DOCTOR X (Michael Curtiz, 1932)

(Directed by Michael Curtiz from a script by Robert Tasker and Earl Baldwin adapted from the stageplay TERROR, by Howard W. Comstock; starring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Lee Tracy, Preston Foster, Leila Bennett, and George Rosener. Released 03 August 1932; watched 2023w40 via Criterion Channel)

SYNTHETIC FLESH!

My passion for pre-code two-strip technicolor remains intact and, though I view DOCTOR X as the lesser of Curtiz's pre-code, Fay Wray-starring offerings (MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM is a masterpiece – and I prefer it to its 1953 remake), I can't help but love it. Will rewatch WAX MUSEUM before the month is out to cement that opinion – anticipate seeing DOCTOR X as trial run for things mastered in WAX: Atwill (one of my favorite actors) as the scientist; the globby makeup of the killer – SYNTHETIC FLESH!! –; Fay Wray screaming – no one was more luminous than she in two-strip technicolor; the newspaper reporter hero (barely Jimmy Olsen here in contrast to proto-Lois Lane in WAX); the fiery denouement in X being the inciting incident in WAX...

An entertaining romp that, if nothing else, kept me guessing and, unlike WAX MUSEUM, had a psychopath screaming SYNTHETIC FLESH! May revise my opinion accordingly.

DRAKULA HALÁLA (1921)

While working on a PostScript for my umpteenth rewatch (though first on Blu) of Murnau's NOSFERATU (coming later today), I came across this little bit of lost film gold: NOSFERATU wasn't the first on-screen appearance of Dracula (or litigious analogue) but the second. The first was a Hungarian film, now lost, DRAKULA HALÁLA, (DRACULA'S DEATH), directed by Károly Lajthay.

The plot - which doesn't follow the plot of the novel but sounds fascinating nonetheless:

Apparently only a few images, featuring stars Paul Askonas (Dracula) and Margaret Lix (Mary) from the film survive:

An announcement of its release:

As fascinating as all of this is – and it is, utterly, profoundly, for this Dracula nut who grew up making lists of vampire films with his grandfather – it’s who was, along with Lajthay, credited as a writer that floored me:

Now I really, REALLY want to see this – nevermind CASABLANCA: MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM is one of my favorites. And thus, my passion for lost films – tragic and without resolution though it may be – continues...