Doctor X (1932)
Lionel Atwill: Dr. Jerry Xavier
Photos
Quotes
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Police Commissioner Stevens : I hope we're not disturbing you, Professor.
Dr. Haines, Academy of Surgical Research : Not at all, I was just relaxing.
Dr. Jerry Xavier : Professor Haines is a most intensive worker. I've just been telling Mr. Stevens of your phenomenal experiments in brain grafting.
Dr. Haines, Academy of Surgical Research : Oh, Doctor, Doctor, come! Come, I want to show you! I want to show you a new type of brain cell.
Dr. Jerry Xavier : That should be interesting, Professor.
Dr. Haines, Academy of Surgical Research : I'm sure you'll find it so.
Dr. Jerry Xavier : On the slide?
Dr. Haines, Academy of Surgical Research : Yes.
Detective O'Halloran : [O'Halloran opens a ledger] Look!
[He shows Stevens a stack of girlie magazines]
Detective O'Halloran : Relaxing.
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Dr. Haines, Academy of Surgical Research : Professor, since we retired this body has been... It has been...
Dr. Jerry Xavier : I know, but I don't want her to know.
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Dr. Jerry Xavier : Good evening, Professor Duke, how are you feeling tonight?
Dr. Duke : Horrible.
Dr. Jerry Xavier : Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
Dr. Duke : Well, if it makes you feel sorry to hear things like that, then don't ask questions!
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Police Commissioner Stevens : What's your theory of the killer?
Dr. Jerry Xavier : A neurotic, of course. Some poor devil suffering from a fixation.
Police Commissioner Stevens : A fixation? What do you mean?
Dr. Jerry Xavier : A knot or kink tied in the brain by some past experience. A madness that comes only at certain times when the killer is brought in direct contact with some vivid reminder of the past.
Police Commissioner Stevens : [chuckling] It's hard to believe that.
Dr. Jerry Xavier : Yes, for a policeman I suppose it is. But I tell you that locked in each human skull is a little world all its own.
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Dr. Jerry Xavier : Gentlemen, I am now turning on the 100 milliampere high-frequency coil. Your pulses are connected with the magnetic rotators, and each variation of your heartbeat reaction is amplified 4000 times. The rotor of the electrostatic machine is connected in multiple series with a bank of glass-plate condensers, and the discharge causes irradiations to the thermal tubes, which in turn indicate your increased pulse rate and nerve reactions. We can proceed now.
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Police Commissioner Stevens : [Stevens has noticed a pair of shoes drying on a radiator] I understand, Professor, that you live just where you work. That you seldom leave the Institute.
Dr. Wells : Not necessarily. I played truant a short while ago. I was down by the waterfront, for a breath of air.
Police Commissioner Stevens : What time was that?
Dr. Jerry Xavier : [Interrupting Stevens] You're not feeling well? Your arm is troubling you?
Dr. Wells : Yes it's, it's very annoying.
Dr. Jerry Xavier : Well, you're foolish to sit there in discomfort.
Dr. Wells : If you gentlemen don't mind, I...
Dr. Jerry Xavier : Why, of course not, of course not.
Dr. Wells : [Wells removes his prosthetic left hand] I put it on just as I heard you coming. An empty sleeve is revolting to most people.
Police Commissioner Stevens : [chuckling] Well I, I think we've taken up enough of Professor Wells' time.
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Dr. Jerry Xavier : Meddling fools!
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Mamie, Xavier's Maid : What part do I play?
Dr. Jerry Xavier : The scrubwoman, of course. The one who was murdered last night.
Mamie, Xavier's Maid : Murdered? But, Doctor, please, please. Couldn't Otto play it?
Dr. Jerry Xavier : No, Otto has his own part - that of the killer. There's nothing to be afraid of.
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Dr. Haines, Academy of Surgical Research : One moment, doctor. Were the murdered women... "attacked"?
Dr. Rowitz : Does your mind never run into any other channel?
Dr. Haines, Academy of Surgical Research : [indignantly] What do you *mean* by that statement?
Dr. Rowitz : I mean that your sadistic tendencies may someday carry you too far, Dr. Haines.
Dr. Haines, Academy of Surgical Research : [angrily] You, you!...
Dr. Jerry Xavier : Silence, gentlemen, please!
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Dr. Jerry Xavier : I want every one of you to submit to a psycho-neurological test. An experiment that I have devised, which I hope will prove each one of us innocent.
Dr. Rowitz : But, if it should prove otherwise?
Dr. Jerry Xavier : Well then, my dear doctor, surely one's own... "farewell to life"... is preferable to that demanded by the law.
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Dr. Wells : Dr. Xavier is still working on his theory that strong mental repressions, phobias hidden in the darkest corners of the subconscious mind, can be brought to the surface and made to register, through certain reactions of the heart. Am I correct, professor?
Dr. Jerry Xavier : Precisely. And tonight I hope to prove my theory.
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Dr. Jerry Xavier : Now, it is my theory, that one of us in the past, through dire necessity, was driven to cannibalism. The memory of that act was hammered like a nail into the mind of that man. Shrewd and brilliant, he could conceal his madness from the human eye, even from himself... but he can't conceal it from the eyes of the radio sensitivity.
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Dr. Jerry Xavier : Here are a line of wax figures - lifelike reproductions of the pitiful victims. People whose lives were snuffed out, and whose bodies were torn, to satisfy the desires of a monster.
[Proceeds to describe each one of the victims in turn]
Dr. Jerry Xavier : First, a woman of the streets, killed in the tenement district. Her body found late at night in a gutter.
Dr. Jerry Xavier : [continues] The next victim, a middle-aged woman, killed just before dawn as she was on her way to market, her bleeding body found under a dock by the waterfront.
Dr. Jerry Xavier : [continues] Then, a dope fiend, strangled and mutilated in the doorway of a dance hall.
Dr. Jerry Xavier : [continues] Next, a beautiful young girl, violently killed as she lay on her hospital bed recovering from an illness.
