"Almost an insane obsession": a Halloween appreciation of The Devil-Doll

As we reach the season of All Hallows' Eve, I thought I would reflect some on one of my favorite "horror" films, as well as one of my favorite Lionel Barrymore films: Tod Browning's 1936 The Devil-Doll. It was not the first rodeo for the B&B pairing of Browning and Barrymore; they had worked together in The Show (1927), West of Zanzibar (1928), and Mark of the Vampire (1935) prior to 1936. Browning had already directed the influential films The Unholy Three, London after Midnight, Dracula, and Freaks--but after TDD, Browning only directed one more film, Miracles for Sale in 1939. His story is relatively well-known to movie buffs, and is in some ways quite tragic.

But I digress! Mr. B's appearances in his films for Browning were often excellent fits with the director's unique, psychologically challenging, unsettling, yet often humorous approach to material. Browning had been an actor before he began to write and direct, which may have helped him pull good performances from his players. In chronological order, Mr. B played an amoral mobster, an amoral and violent ivory dealer/philanderer, a moral "doctor" of parapsychology who was still involved in manipulative activity (though for highly moral purposes), and a vengeful former banker out to wreak havoc on those who framed him and left him to rot in a French prison for 17 long years but who still possessed a very tender heart.

The vast majority of online reviews tend to open with the "drag" or "cross-dressing" in the film, part of the narrative that allows Paul Lavond (Mr. B) to wander Paris and set his plans in motion as "Madame Mandelip", a gray-haired, beshawled and bespectacled tottering old woman. While I have some background to comment on why both terms used for the disguise are wrong, this is a layperson-audience review, so let's just say it's rather weak to think of the film as weird, odd, or sensational because of that or to focus on it as either perverse or unique; it's the story and well, one acts the story one signs on for! Allow me, then, to open with what I found the most compelling theme of the film: Lavond's lust for revenge combined with his deep desire to be sure the family he has left will be taken care of when he is gone--and he knows, very early on, as the audience should, that he will not be around to see his family vindicated.

The film opens with a dizzying title sequence with a spinning spiral image behind the words:

The film was written by Garrett Fort, Guy Endore, and Erich von Stroheim, with the story by Tod Browning based on the novel Burn Witch Burn by Abraham Merritt (readable online through Project Gutenberg Australia:Burn Witch Burn as serialized in Argosy ). It was filmed under the title The Witch of Timbuctoo. While it was the debut of actress Grace Ford (as Lachna), it was unfortunately the last film Henry B. Walthall (as Marcel, a fellow prison escapee and mad scientist) completed, as he died while making his next film. Walthall and Barrymore of course went back many years, to the Biograph period of their careers, and were in several films together (my favorites being Death's Marathon and The Switchtower). Filling out a fairly impressive cast were Maureen O'Sullivan as Lavond's daughter Lorraine, Frank Lawton as her boyfriend Toto, the awesome Rafaela Ottiano as Malita, and a sinister Robert Greig as Coulvet, one of  Lavond's former partners.

We see Lavond and Marcel, dressed in shabby clothes and cloth caps, crashing their way through dense jungle on Devil's Island as they escape from prison hounded by guards and dogs. There's a brief pause while both men, tired, certainly over 50, and stumbling, speak about escaping and what they are returning to: Marcel to his science experiments, Lavond to revenge on his former partners. Walthall, oddly, was only eight months older than Mr. B, but he is able to seem incredibly fragile, tired, and very old here, while Barrymore looks resolute, angry, and much younger. This will matter later in the film.


Eventually they do manage, after quite some time, perhaps several months, to make it to the isolated home where Malita, Marcel's wife, is continuing his experiments with the help of Lachna, an "inbred German half-wit". The experiments have to do with miniaturizing creatures in an effort to save humanity from starvation.

Barrymore, Walthall, and Ottian0

Lavond is welcomed and observes dubiously the goings-on in the home. I shan't give everything away, but suffice it to say, this look from Mr. B was probably on the face of many viewers of the film at this point:

He explains to Malita why he can't stay and help her and Marcel with their work--he has people to see in Paris. At this point we also discover he was once a successful banker whose partners turned out to be crooks. Later, Lavond is woken in the night by a commotion and goes carefully downstairs to see what is happening.

He discovers that they have moved on from miniaturizing dogs perfectly to miniaturizing humans--Lachna, specifically. In so doing, her brain was somehow "fixed" and she responds perfectly to thoughts directed at her. It is an odd and somewhat sensual-yet-creepy scene in the film.

Of course, at this point Marcel has to go and die:

Malita begs Lavond to help her, saying that can go to Paris, where there are many people, which makes this really quite wicked grin appear on Lavond's face:

From here on out, we have the story of Lavond's revenge play out, tempered by his deep affection for his daughter and elderly, blind mother (played by Lucy Beaumont, who had already played Mr. B's mother in A Free Soul, 1931). While viewers then would have had to buy ticket after ticket to catch all the nuances I can on DVD replay, the scenes between Mr. B and Beaumont and/or O'Sullivan are very impressive and emotionally fraught. Lavond cannot feel safe to let his daughter know who is under the disguise of an old lady and has to listen to Lorraine excoriate her father as a thief and wicked person whose arrest led to her mother's untimely death. As Lavond, Barrymore's eyes well up as he listens in Mme. Lavond's small and cold rooms to the daughter he barely knows but whom he deeply loves tearing him apart.

