Anyone Know Much About The Devil-Doll?

[dorotheascloset]

1936, Lionel Barrymore & Maureen O'Sullivan. A little plot summary & info here... http://www.moria.co.nz/horror/devildoll36.htm .

I watched this on Halloween and was intrigued....not a GREAT film, but it had its moments and a unique plot. I wondered, though, if anyone here had any idea how they did the scenes with the shrunken people? They're really quite amazing for '36. I loved the one where the girl devil-doll (dressed rather like a gun moll) came to life in the little girls arms as she slept in bed...climbed down the bedding, went to the master bedroom & used a satin slipper to climb up to the dressing table to steal the jewels! The slipper was bigger than she, and it really was well done. The other when the scientist's wife made the dolls dance together.....really well done, better than some cinematography seen more recently!

Anyway, I became intrigued by it & wondered if anyone had any idea how it was done, or any other info about it. Thanks! Ang

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Well, I've got a VHS copy of Black Devil Doll From Hell -- the very worst move ever made, period. From 1984. So bad, it's not even good bad -- just bad bad.





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[Atomic Glee]

Huh - on first glance, I thought you were talking about Devil Doll, the horrid 1963 flick featured on MST3k.

Mortimer Snerd in "Fatal Attraction!"

BTW, the worst movie ever made is, IMHO, 1965's "Monster A Go-Go," which is unwatchably awful and dull right up to its insulting ending, basically summarized as "and then, there was no monster, and none of this ever happened. The end."

 

[moustache]

And i...

for some reason was thinking of the devilish doll from "Trilogy of Terror".
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073820/

The little Zuni doll that comes to life and chases Karen Black.When i was a kid and saw this,i was scared out of my wits for days.I still get chills!!

JD

 

[dr greg]

low low low

I recall 'The Horror of Party Beach' as being about as bad as it gets, and I haven't seen it since I was 9 years old, when you remember a movie that long for being crap...it's gotta be.

 

[Atomic Glee]

I recall 'The Horror of Party Beach' as being about as bad as it gets, and I haven't seen it since I was 9 years old, when you remember a movie that long for being crap...it's gotta be.

Ah...bad movies are one of my specialties.

"The Horror of Party Beach" - I'll have to disagree. It is a bad, bad movie - it, too, was on Mystery Science Theater 3000 - and I love it. It's a gleefully stupid little movie, that doesn't take itself too seriously. It just takes its premise - ridiculous hot-dog-mouthed sea monsters created by nuclear waste wreak havoc on east-coast beach parties while being fought by scientists with sodium - and runs with it. It's bad, but it's fun bad. Plus, I have a soft spot for the Del-Aires, the surf band featured in the film. They're just dorky enough, in a charming way, to be cool.

Of course, I'm a b-movie geek, so my judgement may not be sound.

 

[dr greg]

memories

hey don't get me wrong, I'm not being precious: I think Return of the Living Dead is one of the greatest films of all time, but I was a serious fan of monster movies as a kid, and Party beach let me down big time as I recall, gimme Monolith Monsters anyday.

 

[dorotheascloset]

Hmmmmm. I can't quite easily come up with something I feel that strongly about, at least not this early in the morning. But I do recommend the Devil-Doll.....if for no other reason than to see Barrymore in "drag" as an old woman running a doll shop. And of course the doll scenes.

Ang

 

[Feraud]

All this talk about Devil Dolls and Trilogy of Terror should have been discussed around Halloween time!!

Btw, The Zuni fetish doll scrared the heck out of me as a kid when I saw the episode! http://media.lawrence.com/img/photos/2004/10/28/scenezuni_t180.jpg

 

[jake_fink]

BTW, the worst movie ever made is, IMHO, 1965's "Monster A Go-Go," which is unwatchably awful and dull right up to its insulting ending, basically summarized as "and then, there was no monster, and none of this ever happened. The end."

That is an awful movie. Al Admason's Dracula vs Frankenstein is also awful. The hero gets zapped in the end by Dracula's magic ring because his contract was up and he was unavailable for reshoots. Dracula is played terribly by Adamson's accountant, and he has a beard and an afro. Horrid!!!

But funny.

The worst movie, the one that has no entertainment or production value whatsoever, is Troll 2. The worst movie EVAR!

AS to Devil Doll, it is a cool little movie (ar-ar-ar). The little people effects had been used previously by John Fulton in Bride of Frankenstein. In Devil-Doll they are use more extensively, a combination of mechanical effects, large props, in camera tricks and proocess shots. It still fools the eye very credibly. The movie was directed by the great Tod Browning, who made the other creepy classics Dracula, Freaks, and the now lost London After Midnight. So, just for it being his last (or second last - can't remember) movie, it's worth watching.