THE DEVIL DOLL / MGM - 1936

Tabonga's back from computer limbo, hopefully, better than ever!.. Our feature is a great little film from MGM, directed by Tod Browning and based on the story "Burn, Witch, Burn." It's all about a former banker who was wrongfully accused of fraud by his partners and spends 17 years in prison before making an escape with another elderly inmate, a proclaimed scientist. They make their way to the scientist's house, where he and his wife have invented a way to minimize objects, in an attempt to reduce the size of people in order to save space and food in the future.

Eegah!! sent over a nice little soundclip from the movie, sooooo, you can push the big red 'GO' button there next to the flying saucer kiddie ride, NOW, Ralphie The Tarantula! Here's our audio offering for... THE DEVIL DOLL!

Here are Lionel Barrymore as the wrongfully accused Lavond, Henry B. Walthall as the scientist Marcel and Maureen O'Sullivan as his wife, Lorraine. Marcel is showing Lavond some of his little creations.

Then, Marcel and Lorraine miniaturize their maid, experimenting on a human this time! But, there is a problem, the process damages brains in living beings, reducing them to puppets that can be easily controlled by thoughts and words.

Lavond is horrified by all this at first, but after Marcel dies, he decides to move him and Lorraine back to Paris, where he can open a doll shop near his enemies, the one's who had lied and sent him to prison.

Wearing the disguise of dollmaker Madame Mandilip, Lavond is filled with hate for the ones that did him wrong, especially since his wife committed suicide and it turned his daughter against him! Tonight, he has a little (ha ha) surprise for one of his old friends!

His gift, the miniaturized maid, to the small daughter of his foe is activated, she goes first and recovers some of his dead wife's jewelry stolen from his estate. She drops the jewelry out the window and it falls into his bag!

Then, she sneaks up to her victim and injects him with a permanent paralyzing serum!! You can read about it in the papers...

The fear generated by Lavond's dolls gets the last dirty filthy bastard to confess to the crime, finally vendicating Lavond.

Lavond tries to convince Lorraine to destroy the shop and everything in it, the jig is up and there is no sense to continue the experiments... Lorraine doesn't take the news well...

She throws the vile of explosives and demolished the shop completely, allowing Lavond to escape the murder charges, since it's believed that Madame Mandilip was the killer!