the "maddest doctor of them all", who provides one of his most flamboyant turns in this guise.
Dr. Ralph Benson (Atwill) is an unhinged medico who longs to perfect suspended animation as a means to prolong life indefinitely and establish himself before the world as a God-like being. Following uninterrupted success with animals his first attempt on a human fails forcing Benson to take it on the lam. He boards a passenger steamer for New Zealand but his bad luck continues: the ship suffers a fatal fire and sinks. Benson and a handful of survivors wind up on a pacific island inhabited by superstitious natives eager to burn them alive. Fate intervenes when Benson saves the life of Tanao (Rosina Galli), the wife of the chief Elon (Noble Johnson), and is proclaimed the "God of Life". Reveling in his celebrity status Benson plans on continuing his experiments using his fellow castaways as unwitting subjects.
The original screenplay is credited to Al Martin who provides Atwill with a plethora of scenery-chewing opportunities. The narrative glosses over obvious questions like how Benson eludes the city wide dragnet out to get him, how people know the Mad Doctor of Market Street is on the boat yet have no idea what he looks like, how Benson's group escapes the burning ship and arrives unscathed on a beautiful beach, and so on. Martin is content to focus on the crazed Doctor and expects viewers to do the same while ignoring the Flash Gordon aspects of the plot. Atwill enjoys several well-written speeches detailing his all-consuming mania to become immortal in the eyes of man while demonstrating how completely unhinged he is. Meanwhile the rest of the cast must grapple with inane dialogue, unfunny comedy bits, and, in the case of the natives, a particularly degrading portrayal.
Director Joseph H. Lewis keeps events moving at a rapid pace to compensate for the logistical potholes in the story. Clearly hamstrung by a limited budget he employs abundant stock footage to portray the burning ship at sea and the rescue planes hunting for survivors while saddled with a laughably obvious toy boat in a studio tank for establishing shots. He does avoid the pitfall of ersatz indoor studio jungle sets by filming outside which adds immeasurably to the suspension of disbelief (such as it is). The opening sequence in Benson's darkened office, detailing the setup for his first human experiment, is impressively done with low lighting and a film noirish atmosphere. Lionel Atwill benefits from a career's worth of tight closeups accentuating his eyes and devilish countenance while Lewis perhaps goes to the well too often with undeniably impressive subjective shots of Atwill menacingly holding out a chloroformed object as he slowly advances towards the camera lense. Lewis also makes wonderful use of HJ Salter's familiar musical cues from Son of Frankenstein and Black Friday to assist in putting over the melodramatics. Perhaps the most chilling moment in the film is a shot of Benson's test tubes that dissolves into a roaring fire indicating what is about to happen to the man when his luck runs out.
Mad Doctor affords Lionel Atwill a field day for his unique talents. Rarely one to restrain himself the actor swings for the fences with outrageously flamboyant line readings and vivid depiction of a man with an insatiable ego who only wants to benefit mankind so he can be exalted as a deity. Whether smooth talking test subjects, reveling in his God of Life title, puffing on a cigar while watching ship passengers make fools of themselves, nonchalantly dumping nosy private investigators overboard, or fiendishly enjoying succulent native fruits while contemplating his next unholy act Atwill thoroughly dominates the film. It is an absolute crime that Universal deprived him of top billing (for Una Merkel of all people) not to mention having the script take shots at his doughy physique. Such disrespect was usually reserved for Bela Lugosi but apparently the studio had plenty to go around. This film would be unwatchable today if not for Atwill's bombastic performance.
The rest of the cast struggles in vain to remain buoyant in Atwill's wake. Beautiful Claire Dodd looks especially gorgeous as the love interest and registers well with her emoting; unfortunately onscreen boyfriend Richard Davies is endlessly bland. As the purveyors of the alleged comedy relief the aforementioned Una Merkel grates on the nerves with her screechy voice while Nat Pendleton also strikes out as a dumbbell boxer. Reduced to a bit role is Anne Nagel, who costarred with Atwill in Man Made Monster and acquitted herself quite well less than a year earlier, as the weepy wife of Atwill's first victim. Finally there is Noble Johnson, once the chief of Skull Island in King Kong, reduced to the kingpin of this tropical destination who is all too eager to put trespassers into the fire (and after what the white folks did to Skull Island who can blame him?).
While it will never be confused with any of the more noteworthy Universal chillers from the War Years The Mad Doctor of Market Street is a harmless bit of fun with delightful illogic and a familiar feel from the studio. Most of all it has a superior turn by genre icon Lionel Atwill who appears to be enjoying the time of his life in a superbly written role. Definitely worth a watch for fans of both the actor and the studio.
