I've been on a Lionel Atwill kick lately, watching some of his less famous films. Luckily I can find some of them on youtube to view for free. Last night I watched 'The Mad Doctor of Market Street. Youtube had a pretty decent copy. I'd never seen this one before. The title was intriguing. Turns out it really wasn't much of a horror movie or worthwhile except for Lionel Atwill fans. He does always play a good villain. The story starts out in the the city, San Francisco I think, where a "Mad Doctor' is conducting illegal experiments in suspended animation. He believes he can eventually conquer death. Unfortunately he kills a test subject who submits to the experiment in order to get money to feed his hungry family. The police know of his experiments and are after him. The story quickly moves from the city to an ocean liner where he is hiding out and then to a south seas tropical island, castaway style. I really wasn't expecting that. The plot as I said, is nothing to write home about...oh wait I am writing about it. To me the best part was the use of well known sound track music to effectively make a scene much scarier than it has a right to be. I believe it's the music from 'Son of Frankenstein' or one of the other Frankenstein Films. Also, Mr. Atwill is fun to watch as always. The down side besides the predictable story was the annoying characters in the film for comic relief. The IMDb gave the film an average rating of 5.2 out of 10. In my opinion it's barely a 3.

Mad scientist Lionel Atwill is at it again. This time he's run out of San Francisco for performing experiments that involve killing people so he can bring them back to life. He eventually makes his way to a tropical island where he uses his scientific abilities to fool the natives into thinking he has the power of resurrection. Minor Universal horror film is still enjoyable. Lionel Atwill is great as always. He's got some nice support from the likes of Noble Johnson, Claire Dodd, and John Eldredge. Nat Pendleton and cutie Una Merkel provide the comic relief. It's not a classic but any movie where Atwill plays a villain, especially a mad scientist, is worth checking out.

Lionel Atwill is the whole show here(practically) as he plays an unethical doctor whose experiments in suspended animation fail miserably. Now wanted for murder by the San Francisco police, he flees the city and boards a ship bound for the South Pacific. Unfortunately, there is a fire on board, and the ship sinks, leaving him and other survivors stranded on a remote island populated by primitive natives who come to worship him after he saves the life of the tribal chief's wife, though the worship goes to his head, really making him power "mad"! Can the other survivors expose him as a fraud? Despite Atwill's lively performance, this film is incredibly dull and forgettable.

Alright, let's get the story out of the way: "The Mad Doctor of Market Street" tells the tale of "Dr." Ralph Benson, a hobby scientist who likes to do occasionally fatal experiments in the fields of resuscitation and suspended animation. When the law catches up with him, he attempts to flee the country, but alas, his means of transportation sinks into the Atlantic ocean, where he ends up washed ashore an island with a handful of other survivors. There, Doc Benson sees a chance to continue his experiments, as he manages to fool the resident tribals into thinking he could bring the dead back to life. No one's ever pulled off the classic mad scientist with quite as much cold, sociopathic, yet strangely gleeful enthusiasm as Lionel Atwill did. It was for this very reason that I sought out this movie, and as it turned out, it was also its only saving grace. It's not that the movie is lousily produced; quite the contrary. The production values are rather high, as evidenced by the convincing and rather varied sets. What mars this one is simply the lack of a clear thematic focus. The movie shifts between wacky comedy, island romance, morbid medical thriller and (very mild) science fiction pretty much by the minute. I suppose this *could* all work together, but in this one, these elements just don't blend very well. Whenever there's a sense of tension, one of the comic relief characters pulls a stupid face or says something silly. Whenever the mood is lighthearted and even romantic, someone dies or Doc Benson schemes evilly. There's also a tad bit too much going on in terms of threats and dangers. The supposed villain of the movie is the titular doctor, but the real dangers are a fire on and the subsequent sinking of the ship, and a tribe of islanders, who are always on the verge of burning the group of survivors at the stakes for superstitious reasons. In between all of this, Doc Benson is more of an opportunistic, overachieving charlatan than a properly menacing villain, which only adds to the movie's overall vibe of inconsistency.Literally the only thing that manages to be consistent throughout is Atwill's performance. It's just a delight to watch him deliver his admittedly awesomely megalomaniac lines (the character refers to himself as the "God of Life" and aspires to become the "greatest man who has ever set foot on this earth") with this unique inflection of his. Ultimately, this is why I'm giving this a 6 instead of the maybe much more appropriate 4. As mediocre as everything else about it may be, there's no denying that this one really is an absolute treat for Atwill fans.