Sharkflei
Your blood may run cold, but you now find yourself pinioned to the story.
Neive Bellamy
Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.
Brennan Camacho
Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.
mark.waltz
What was already being done with Bela Lugosi over at Monogram was done on an A-Grade budget (but released as a "B" feature) for this bottom of the bill 20th Century Fox programmer where George Zucco (who also had done these types of roles at both Monogram and PRC) plays the mad doctor messing around where he shouldn't and paying the ultimate price. Impressive to look at with an appropriately creepy atmosphere, this was obviously intended to rival what Universal was doing (in that case with Lionel Atwill as the mad doctor), not Monogram (nobody at the time cared about them), and the results are rather impressive. Zucco is the seemingly kind doctor who is revealed to being behind some rather nefarious deeds which result in bizarre activities and obviously concern a rather frightening looking creature, played here with great sympathy by the underrated J. Carroll Naish. There are obvious references to Edgar Allan Poe (most obvious, the name of the inn is "The Black Cat"), a publicity stunt considering that the hero of this film (Sheppherd Strudwick) played Poe the same year in another Fox film. There is also a rather disturbing sequence involving a dog that may offend animal lovers, but it is appropriate here considering the theme.While the film is certainly extremely entertaining and everybody takes the material seriously, the most obvious deficiency is that the Monogram films of this nature, while artistically less notable, are a lot more fun. This lacks the camp element of those films and while Zucco can certainly be over-the-top in the more dramatic scenes, he has little of that here. You will certainly feel for his "victim", a brilliant performance by Naish, a tragic character who reveals the pain of his circumstances just by a distraught look. Veteran criminal character actor Mike Mazurki gets a few over-the-top moments which leads to some surprises in the conclusion.
kidboots
"Dr. Renault's Secret" is a remake of "The Wizard" a lost film from 1927 that was in turn based on "Balaoo" a 1912 short story by Gaston Leroux. In "The Wizard" the plot involved a mad doctor (Gustav Von Seyffertitz) using an ape like creature to seek revenge on those he considers responsible for his son's execution. It was more of a comedy horror, with a couple of dumb detectives - a genre that was very much in vogue in the late 20s. "Dr. Renault's Secret" doesn't play it for laughs - in fact it tries to bring a lot of sensitivity to the distasteful subject matter.Dr. Larry Forbes (John Sheppard) arrives in France (the locale of the original Leroux story) to meet his fiancée Madelon Renault (Lynne Roberts), the niece of Dr. Renault (George Zucco) another scientist. He is greeted by Noel (J. Carroll Naish), a zombie like creature who has a strange affection for Madelon. He also meets Rogell (Mike Mazurki), Renault's gardener, who by intimidation keeps the villagers in fear. Next morning one of the guests at the inn is found murdered - he had accidentally fallen asleep in Forbe's room. Suspicion falls on Rogell and he does nothing to show he is innocent. Weird things begin to happen when Forbes arrives at Dr. Renault's. Noel almost has a car accident when he "senses" a dog on the road - the same dog who savagely attacks him before the evening is over.If you watch the original trailer (that is on the DVD I have) it gives almost everything away. Dr. Renault's secret is - he has captured an ape in Java and through experimentation and plastic surgery has tried to make him more human like. J. Carroll Naish engages your sympathy from the start, not only with his plaintive voice which is like a slow motion Peter Lorre but he also carries himself in a hunched fashion with a simian walk. George Zucco is the repellent Dr. Renault, who keeps Noel in a fearful, subservient state with the help of a huge whip. It is interesting that Rogell is part of an experiment as well - a failed experiment because Rogell, coming from a family of criminals, his bad character is ingrained in him and will never change. A spate of murders happen in the village and from the start it is not hard to figure out who it is - with shots of a concerned Noel looking at his hands!!!George Zucco was a British stage actor who earned the nickname at Universal "One Take Zucco". He appeared in so many monster flicks in the 40s ("The Mad Ghoul", "Voodoo Man", "Fog Island") usually for smaller independents that if you look up Mad Doctor or Mad Scientist in the dictionary you will probably find his picture.P.S. The print I viewed was so clear that I could even see strings used as a pulley when Rogell was thrown in the water.Highly Recommended.
Michael_Elliott
Dr. Renault's Secret (1942) ** (out of 4) Dull horror film about Dr. Renault (George Zucco) and his little secrets including his mentally challenged assistant (J. Carrol Naish). For some reason this is a rather well known film among horror fans but I can't see why because the big "secret" is easy to see within the first five minutes and the rest of the film is slow and boring. The movie is somewhat hard to find so perhaps that's a reason for its cult following. Zucco and Naish are mildly entertaining but the film goes no where in the end and winds up wasting their talent.
MartinHafer
George Zucco is a scientist and to fans of the horror genre, it's not at all surprising that he's a mad scientist since he's played this in so many low-budget films. His assistant is the rather dim and violent J. Carrol Naish. It's obvious SOMETHING is wrong here, but at first it is a bit vague. Unfortunately, though, the film telegraphs its "dark secrets" and the plot seems awfully familiar, so when things do heat up, it never really gets very exciting. I'm not a genius, but I pretty much figured out the plot after watching the film for 10 minutes.So why, then, did I watch this very bland film? Well, I like the genre and assume those who like these cheesy old horror films would also probably stick it out until the end--especially since this film is less than an hour long. However, if this isn't your style of film, there's nothing about this one that will convince you to watch another.By the way, my wife says I'm too picky, but this was a sloppy film in several places. In one scene, a man is strangled to death but as his corpse is being thrown out a window, the "dead man" visibly moves his arms to give his attacker and easier time tossing him! A short time later, a man is killed in a barber shop where there is a shade drawn over the glass door. But, when the police break the glass to enter, the shade is up, not down!
