DVD Review: Doctor Cyclops (1940)

Kino Lorber has released a beautiful 4K master of "Doctor Cyclops," the first horror film shot in three-strip technicolor (Dr X and Mystery of the Wax Museum used the two-color process). The restoration allows us to marvel at director Ernest B. Schoedsack's magnificent attention to detail, including the look of the color visuals. The blu ray from Kino allows these visuals to jump off the screen with clarity and vibrance.

The film itself is a wonderfully creepy Paramount release featuring Albert Dekker as the truly evil title character, a biologist named Doctor Alexander Thorkel whose lab is in a remote part of the Peruvian jungle. The story deals with biologists, and a mineralogist, trekking to Thorkel's remote laboratory. They end up being fodder of his latest experiment and are shrunken to miniature size. Realizing this effect is only temporary, Thorkel sets out to kill them all before they regain size and turn him in to the authorities.

In so many horror movies, the central figure is evil because of circumstances, whereas Thorkel is simply evil by choice. At least one historian pointed out actor Dekker's bald head and round glasses being similar to the "evil Jap" stereotype that had already begun in some cultures, despite the movie being filmed a couple years before Pearl Harbor (it has a 1939 copyright date but was released in April of 1940).

Director Ernest B. Schoedsack had helmed the classic "King Kong" several years earlier, so he uses his ideas for visual effects in the same brilliant manner (as he would do several years later for the 1949 release "Mighty Joe Young."). This is especially borne out when presenting the miniature people against the specially designed larger sets (see the Laurel and Hardy comedy "Brats" from way back in 1930 for an early portent to this idea). Hans Dreier and Earl Hedrick were the designers of the larger sets that make the actors appear to be a foot tall.

"Doctor Cyclops" is a delightfully outrageous sci-fi classic, with a compelling narrative that draws the viewer in, and some impressive visual effects that are enhanced by the sharp technicolor. Sometimes the dialog is a bit hokey, but it is the sort of hoke that fits comfortably in the context of a movie with such fantastic elements as this.

The supporting cast has a few familiar players, including Victor Kilian and Charles Halton, along with newcomers like Janice Logan making her film debut. "Doctor Cyclops" might hold some record regarding the number of actors who died horrible deaths. Janice Logan was killed in a house fire at 50. Victor Kilian was beaten to death by intruders in his home at the age of 88. And Albert Dekker was found dead in his home by his fiancee -- kneeling naked in the bathtub with a noose around his neck, his hands cuffed, and dirty sayings written all over his body; his death was the result of autoerotic asphyxiation!

Kino's blu ray is a truly beautiful restoration, and includes a optional commentary track featuring film historian Richard Harland Smith, whose insights on this film are most enlightening.

The blu ray is available here: Doctor Cyclops