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| zz005| Dr. Cyclops |
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| Director: Ernest B. Schoedsack |
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Malcolm Stuart Boylan, Tom Kilpatrick |
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| Producer: |
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Dale Van Every, Merian C. Cooper, William LeBaron |
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| Cast: |
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Albert Dekker, Thomas Coley, Janice Logan, Charles Halton, Victor Kilian |
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Black and White |
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| Studio: Universal Studios |
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DVD Region: 1 |
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Unrated |
| DVD Release: Mar 1992 |
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Discs: (DVD) [$14.98] |
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Reviews: Special effects took a clever step forward with the release of Paramount's "Dr. Cyclops" in 1940. This wasn't the first movie to deal with the miniaturization of human beings ("The Bride of Frankenstein" and "The Devil Doll" addressed the issue earlier), but it was the first to devote its visual effects to depicting the dangers of being tiny in a full-scale world. Introducing themes and images that would later be perfected in "The Incredible Shrinking Man", the story is set in a remote Peruvian jungle, where the bald, bespectacled mad scientist Dr. Thorkel (Albert Dekker) uses his secret "radium machine" to reduce humans to one-fifth normal size.
When two American explorers stumble upon the doctor's lab, they're captured and shrunken, suddenly finding that cats, chickens, and even raindrops now pose a deadly threat to their survival. The doctor and his experiments must be destroyed, and the film winds down to a predictable conclusion. "Dr. Cyclops" is now merely a curio for science fiction fans, but it's blessed with the same spirit of adventure and innovation that was gloriously evident in director Ernest B. Schoedsack's best-known previous film, the original "King Kong". Photographed in three-strip Technicolor, "Dr. Cyclops" earned an Academy Award nomination for its visual effects (losing the Oscar to "The Thief of Baghdad"), and remains an enjoyable milestone in imaginative cinema. "--Jeff Shannon" |
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