Famous scientist Dr Laurience moves from Italy to Britain where newspaper baron Lord Haslewood offers to sponsor Laurience's experiments . After a falling out Laurience takes his revenge on Hslewood and shows him that his sinister experiment works very well
This is another early take on the mas scientist theme and despite not being in the same league as the one that catapulted Karloff to instant stardom it is rather fun as long as you don't think about it too much . Being a British film there does seem a slight lack of budget and perhaps that little bit of something that is exclusive to Hollywood studios is missing but director Robert Stevenson - who'd later make some very memorable Walt Disney films in the 1960s and 70s - makes the best of what he's got and Karloff is a good asset and never goes camp or over the top unlike in the 1933 British horror flick THE GHOUL
It's interesting that Dr Laurience was previously working in Genoa but had to leave for undisclosed reasons . In 1936 Italy would have been under the fascist jackboot for over ten years and I thought perhaps we were going to get some political commentary at this point but we didn't . On a similar matter Lord Haslewood must be based upon Lord Beaverbrook and again I thought this was going to lead to a subtext about one man having too much power but being a mad scientist plot the film concerns itself with concept and plotting
As for the plotting it's a strange mix of good and bad . There's a slight flaw of internal continuity when Hsslewood funds a publicity campaign that Laurience is moving to Britain then in the next scene announces that he's going to make Laurience a household name . Hmmm isn't he already a household name then ? It's easy to see where the plot might be heading - the clue is in the title by the way - but at least the film addresses what I thought were going to be gigantic plot holes where character A being swapped in to characters B's body instantly and miraculously knows everything character B does . Okay it's not addressed very well or convincingly but at least it tried . Like so many other films with potential the third act starts to fall apart due to its contrived nature and that's what stops the movie becoming a British classic . That said it is relatively enjoyable
This is another early take on the mas scientist theme and despite not being in the same league as the one that catapulted Karloff to instant stardom it is rather fun as long as you don't think about it too much . Being a British film there does seem a slight lack of budget and perhaps that little bit of something that is exclusive to Hollywood studios is missing but director Robert Stevenson - who'd later make some very memorable Walt Disney films in the 1960s and 70s - makes the best of what he's got and Karloff is a good asset and never goes camp or over the top unlike in the 1933 British horror flick THE GHOUL
It's interesting that Dr Laurience was previously working in Genoa but had to leave for undisclosed reasons . In 1936 Italy would have been under the fascist jackboot for over ten years and I thought perhaps we were going to get some political commentary at this point but we didn't . On a similar matter Lord Haslewood must be based upon Lord Beaverbrook and again I thought this was going to lead to a subtext about one man having too much power but being a mad scientist plot the film concerns itself with concept and plotting
As for the plotting it's a strange mix of good and bad . There's a slight flaw of internal continuity when Hsslewood funds a publicity campaign that Laurience is moving to Britain then in the next scene announces that he's going to make Laurience a household name . Hmmm isn't he already a household name then ? It's easy to see where the plot might be heading - the clue is in the title by the way - but at least the film addresses what I thought were going to be gigantic plot holes where character A being swapped in to characters B's body instantly and miraculously knows everything character B does . Okay it's not addressed very well or convincingly but at least it tried . Like so many other films with potential the third act starts to fall apart due to its contrived nature and that's what stops the movie becoming a British classic . That said it is relatively enjoyable