Stubs - The Return of Doctor X

The Return of Doctor X (1939) Starring: Wayne Morris, Rosemary Lane, Humphrey Bogart, Dennis Morgan. Directed by Vincent Sherman. Screenplay by Lee Katz. Based on the short story "The Doctor's Secret" by William J. Makin in Detective Fiction Weekly (30 Jul 1938). Producer (Executive Producer): Jack L. Warner, Hal B. Wallis. Run time: 63 minutes. USA Black and White. Mystery. Horror.

If you ever needed proof that Warner Bros. didn’t know what they had in Humphrey Bogart, you need look no further than The Return of Doctor X. Signed, at the insistence of Leslie Howard, to recreate his stage success as Duke Mantee, the psychotic gangster in The Petrified Forest (1935), Bogart landed at a studio that already had two gangster stars on the payroll, James Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. Warners used Bogart in as many films as they could, including seven in 1939 alone.

Even though Bogart had a reputation for turning down assignments, which did not ingratiate him to Jack L. Warner, he did not turn this one down. He wasn’t the studio’s first choice for the role of Dr. Quesne. Originally, they wanted Boris Karloff for the role, but his work on Enemy Agent prevented him from appearing. Next, Warners approached Bela Lugosi for the part, but he turned them down. Actor James Stephenson was then assigned to the role, but he left to appear in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex. Bogart, the fourth choice, took the role to work with his friend, Vincent Sherman, who was given the film as his first directorial assignment.

Humphrey Bogart was the 4th choice for the
role and doesn't look happy about it.

Sherman may not have understood that the film was meant to be a “B” picture, because he took ten takes of one simple 45-second shot, which lead Warners to warn producer Bryan Foy that "If he does this again, he won't be on the picture any longer." But Sherman prevailed and remained on the picture and would go on to direct films and television until the 1980s.

Before we get going, let me point out that despite the title, genre, studio and the fact that the protagonist is also a newspaper reporter, this is not a sequel to Dr. X (1932), directed by Michael Curtiz.

The film opens in the newsroom of a daily paper. Reporter Walter Barnett (Wayne Morris) sees a notice that stage actress Angela Merrova (Lya Lys) is in town and arranges to interview her. But while she’s on the phone, we see the shadow on the wall behind her.

When Walter arrives, the door is opened and he stumbles in. He finds the actress’ dead body on the floor of her bedroom. Rather than call the police, he calls his editor (Joseph Crehan) and the story appears in the newspaper before the police even arrive to investigate the murder. Detective Ray Kincaid (Charles Wilson) arrives, but there is no body, only the actress’ monkey.

Walter goes from celebrated reporter to unemployed when a very much alive Merrova shows up at the newspaper. With lawsuits from her and the hotel where she lives to deal with, the editor lets Walter go. But Walter isn’t done with the case. He goes to see his friend Dr. Mike Rhodes (Dennis Morgan), who is preparing for surgery. He explains that Merrova was dead with a knife wound one day and alive the next. Rhodes promises to ask Flegg, a blood expert, about it before going off to prep for surgery.

The patient apparently has a rare blood type and needs a transfusion prior to surgery and the arrival of surgeon Dr. Francis Flegg (John Litel).

Student nurse Joan Vance (Rosemary Lane)

When the usual blood donor doesn’t show, student nurse Joan Vance (Rosemary Lane), who also has the same rare blood type, offers her services. The surgery is a success. Dr. Rhodes explains Walter’s issue to Flegg and is told his friend should change liquors.

Joan ready for the blood transfusion.

Rhodes is enamored with Joan and asks her out for the next night and she agrees before he is called away by the police. Walter accompanies him to the apartment of the donor, who has been found dead, his body drained of blood. Detective Kincaid lets him take a sample of the blood, which he examines.

The blood is not the same type as the victim’s, but doesn’t seem to be exactly the type the police say it is. After saying he’s going home, Dr. Rhodes takes the sample to Dr. Flegg’s office. When Walter realizes that his friend has ditched him, he follows Rhodes and observes the happenings in the office through a window.

Dr. Rhodes (Dennis Morgan) brings a blood sample to  Dr. Francis Flegg
(John Litel) and also meets Dr. Quesne (Humphrey Bogart).

