A shadow is cast against the wall of a hanging body rocking gently and the newspaper headlines scream out "Dr RX claims fifth victim". It's a great start that unfortunately isn't built upon. Dr Rx is killing the guilty murderers who are found innocent in trials, a great potential scenario. The set-up to the film of a reluctant freelance detective called Church (played by Patric Knowles being hired by his Lawyer friend, his being tricked into meeting a past love and the police calling upon his services takes up far too much laborious time in this short but seemingly long mystery thriller. While the body count from the unseen Dr RX rises there is little sense of menace. A lot of the film was improvised and the dialogue seems disconnected from the story which itself is edited so poorly as to be almost incomprehensible. One moment Church meets his old love, the next they are married. It's all very confusing and almost makes you stop watching in frustration. But the hints of a very underused Lionel Atwill being RX are strong enough to keep you watching. Atwill has little more than five minutes screen time and only a handful of lines but still dominates proceedings. It's a total waste and obviously the film should have been built around him.
Towards the end Dr RX kidnaps Church and there is a great scene of him demented in hood, preaching about his duty and saying he will transplant Church's brain to somewhat crazed and caged gorilla (sound familiar?). It doesn't fit into the film at all, but it's by far the best moment in this talkie saga. Atwill turns out to be helping Church to massive sighs of astonishment, the killer being the Lawyer friend who hired Church rather incredibly. All in all, most disappointing but worth a watch for collectors. Mention must be made of the awful racial stereotyping of Mantan Moreland who plays the bumbling butler stooge with all the comedy lines, we are directed to laugh at not with him and now the role would be thankfully entirely unacceptable. Despite getting about a third of the film on screen, he is unbilled. Why was Lionel Atwill wearing such thick glasses? We will perhaps mercifully, never know. 4/10.
Special Thanks to Mark Coyle for this Movie Review.