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Reporter Garrett (Wayne Morris) finds a dead woman (Lya Lys) in her
hotel room - and thinks he has found a scoop for his newspaper. When the
woman is found very much alive a few hours later, that costs him his job
though. But since Garrett is sure the woman was indeed dead, he teams up
with his friend Doctor Rhodes (Dennis Morgan) to investigate. At first,
Rhodes thinks little of Garrett's story, but when one of his blood donors
(John Ridely) is killed in exactly the same way that the dead woman
Garrett saw was killed, that gets him suspicious - and since the victim
has been drained of all his blood and traces of weird blood are found at
the scene of the crime, Rhodes consults his colleague, blood specialist
Doctor Flegg (John Litel) - who acts weirdly evasive though. Eventually,
Garrett and Rhodes also meet Flegg's assistant Doctor Xavier (Humphrey
Bogart), a creepy guy by any definition ... Eventually, Rhodes and
Garrett find out that Xavier is a child killer who has been executed 2
years ago, and when they confront Flegg with this, he admits to having
revived him, but since then, Xavier needs the blood of alive humans -
which is why he murders himself through Flegg's book of blood donors.
Flegg experiments in the field of artificial blood and he almost succeeded
with the woman Garrett found dead at the beginning of the film, one of
Xavier's victims, but only almost, she has died again since then. After
his confession, Flegg is murdered by Xavier, who then kidnaps Rhodes'
girlfriend Joan (Rosemary Lane) to become his next victim, but after an
extended chase and fight, Rhodes and Garrett manage to save her while
Xavier is pushed to his death off some cliffs ... A sequel to
1932's Doctor X only in title,
this is actually a much-reviled film among film fans as its villain role
was allegedly given to Humphrey Bogart as a punishment by Jack L.Warner
because he had asked for better, non-gangster roles. Bogart is said to
have hated the role, too. That said, he actually gives a convincingly
creepy performance, one that almost makes one wish he had played in more
horror films. And the film as a whole isn't all bad either, sure, it's a
piece of pulpy sci-fi horror, but in comparison to similar films from the
late 1930's it holds its own pretty well - despite a few narrative
inconsistencies I might add. That all said, Return of Doctor X
certainly is no classic, but if you're into B-horror from the late 1930's,
it's still a good way to spend a little over an hour.
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