Warner Archive Hollywood Legends Of Horror Blu-Ray Collection Releases October 14th!

Review by John Larkin

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It is great to see Warner Archive putting out multi-film collections like this. For collectors, these sets make it much easier to fill in the gaps of a shelf all at once rather than chasing down individual titles. This particular lineup, subtitled Classic Tales of Mad Passions and Madder Deeds, is a strong one. If there is a small wish, it would have been wonderful to see Michael Curtiz’s MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933) included here, since its lurid pre-code chills and Technicolor glow would have fit seamlessly alongside DOCTOR X and MAD LOVE. Even so, what Warner Archive has assembled is a fascinating sextet of films about obsession, disguise, and the dangerous pull of power.

DOCTOR X (1932)

Michael Curtiz’s DOCTOR X is one of the great oddities of early sound horror. Shot in two-strip Technicolor, its eerie orange and green palette creates an atmosphere that feels both artificial and unsettling, the perfect backdrop for a story of a serial killer connected to a group of eccentric physicians. Lionel Atwill presides over elaborate experiments while Fay Wray provides both romantic warmth and shrieking terror. It ends in a grotesque revelation that is as much pre-Code perversity as it is whodunit payoff. Warner Archive’s Blu-ray, sourced from the surviving nitrate Technicolor print, lets the film’s queasy hues glow with new life.

THE RETURN OF DOCTOR X (1939)

Sharing little more than a title with its predecessor, THE RETURN OF DOCTOR X shifts into pulp science fiction territory. Humphrey Bogart, in a rare horror role he later disdained, plays a pale, resurrected killer sustained by rare blood. The plot moves briskly, centering on a journalist’s investigation, and the mood is closer to Warner’s crime B-pictures than Gothic horror. Still, Bogart’s unsettling presence makes it an irresistible curiosity.

MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935)

Tod Browning drenches MARK OF THE VAMPIRE in Gothic atmosphere: cobwebbed castles, shrieking bats, and Bela Lugosi drifting silently through shadows as Count Mora. Yet the film ends on a satirical twist, revealing the supernatural hauntings as an elaborate masquerade designed to trap a killer. The result is both eerie and comical, a sly commentary on the very tropes Browning had made famous in DRACULA. For audiences, it works as both a pure exercise in mood and an early example of horror turning its own conventions inside out.

THE MASK OF FU MANCHU (1932)

Few films of its era feel as fevered as THE MASK OF FU MANCHU. Boris Karloff revels in the role of Fu Manchu, a sadistic mastermind seeking the relics of Genghis Khan, while Myrna Loy nearly steals the picture as his daughter, equal parts seductive and cruel. The story is pure pulp Orientalism, troubling by modern standards but fascinating as an artifact of pre-Code abandon. Torture chambers, forbidden rituals, and kinky menace abound, giving the film a delirious charge that still shocks. Warner Archive restores the film to its original uncut form, preserving both spectacle and scandal.

MAD LOVE (1935)

Directed by Karl Freund and starring Peter Lorre in his American debut, MAD LOVE is a tightly wound tale of obsession curdling into madness. Lorre plays Dr. Gogol, a surgeon who becomes fixated on an actress and grafts a murderer’s hands onto her injured husband. Lorre’s bald, wide-eyed performance makes Gogol pitiful one moment and terrifying the next. The surgical scenes are unnervingly tactile, and the story, adapted from Maurice Renard’s THE HANDS OF ORLAC, blurs the line between tragedy and horror. Freund’s camerawork and Lorre’s performance elevate it into one of the most haunting entries of 1930s horror.

THE DEVIL-DOLL (1936)

Browning closes the set with THE DEVIL-DOLL, a bizarre yet oddly poignant revenge story. Lionel Barrymore escapes from Devil’s Island, disguises himself as an old woman, and employs shrunken humans created by a fellow scientist to exact justice on those who wronged him. The effects work, miniaturizing the “doll people,” remains clever and effective, while Barrymore’s performance mixes righteous anger with surprising pathos. It is pulp melodrama wrapped around an uncanny science fiction conceit, and it lingers for its sheer uniqueness.

Obsession, Masquerade, and the Price of Power

Threaded together, these films all meditate on obsession and the masks people wear. Atwill’s scientific cabal hides unspeakable appetites, Bogart’s revenant walks in daylight with dead eyes, Lugosi’s vampire turns out to be an actor in a hoax, Karloff cloaks cruelty in exotic ritual, Lorre makes love into a surgical compulsion, and Barrymore dons a grandmother’s dress to serve vengeance. Each story is about crossing limits and paying the price for it.

This Warner Archive set is a concentrated lesson in how early sound cinema mixed Gothic mood, pulp excess, and pre-Code daring into something that still feels charged. These are films of invention, films of masquerade, and films of obsession. And while MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933) would have been a natural fit to complete the lineup, what is here is a generous gift to collectors and a vivid reminder that mad passions and madder deeds never go out of style. The perfect set to pick up in time for spooky season. I'll be continuing to dive in throughout the month of October!