PHANTOM EMPIRES
  • MOVIES
  • OLD TIME RADIO
  • US TV
  • UK-TV
  • MOUNTIE PULP!
  • BOOKS
  • ARTISTS
  • ALMANAC
  • My Fiction
  • contact

Happy Birthday, Basil Rathbone!  (June 13, 1892) ~ The Mad Doctor (1941)

6/13/2014

2 Comments

 
Well,  it's both Basil Rathbone's b-day AND Friday the 13th,  so I thought I'd pick a spooky-type picture for this special occasion x2!  There aren't too many unplumbed options for ol' Basil, wot?  I mean, Son of Frankenstein?  A great movie,  but completely talked to death. Sherlock Holmes?  Jeez,  I might as well talk about Casablanca, or Gone With the Wind. Otherwise,  our diction master was a support player,  and what fun is that on the man's day of birth?  So,  I dug about in the memory banks for the solution: the 1941 film,  The Mad Doctor!

In this very fun but minor
suspense chiller,  Rathbone plays the conniving-but-debonaire Dr. George Sebastian,  a man with an evil heart and dark secrets.  He has a peculiar habit, our doctor;  he marries very wealthy women,  and somehow they end up dead!  In the beginning of the film,  his last wife has died under mysterious circumstances,  and already he's on the prowl.  He sets his eyes on the beautiful-and-wealthy-but-depressed Linda Boothe (nicely played by the hauntingly lovely Ellen Drew, who was in a personal Dick Powell fave, Johnny O'clock).  Linda is in pretty bad shape;  there's a suicide attempt even, near the beginning of the story...just the ticket for our murderous male gold digger!  He unleashes his seductive and hypnotic charms on this poor woman,  and she's putty in his hands.

Fortunately our damsel has friends in her corner:  The dogged Dr. Downer (Ralph Morgan, support player in a billion amazing b-reelers), who suspects foul play in Dr. Sebastian's past love life, and Linda's boyfriend, Gil Sawyer (played by the somewhat William Powell-esque John Howard, Ronald Colman's successor in the killer Bulldog Drummond film series), who thinks our mad doc is "half-baked", and a "quack".  It's amazing to watch these two men hard at work, detective-like, foiling our suave Bluebeard's dastardly machinations!

The ending is very satisfying, and more brutal than one might expect...


The Mad Doctor is really very fun.  It's very much in the style of the Crime Doctor or Lone Wolf series,  and quite the thing with which to celebrate the man who has been so great in so many top-level films.  It's something that should certainly be in the "have watched" pile for any serious Rathbone devotee!

Feel free to check out my Old Time Radio Rathbone birthday post HERE,  as his voice was so perfect for that medium!

Picture
Picture
From 'Son of Frankenstein, but apt for this picture!
2 Comments
    Picture

    RSS Feed

    Latest Reviews
    (click to visit)

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Classic Movie Blog Hub Member

    MOUNTIE FILMS.pdf
    File Size: 73 kb
    File Type: pdf
    Download File

    Here is my (ever-growing) list of Mountie movies and serials!  Enjoy!

    Upcoming Events


    Cool Blogs
    STALKING MOON
    Classic Film & TV Cafe'
    MOVIES SILENTLY

    CAFTAN WOMAN
    RIDING THE HIGH COUNTRY

    SILVER SCREENINGS
    SHADOWS & SATIN
    SPEAKEASY
    LAURA'S MISC. MUSINGS
    LADY EVE'S REEL LIFE
    They Don't Make 'em Like they Used to
    SILENTOLOGY
    Pre-Code  Film
    SILVER SCENES

    Thrilling Days of Yesteryear

    Mike's Take on Movies

    THE LIST

    All
    13 Assassins
    15 Post 1979 Films
    5 Films
    9 Hours To Rama
    Adventures Of Tartu
    A Heidi 2-Fer
    Alan Ladd
    Al Pachino
    A Man Called Horse
    Anthony Hopkins
    A Patch Of Blue
    Audie Murphy
    A Yank In Libya
    Barrymore
    Barry Sullivan
    Basil Rathbone
    BIRTHDAYS
    BLOGATHON
    Bogdan Stupka
    Breezy
    British Empire
    Buck Jones
    Buffalo Rider
    Caesar The Conqueror
    Cameron Mitchell
    Caryl Of The Mountains
    Chambara
    Chinatown
    Cisco Kid
    Claudette Colbert
    Cliff Edwards
    Clint Eastwood
    Colossus: The Forbin Project
    Come Next Spring
    Cowboy Motorcycles
    Dana Andrews
    Dan Haggerty
    Deborah Kerr
    Dick Powell
    Django
    Duncan Reynaldo
    Dustin Hoffman
    Eleanor Hunt
    Errol Flynn
    Faye Dunaway
    FILM BLOGGERY - Notes
    Foreign Legion Films
    Fort Vengeance
    Francis Sullivan
    Francis X. Bushman Jr.
    Franco Nero
    Fred Williamson
    Gary Cooper
    Gene Hackman
    George Hilton
    Giants Of Rome
    GLADIATORS SEVEN
    Go-Get-em Haines
    Gregory Peck
    Guy Rolfe
    Haldane Of The Secret Sevice
    HAMMER FILMS
    Harry Carey Jr.
    Harry Houdini
    HEART OF THE NORTH
    Hollywood Chess
    Horst Buchholz
    Humphrey Bogart
    Jack Nicholson
    James Craig
    James Oliver Curwood
    Jim Brown
    Jim Kelly
    Jimmy Stewart
    John Carradine
    John Huston
    Johnny Mack Brown
    John Wayne
    Jose Ferrer
    J. S. Casshyap
    Kay Lenz
    Ken Maynard
    King Of The Khyber Rifles
    KITOSCH
    Lee Van Cleef
    Leslie Howard
    Little Big Man
    Lon Chaney
    Love Affair
    MASSACRE TIME
    Mountain Man Movies
    Mountie Films
    MRS. MIKE
    My Man Godfrey 1957
    Nicholas & Alexandra
    NO!
    Nomads Of The North
    NORTHERN PURSUIT
    North West Mounted Police
    Northwest Rangers
    Oliver Reed
    Orientalism In Film
    Overland Red
    Peplums
    Pimpernel Smith
    QUO VADIS
    Rasputin & The Empress
    Reginald Denny
    Richard Harris
    Richard Harrison
    Rin-Tin-Tin
    Robert Donat
    Robert Morley
    Robert Ryan
    Ronald Colman
    Roy Rogers
    Sabotage Agent
    Serpico
    Shirley Temple
    Sidney Poitier
    SILENT FILMS
    Spaghetti Western
    Stranglers Of Bombay
    Take A Hard Ride
    Talbot Mundy
    Taras Bulba
    The Black Watch
    THE CANADIANS
    The Cossacks
    The Hunting Party
    The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp
    The Mad Doctor
    The Prisoner Of Shark Island
    The Scarlet Pimpernel
    The Trap
    The Two Jakes
    Tim McCoy
    Tom Baker
    Tom Mix
    Top Ten Cowboys
    Tyrone Power
    Ukulele Ike
    Under Two Flags
    Victor McLaglen
    Warner Baxter
    We're In The Legion Now!
    Western Films List
    Westerns Through Time
    When Eight Bells Toll
    William Boyd
    Worst Film Accents
    Yankee Clipper
    ZARDOZ
    Казаки

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.