Dr. Flegg is not that there when Rhodes arrives, but Dr. Quesne (Humphrey Bogart) is. He introduces himself and slinks away when Flegg arrives. Quesne prepares a slide of the blood sample Rhodes brought and Flegg identifies it as type 4, the same as the police. Rhodes doesn’t quite believe him, but leaves anyway.

Walter sticks around and observes Merrova arriving and getting a blood transfusion from Dr. Rhodes.

The next morning, Walter shows up at Rhodes’ office and confesses what he saw through the window. He is asking about Dr. Quesne when Dr. Flegg arrives and asks Rhodes to forget everything he had seen the night before. But that only makes Walter and Rhodes more suspicious. Even though he has a date with Joan, Rhodes agrees to go with him the following night when he goes to talk to Merrova.

 Dr. Rhodes and Walter (Wayne Morris) come to talk to Angela Merrova (Lya Lys).

Once again, her apartment door is unlocked, but this time she is very much alive, though very weak. She is waiting for Dr. Flegg to arrive, but still agrees to answer their questions. She confesses to the attack the day before, but doesn’t know anything more than that. She agrees to come to the newspaper office the next morning and confess everything.

While they're there, Dr. Quesne arrives.

Just then, Dr. Quesne arrives instead of Flegg and Walter and Rhodes excuse themselves. They drive over to the editor’s house and even though it’s late, rouse him from bed. He is excited about the story and calls the night editor about the pending story, but he is informed that Merrova has been found dead in her apartment.

Date night for Joan includes a trip to the undertakers, where Walter learns that Dr. Flegg had called them to pick up the body. Meanwhile, Dr. Rhodes surreptitiously examines Merrova’s body and confirms she had been drained of her blood.

The next day, Walter goes back to the paper’s morgue, run by Pinky (Huntz Hall). He is looking for information about Quesne, but there isn’t any. Insisting he’s seen his face before, he finds a series of articles about Dr. Xavier, who had been put on trial for the murder of a baby he starved to death as part of his research. He had been sentenced to death by electrocution and buried at a nearby cemetery. When the editor catches Walter, he chases him out, but not before Walter manages to pocket the clippings.

Walter and Rhodes go there the next night and, with the help of the groundskeeper, dig up Dr. Xavier’s grave, only to find the coffin empty.

They go back to Dr. Flegg’s and he eventually confesses that he had been able to bring Dr. Xavier back to life, using a dead rabbit to explain how he did it. When asked why he choose to save Xavier, he tells Rhodes that Xavier was a medical genius. Flegg has been trying to develop synthetic blood, but the experiments have failed. In order to survive, Xavier has been killing people with his rare blood type and taking their blood, including Merrova and the hospital’s blood donor.

Walter and Rhodes leave and are greeted by the police, who have been waiting for them and want to arrest them for grave robbing. 

Meanwhile, Quesne, who had been watching Flegg through the window, comes back and demands Flegg’s list of Type 1 donors. When Flegg refuses, Quesne shoots him. Quesne manages to escape with the list before the police, Walter and Rhodes return after hearing the gunshots. Flegg tells them that Quesne has the list of donors, of which Joan’s name and address are included.

Dr. Quesne kidnaps Joan.

Detective Kincaid drives Walter and Rhodes through traffic, but they are too late. Quesne has already accosted Joan and told her that Dr. Rhodes had sent him to bring her to Flegg’s office. Joan becomes suspicious when the taxi they’re in doesn’t go to Flegg’s office. Quesne ends up anesthetizing Joan in the back of the cab.

Using the newspaper clippings that Walter stole from the paper’s archive, they determine that Quesne is taking Joan to his old lab in New Jersey and with a couple of more police officers, they hurry there.

Meanwhile, Quesne preps Joan to extract her blood. He is about to cut into her when the police arrive. There is a shootout and Quesne ends up dead and Rhodes ends up with Joan.

Walter, meanwhile, is prepared to leave the newspaper and return to his hometown and work on a novel. But the editor promises him a daily column if he stays. When Walter refuses, the editor uses his new secretary’s, Miss Lawrence (Gwen Seager), sex appeal to convince Walter to stay.

