Dr. Cyclops (1940)
King Kong (1933) collaborators Ernest B. Schoedsack (who directed) and Merian C. Cooper (who co-produced with Dale Van Every) created this below average sci-fi horror movie with Academy Award nominated Special Effects; Tom Kilpatrick wrote the screenplay. Filmed in Technicolor, the drama involves a mad scientist genius named Dr. Alexander Thorkel (Albert Dekker), the renowned expert on organic molecular structure; he's summoned a team of experts (played by Thomas Coley, Janice Logan, and Charles Halton) to his South American jungle abode, where he has discovered the world's largest uranium deposit. The three scientists, along with their mule herder (Victor Kilian) and the doctor's local assistant Pedro (Frank Yaconelli), soon learn of Thorkel's startling discovery: using a powerful radiation condenser, he can shrink living objects! Not wanting his secrets exposed, the five become the bespeckled doctor's first human subjects. The rest of the film consists of the ill-sighted doctor (one of his eyeglasses's lenses is broken, hence the "cyclops" moniker), his cat and even an alligator, chasing the foot tall people around his laboratory and the jungle around it before the inevitable (Thorkel falls to his death). Of course, a couple of his shrunken victims are killed beforehand and, conveniently, the shrinking "wears off" such that (a few months later) the people can return to their normal size, and lives, in the end. What may have really been something in its day, comes off (and looks) pretty tame, even silly today (unlike the original Kong).
Most Recent Additions:
Casanova Brown (1944) - full review!
I Want You (1951) - full review!
A Bill of Divorcement (1932) - full review!
Patterns (1956) - full review!
Last Train from Gun Hill (1959) - full review!
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957) - full review!
Hour of the Gun (1967) - full review!
To Sir, with Love (1967) - full review!
You'll Never Get Rich (1941) - full review!
The Actress (1953) - full review!
Mannequin (1937) - full review!
All My Sons (1948) - full review!
Mourning Becomes Electra (1947) - full review!
State Fair (1945) - full review!
Billy Budd (1962) - full review!
Captain Horatio Hornblower R.N. (1951) - full review!
The Bachelor Party (1957) - full review!
The Glenn Miller Story (1954) - full review!
The Southerner (1945) - full review!
The Russians Are Coming the Russians Are Coming (1966)
Never on Sunday (1960) - full review!
The Arrangement (1969) - full review!
A Summer Place (1959) - full review!
Miracle in the Rain (1956) - full review!
Love Letters (1945) - full review!
The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) - full review!
The Absent Minded Professor (1961)
20000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)
Come and Get It (1936) - full review!
The Prize (1963) - full review!
This Is the Army (1943) - full review!
Home from the Hill (1960) - full review!
Hangmen Also Die (1943) - full review!
The Shop on Main Street (1965) - full review!
The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969) - full review!
A Gathering of Eagles (1963) - full review!
This Happy Breed (1944) - full review!
Red-Headed Woman (1932) - full review!
Waterloo Bridge (1931) - full review!
Baby Face (1933) - full review!
Titanic (1943) - full review!
Cover Girl (1944) - full review!
Saratoga Trunk (1945) - full review!
Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
The Young Philadelphians (1959) - full review!
Reflections in a Golden Eye (1967)
Pocket Money (1972) - full review!
[Home] [Hitchcock] [Oscar's Best] [Essays] [Essential Films] [TCM Picks] [Obscure Films] [Links] [Other Reviews] [Academy Awards] [Silent Films] [Movie Index]
