Dr. Cyclops

Dr. Cyclops is a 1940 American science fiction horror film from Paramount Pictures, produced by Dale Van Every and Merian C. Cooper, directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, and starring Thomas Coley, Victor Kilian, Janice Logan, Charles Halton, Frank Yaconelli and Albert Dekker.

The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Visual Effects (by Farciot Edouart and Gordon Jennings) at the 13th Academy Awards.

Fantasy and science fiction writer Henry Kuttner wrote a novelette adapting the film's story that appeared in the June 1940 issue of the pulp magazine Thrilling Wonder Stories.

Plot
In his primitive laboratory, somewhere in the Peruvian jungle, mad scientist Alexander Thorkel attempts to shrink all of humanity to reduce impact on the environment. At one point, he summons a team of ace biologists from America to examine a specimen in his microscope, since his eyesight is too poor for him to do so himself. One of them identifies iron crystal contamination, much to Thorkel's satisfaction. He then thanks them for their services and asks them to leave. Annoyed that they have travelled thousands of miles for nothing, they set up camp in Thorkel's stockade. There, they discover the area is rich with pitchblende, an ore of uranium and radium. Thorkel reveals he is shrinking living creatures, using radiation piped in from a radium deposit down a deep shaft. He invites the biologists to observe his apparatus, then locks them inside his radiation chamber, where they are shrunk to twelve inches.

Later, when Thorkel discovers their shrunken state is only temporary, he angrily suffocates one of them. The rest flee to the jungle. He sets out to hunt them down so they cannot expose him to the authorities. After shooting a second escapee, the other minaturized fugitives hide in one of Thorkel’s specimen cases and are brought back undetected to his lab. There, they conspire to kill Thorkel with his own shotgun when he lies down on his bed. Instead he falls asleep at his desk. They do manage to smash one lens from his glasses before he awakens. Thorkel chases the shrunken group to the mineshaft and is left hanging by a rope when a plank he is lying on breaks. One of them cuts the rope, and Thorkel plunges to his death. In time, when the survivors return to their original size, they begin their trek back to America.

Cast

 Albert Dekker as Dr. Alexander Thorkel
 Thomas Coley as Bill Stockton
 Janice Logan as Dr. Mary Robinson
 Charles Halton as Dr. Rupert Bulfinch
 Victor Kilian as Steve Baker
 Frank Yaconelli as Pedro Caroz
 Paul Fix as Dr. Mendoza
 Frank Reicher as Professor Kendall

Production
Dr. Cyclops was directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack, responsible a few years earlier for  King Kong. Like that film, Dr. Cyclops features elaborate sets and special effects. It is the first American horror film made in full, three-strip Technicolor; Doctor X (1932) and Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933) were made using the earlier two-color process. Schoedsack took special care to make certain that the color effects were believable.

Reception

Critical response
Variety gave the film a negative review, calling the film "dull" and criticizing the film's direction, story, and jumbled ideas. TV Guide awarded the film a mixed two out of four stars, noting the film's "novel" special effects, but felt that the film 'wasted the opportunity to explore its subject'.

Time Out London gave the film a mostly positive review, calling it "An engaging fantasy with brilliantly executed (though mostly rather unimaginative) special effects which look back to The Devil Doll and forward to The Incredible Shrinking Man. Let down by a dull supporting cast, but retrieved by the attractively pale, tremulous Technicolor." Dennis Schwartz from Ozus' World Movie Reviews rated the film a grade B+, commending Dekker's performance while also noting that the film was "one of those bad films that is good because it's so much fun, and its noteworthy trick photography is effectively used for its dazzling special effects--way before the use of CGI".

Film historian John Brosnan has written of Dr. Cyclops: "It's a fast-paced, inventive film though the dialogue is awful and the acting is undistinguished with the exception of Albert Dekker's portrayal of Dr Thorkel. As with Charles Laughton's version of Dr. Moreau, his evil is not a byproduct of scientific zeal but a deliberate choice of action. The special effects deserve a mention, being ingeniously contrived and rather convincing, but the film is also noteworthy for its two unintentional references to the war that was about to engulf the world and end with the prospect of a nuclear apocalypse - Thorkel draws the power for his device from a 'radium mine' and, with his shaven head and thick, round glasses, he resembles the wartime caricature of the 'beastly Jap'".

Home media
Universal Studios Home Entertainment released it on DVD in 2007 as part of a boxed set called The Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection Vol. 2, along with The Land Unknown, The Leech Woman, The Deadly Mantis and Cult of the Cobra.

See also
List of films featuring miniature people

References

External links

 
 
 
 
 

1940 horror films
1940 films
1940s American films
1940s English-language films
1940s science fiction horror films
American science fiction horror films
Films about size change
Films directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack
Films scored by Gerard Carbonara
Films scored by Ernst Toch
Films set in Peru
Mad scientist films
Paramount Pictures films