Silver Screen Standards: The Devil Doll (1936)
There’s nothing standard about the wild plot of the 1936 horror film, The Devil Doll, with its miniaturized zombie killers, mad scientists, use of drag as part of an elaborate scheme for revenge, and extensive special effects work showcasing its titular dolls, but the people in front of and behind the camera are very much icons of 1930s Hollywood. Only Tod Browning could be the director of such a weird horror gem, but it might be surprising to see the great Lionel Barrymore in disguise as a little old lady, with Tarzan star Maureen O’Sullivan as his unsuspecting daughter. Writing credits for the picture include Browning, horror veterans Guy Endore and Garrett Fort, and, more surprisingly, Erich von Stroheim, best known for his work as a silent film director and Oscar-nominated actor. If you enjoy Dr. Pretorius’s homunculi in Bride of Frankenstein (1935), or later horror classics like Attack of the Puppet People (1958), you won’t want to miss The Devil Doll, but for most viewers the real attractions will be Lionel Barrymore and a demented Rafaela Ottiano as the masterminds behind the tiny terrorists.
Barrymore stars as framed and wrongly imprisoned banker Paul Lavond, who has spent 17 years plotting his revenge before he escapes with a frail fellow inmate, a scientist named Marcel (Henry B. Walthall). After Marcel dies, Paul teams up with his widow, Malita (Rafaela Ottiano), to use Marcel’s miniaturization process as a means for vengeance against the three wealthy bankers who ruined Paul’s life and reputation. In Paris, Paul masquerades as kindly toy shop owner Madame Mandelip in order to get close to his targets but also to visit his blind, elderly mother (Lucy Beaumont) and his now-grown daughter, Lorraine (Maureen O’Sullivan), who doesn’t recognize the old woman as her long-absent father.
Most classic movie fans will know Lionel Barrymore from his role as the scheming Mr. Potter in It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), of course, and he’s also remembered today for performances in 1930s pictures like Grand Hotel (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Captains Courageous (1937), and You Can’t Take It with You (1938), but it’s quite a change of pace to see him in The Devil Doll. His character, Paul, is a man driven by revenge but not really a villain, as he recognizes that his quest for vengeance blackens his soul in spite of his original innocence. The only people Paul actively harms are the bankers who wronged him, but he doesn’t stop Marcel and Malita from shrinking their servant, Lachna (Grace Ford), and he uses the tiny woman as a weapon against his enemies. Barrymore nimbly performs this morally complicated character, brimming with wrath at his foes but softening in the company of his mother and daughter, and he also manages to adopt the persona of Madame Mandelip without making it too over-the-top. He even shows concern for the shrunken Lachna, scolding Malita for carelessness that might injure her, so we know that he still possesses both his sanity and a moral compass, as questionable as both might seem in some of his actions. As his various roles in other films demonstrate, Barrymore can play the villain, the loving patriarch, and the eccentric, but in The Devil Doll he plays all three in one character. It’s very like the roles Lon Chaney played in earlier Tod Browning pictures, although Chaney’s characters leaned further into madness and villainy, and Chaney had died in 1930, leaving Browning to find other options for his final films. Luckily for Browning, Barrymore proved game for this kind of role.
Barrymore’s performance might be notable for its complexity and relative restraint, but Rafaela Ottiano’s turn as Malita takes the opposite route, with a mad scientist the likes of which actresses rarely get to play, even today. Fans might know her from Grand Hotel (1932) or her memorable appearance as Russian Rita in She Done Him Wrong (1933), and she had supporting roles in dozens of other films between 1924 and her death in 1942. The Devil Doll gives her a big part with lots of great scenes, and Ottiano makes the most of the opportunity. Her Malita embodies an abundance of familiar horror tropes mixed together in one character. She’s equal parts henchwoman, having been the assistant to her husband, and scientist in her own right, carrying on the work during his imprisonment and after his death. She has a physical ailment that requires a crutch, a shock of white hair that predates that of Humphrey Bogart in The Return of Doctor X (1939), and the craziest stare any insane villain could hope to have. While Marcel originally imagined shrinking as a solution to insufficient global resources, Malita has become obsessed with it because of the power it gives her. The miniaturized dogs and people lose their free will and become zombies who only act under the controlling will of their creators. Malita doesn’t express concern for her victims as Paul does, but she delights in making the tiny people dance and bend to her commands. She’s very much a female counterpart to Dr. Pretorius (Ernest Thesiger) in Bride of Frankenstein, and it’s truly entertaining to see Ottiano tackle such an outlandish character.
For more weird horror from director Tod Browning, see The Unholy Three (1925), The Unknown (1927), and, of course, Freaks (1932). Lionel Barrymore also appears in Browning’s films The Show (1927), West of Zanzibar (1928), and Mark of the Vampire (1935). The idea of shrinking people appears in movies going back to the silent era, and it also features in Dr. Cyclops (1940), The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), and Fantastic Voyage (1966). You’ll find even more miniaturized people in Innerspace (1987), Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), Downsizing (2017), and the 2026 TV series, The Miniature Wife.
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— Jennifer Garlen for Classic Movie Hub
Jennifer Garlen pens our monthly Silver Screen Standards column. You can read all of Jennifer’s Silver Screen Standards articles here.
Jennifer is a former college professor with a PhD in English Literature and a lifelong obsession with film. She writes about classic movies at her blog, Virtual Virago, and presents classic film programs for lifetime learning groups and retirement communities. She’s the author of Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching and its sequel, Beyond Casablanca II: 101 Classic Movies Worth Watching, and she is also the co-editor of two books about the works of Jim Henson.
