The Devil-Doll (1936)

REVIEW
Every now and then, maybe once a decade, a film comes along that is so inspired in its goofiness, so courageous in its preposterousness, so earnest in its madness, that it navigates past seemingly impossible obstacles to a sort of perfection. The Devil-Doll is one of those rarities.

Directed by none other than Tod Browning, we are given a tale that involves a mad scientist with frightening ambitions, a jail-break, a truly touching father-daughter reconciliation, a crime-committing shrunken woman, a conspiracy by a triad of bankers, a revenge plot, a dashing taxi-driver, the Eiffel tower, and Lionel Barrymore in drag.

I try to keep these reviews serious, but The Devil-Doll defies me. I shall try my best. We begin with Lionel Barrymore--who is fantastic in this film--breaking out of jail. He stumbles into a cabin that just happens to be filled with mad scientists. Fortunately for Barrymore, he hits it off with the scientists and they soon want to enlist his aid in their diabolical plans to shrink the world!

In fact, the plan is not diabolical at all. The scientist wishes to solve the problem of world hunger. So, if he shrinks everything in the world, there'll be plenty... no, wait, that doesn't work. Barrymore knows it doesn't work. The scientist, however, is really a madman. In this film anything can happen, and it does: the scientist suddenly has a stroke and dies. Barrymore is thus left with the marvelous new technology and the scientist's even madder scientist of a wife.

Barrymore now has everything he needs to exact revenge on those who had him wrongfully placed in prison: a shrink ray, a mad scientist, and drag. He sets up shop as an old granny toymaker and sets about his revenge while he tries to strike up a friendship with the daughter he never got to see grow up.

That covers the first fifteen minutes. The film is densely-plotted. The writers squeezed everything they could into this already-wild story, and Browning somehow pulls it off. It is a great film, the equal of anything Browning's ever done.

The relationship Barrymore has with his daughter is genuinely affecting. The love he feels for her, the anguish he feels in a situation that prevents him from reaching out to her, and her bitterness over never knowing her father are all deeply felt.

The revenge plot brings various moral questions to the fore. How can a man who loves his daughter be using a shrunken woman--the titular devil-doll--to commit horrible crimes, when he knows it will prevent him from seeing her? Does he really plan to give the mad scientist what she wants in exchange for her help?

With some neat special effects obviously inspired by Raoul Walsh's The Thief of Baghdad, some excellent writing, outstanding acting, and Browning's masterful direction, this goofy film is guaranteed to entertain and move.

FACTS
Director - Tod Browning
Writers - Garrett Fort, Guy Endore
Starring - Lionel Barrymore, Maureen O'Sullivan
1936
78min

WHERE TO GET IT
This film is not so rare or unknown as the others in this series. It is available on MGM's Hollywood Legends of Horror Collection.

TIDBITS
Guy Maddin highly praises this film. He even selected it for screening at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Screenwriter Guy Endore also wrote the novel that was adapted into Hammer's The Curse of the Werewolf.