Basil Rathbone is excellent as a sinister psychiatrist who marries women with money and then kills them. Martin Kosleck is also great as his equally evil sidekick/henchman. I enjoyed Ralph Morgan too. He's great. The rest of the cast ranges from adequate to insufferable (John Howard!). There are some nice visual touches here for a B programmer. There are also some interesting things going on with the story that are unfortunately muddied by the trappings of the time. For example, a depressed character tries to commit suicide in a particularly shocking scene. The reaction of her boyfriend, and basically the reaction the filmmakers want the viewers to have, is that "there's nothing wrong with her the love of a good man won't fix." This is a backwards message to begin with but when the "good man" in question is an aggressive, angry, self-centered jerk it really sours things. It's a movie about a guy who kills women for money and we're put in the position of liking HIM over the film's hero. I like parts of the movie more than the whole and that's largely because of John Howard's truly horrendous character. He's just the pits. Still, see it for Rathbone and the other positives I mentioned.
Review of The Mad Doctor
