THE DEVIL-DOLL (1936) Four stars
Two men escape from Devil’s Island at the beginning of THE DEVIL-DOLL, director Tod Browning’s penultimate theatrical feature.

Paul Lavond (Lionel Barrymore), wrongly convicted and imprisoned for 17 years for looting his own bank and murdering a night watchman, wants nothing more than cold-blooded revenge against his three former business partners who set him up for the fall. They’ve been living high on the hog while he’s been rotting away in prison. That can produce a lot of hatred.

Marcel (Henry B. Walthall, 1878-1936), meanwhile, wants to return to his scientific work. He’s single-minded in purpose, just as Lavond. Marcel, an idealist through and through until his final breath, has developed a way to reduce people to one-sixth their original size and this all ties in with speculation on how mankind will find the necessary resources to feed a growing population. Marcel believes that he’s found the solution for the human race moving forward.

(With the world’s population projected at 10 billion by 2050, there’s articles already written on how we will feed our growing population.)

At the moment of his greatest scientific triumph, the first successful shrunken human, Marcel dies and then Lavond joins Marcel’s widow and assistant Malita (Rafaela Ottiano) in continuing Marcel’s work. Of course, Lavond intends to exploit this scientific breakthrough for his personal revenge with the ultimate goal of clearing his name and Lavond and Malita go to Paris to carry out Lavond’s master plan. Lavond, a wanted man, disguises himself as Madame Mandelip (call her Mrs. Dreadfire) and Lavond/Mandelip and Malita set up a shop selling lifelike dolls.

Lavond can mind control the miniaturized humans (first Marcel and Malita’s slow servant and then one of his former associates Rodan) and they carry out his revenge. Brilliant plan. I mean, what authorities would ever believe that you were attacked by a “devil-doll?” Not only that, but you wouldn’t even know what hit you until it’s too late.

Barrymore (1878-1954) finds the right notes to play the wide range presented to him throughout THE DEVIL-DOLL. On one hand, Barrymore played Mr. Potter in IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE 10 years after THE DEVIL-DOLL and Mr. Potter earned the No. 6 slot on the American Film Institute’s list of the 50 Greatest Villains. Barrymore uses some of the same notes playing Lavond, although he’s the main protagonist rather than main antagonist. On the other hand, it’s especially sad watching Lavond being unable to reveal himself to his estranged daughter (Maureen O’Sullivan) who’s adamant that she hates him; Lavond mostly contacts his daughter in the Mandelip guise. Mandelip earns a few laughs and like the later performances, for example, by Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in SOME LIKE IT HOT and Dustin Hoffman in TOOTSIE, they create legitimate characters that go beyond, way beyond the dudes-in-drag gimmick.

Walthall’s Marcel and Ottiano’s Malita belong alongside many of the great mad scientists throughout cinematic history. Malita is deliriously, delightfully loopy and, of course, relentless in the pursuit of continuing her dead husband’s legacy. Ottiano (1888-1942) became the subject of an article titled “Rafaela Ottiano: The Venetian Who Played the Villainess.” She’s a lot of fun.

Marcel and Malita fit one definition of mad (“carried away by enthusiasm or desire”) while Lavond fits another (“intensely angry or displeased”), and that gives THE DEVIL-DOLL a very interesting dynamic.