The action moves fairly quickly once Mme. Mandelip is introduced. Mr. B plays her not for laughs or even for sympathy, but straightforwardly as an innocent old woman with very little guile, an open book. Only rarely do any of his victims or the police get an idea she is not who she seems. Impressive special effects make the miniaturized and mindless tools of Lavond villainous but also allow them to have moments of brief levity in the films as the two mini-humans dance, run, hide, stalk, and commit mayhem for their thought-manipulating master.

Ottiano and Barrymore; Lavond is explaining his next steps, having in disguise just avoided police. There's little funny in Mr. B's expression!

It is a beautifully shot film, with Leonard Smith credited for photography. Browning's own skill at image arrangement and manipulation for effect shows: I found the use of close shots of Mr. B's blue eyes rather effective, and I hope intentional--his eyes still photographed as clear quite often and his unblinking stare to control his minions is disturbing.

Much action and skulduggery take place and a theme threads in of Malita figuring that Lavond doesn't intend to continue Marcel's work--Ottiano is very effective in an often over the top part, especially when she tries to turn the vicious "devil-dolls" against Lavond. Lavond's speech about how little he fears death, indeed expects it, is a mini-wonder of acting in its lack of pathos--he really knew what he was doing, why, and knows he has only one end for himself. Malita, of course, will hear none of it. Much action ensues.

When all is said and done, and it is a highly dramatic and effective conclusion to Lavond's plot, the man arranges to meet with his daughter's boyfriend, Toto, to reveal what has happened and how, now that the remaining crooked partner has confessed aloud, his family will be well cared for and his honor restored.

Here we see Mr. B "barefaced and as is" as he once wrote, speaking quietly but powerfully to Toto all the way up in the Eiffel Tower about his plot, deeds, and hopes for his family. He even seems to have dropped some years from his face, as his vengeance completed now makes him seem lighter in some ways in spirit, though assured of his own inevitable, self-made end.

He ends up getting to see his daughter one more time, though of course she does not recognize him. The four minute or so scene between O'Sullivan and Barrymore is very touching, and he gives a tremendous performance as one forced to keep hidden his true identity and speak of himself as already dead.  His voice hitches a little as he tries to express what he feels, but as a "friend" of her father's who escaped with him, and the tenderness is profound.

Lavond gives Lorraine "her father's" love via a light kiss on her forehead.

...then says the most important thing is to forget her father and continue with her own life. Stunning acting by both.

We are to understand that Lavond is going to commit suicide since he had already sent a letter of confession as Mme. Mandelip to the police and naturally, since his family would be restored to respectability, he would be under investigation as the one who had the most to gain from his ex-partners' predicaments and confession. But he is entirely philosophical about it as he says goodbye to Toto and Lorraine, commenting to the elevator operator who is taking him down from the observation deck of the Tower, "This just might be the best day of my life".

I find I rewatch this film often when I want to relax and can't decide upon a film that might do the job--yes, I know that's odd. And while some critics appreciated it for the novelty and for Mr. B's underplaying, it really ended up becoming a cult classic by word of mouth. The novelty, as Nugent pointed out in his NYT review, of Barrymore playing a little old lady is secondary to the creepy thrills and danger inherent in the idea of little "assassins" (none of the men actually die; the first one Lavond paralyzes becomes one of the mini-minions) sneaking about committing robbery and mayhem.

Rarely was Mr. B shown not in his Mandelip guise in ads for the film.

It seems to me that its true value lies in the balance Barrymore strikes in a potentially ludicrous plot theme requiring a disguise as an old lady and the sinister nature of Lavond's personal vendetta not only for vengeance, but for restitution. As the ad below makes clear, trying to categorize the film is difficult--there is some romance, but we end up far more interested in the machinations of Lavond/Mandelip and frankly, if one watches it with an open mind and little expectation, the guise of Mandelip seems more like a mask than a risible getup. Mr. B's instant ability to step into and out of character was well-documented in other films and comments by fellow performers. In The Devil-Doll, as Lavond/Mandelip he steps in and out of character without skipping a beat and his voice switches from high-pitched and wavering to his own strong baritone just as abruptly and don't allow a viewer to really realize it just happened. I don't think anyone familiar with his long history of work by 1936 really would have been "surprised" by his skill.

Much (probably unfair on both sides) comparison to The Unholy 3

I do hope some will take a chance on this film, which is very enjoyable, interesting, and compelling. It is available for free online, but I'd recommend a DVD of it for best quality. I don't think it will disappoint! Happy Halloween to all and best of the season!

Walthall, O'Sullivan, and Barrymore on set.