The Return of Doctor X (1939)
Directed by Vincent Sherman
Genres - Mystery, Science Fiction, Thriller |
Sub-Genres - Sci-Fi Horror |
Release Date - Dec 2, 1939 (USA - Unknown) |
Run Time - 62 min. |
Countries - United States |
MPAA Rating - NR
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Synopsis by Sandra Brennan
Humphrey Bogart makes his first and last appearance in a horror movie in this film. Though the title implies that it is a sequel to the classic 1932 chiller Dr. X it is not. The terror begins when an eager-beaver reporter stumbles across the corpse of a popular actress who turns up, after much media hoopla, not to be dead at all. At least she seems to be alive on a surface level and is eager to sue the reporter's paper. The reporter can't help but notice that here skin is unnaturally pale and that she keeps her face concealed beneath a long-black veil. Suspecting that evil is afoot, he--who by now is unemployed--launches a private investigation to prove that she really was the corpse he saw. His search leads him into the terrifying world of a psycho blood doctor, and into a series of unsolved murders in which all the victims were found with no blood in their veins. Ultimately, the reporter finds himself face-to-face with the nefarious Dr. Maurice Xavier (Bogart), a man executed several years ago for murdering patients while performing Frankensteinian experiments.
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Keywords
criminal, experiment, animal, blood, clue, death, doctor/nurse, formula, ghoul, hospital, intern [medical], investigator, killing, laboratory, monster, newspaper, office, patient [medical], police, reincarnation, reporter, revelation, search, strange, suspect, synthetic, trapped, victim, actor, life, news, produce [showbiz], return, secretary, stars [celebrities], studio, time, wax-museum