The film suffers from some unbelievable aspects that seem to have been standard for films of the time. The fact that a story about a murder could be reported, printed, and on the street in the same day and before the police were notified should have been hard to swallow for audiences in 1939. That is lightning fast, even and especially in those days.

Quesne, using a taxi, manages to beat the police, who are driving using sirens, to Joan’s apartment house. That seems implausible at best, but it is one of those plot points that the film hinges on. It seems to be a weak point when something implausible has to happen for the story to continue.

But those are minor points and not unusual for films at the time. Moving the story forward in quick fashion seems to be the marching orders; plausibility is often collateral damage.

While the film was a success in its day, “turned a nice profit”, the real reason people would want to watch the film today is for Humphrey Bogart, who received third billing in the cast. His star would, in a few years, eclipse not only everyone else’s in the cast, but everyone at Warner Bros. There is really no way around it, this is not a great role for Bogart and he knew it, saying, “This is one of the pictures that made me march in to Jack Warner and ask for more money again. You can't believe what this one was like. I had a part that somebody like Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff should have played. I was this doctor, brought back to life, and the only thing that nourished this poor bastard was blood. If it had been Jack Warner's blood, or Harry's, or Pop's, maybe I wouldn't have minded as much. The trouble was, they were drinking mine and I was making this stinking movie."

Humphrey Bogart is miscast as Dr. Quesne.

It is hard to sugarcoat any evaluation of his acting here. His casting seems to be more as a punishment rather than he was a good fit for the part. He seems to do the best he can with it, but the only time it seems natural for him as an actor is the very end of the film, when he is firing a gun during the gunfight with the police and doing what Bogart’s character seemed in most of his early roles, die.

You have to remember this was considered a “B” picture since someone like Wayne Morris is the lead. Nothing against Morris, but he never really amounted to much as a leading man. His breakout film appears to be Kid Galahad (1937), in which he played the lead character, though the stars of the film were Edward G. Robinson and Bette Davis, with Bogart again in third-billing. He is a likable actor, though sort of non-distinct. He would become a Navy flier during World War II and that four-year absence would cost him his shot at stardom. He would continue to act in films, but they were ones of lesser and lesser quality, though he would play a major role in Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (1957) towards the end of his career.

Wayne Morris and Dennis Morgan are likable actors, but
this is obviously a “B” picture in both budget and plot.

Dennis Morgan, according to one obituary, “was perhaps cast once too often as the likable, clean-cut, easy-going but essentially uncharismatic young man who typically loses his girl to someone more sexually magnetic.” Here he gets the girl, but he is not charismatic as Dr. Rhodes.

Born Earl Stanley Morner, Morgan began his film career at MGM, where he was billed as Stanley Morner. He moved to Paramount, where he was briefly redubbed Richard Stanley, before ending up at Warner Bros. as Dennis Morgan. After this film, Morgan would get promoted to “A” pictures like The Fighting 69th (1940), supporting James Cagney and Pat O'Brien, and Three Cheers for the Irish (1940) opposite Priscilla Lane. At RKO, he would star opposite Ginger Rogers in the hit film Kitty Foyle (1940). Back at Warner Bros., he was the lead male in Christmas in Connecticut (1945) opposite Barbara Stanwyck.

If Rosemary Lane seems familiar, it may be because she was one of the four Lane sisters, which included Leota, Lola, and Priscilla. Rosemary appeared in a series of movies together with Lola and Priscilla in Four Daughters (1938), Four Wives (1939), and Four Mothers (1941). Rosemary would also appear in The Oklahoma Kid (1939), amongst other roles. She’s fine here, though hardly a stand-out performance. She isn’t given much to do and is, through several scenes, left in the car off camera.

I can’t say I really liked The Return of Doctor X, despite my fondness for Bogart. Quesne is an odd and unique character, part Zombie (living dead) and vampire (living off the blood of others), and more could have been made of him. Instead, too much time is spent on Walter and Rhodes and not enough on Quesne. The film plays like a murder mystery when it could have been a fairly original horror film if it had tried. Outside of a shadow on the wall in the beginning, there is really nothing scary or even sinister about the film.

Bogart could not save this film even if he wasn’t miscast as the undead. If you’re looking for a good horror film,. then I would suggest you keep looking.