***
Perfect plot storm of horror, revenge, and familial despair as Lionel Barrymore hunts down the men who sent him to prison 17 years before with the aid of a scientist and her process for shrinking people to doll size, meanwhile trying to reconnect with the daughter who doesn't know he was falsely imprisoned and hates him as a result. The dolls in the early going are clearly dolls, but once the trick photography kicks in, all is good. Barrymore, an escapee, spends most of the film disguised as an old woman, playing it almost too well, as his creaky bones tend to slow the whole picture. Still, an admirable job all around, with a horrific (if unexplored) twist to the doll-people: will-less, they can do nothing unless mentally directed by someone of normal size. Written by Browning, Garrett Fort, Erich von Stoheim, and Guy Endore (whose famous novel, The Werewolf of Paris, was published three years earlier).
Perfect plot storm of horror, revenge, and familial despair as Lionel Barrymore hunts down the men who sent him to prison 17 years before with the aid of a scientist and her process for shrinking people to doll size, meanwhile trying to reconnect with the daughter who doesn't know he was falsely imprisoned and hates him as a result. The dolls in the early going are clearly dolls, but once the trick photography kicks in, all is good. Barrymore, an escapee, spends most of the film disguised as an old woman, playing it almost too well, as his creaky bones tend to slow the whole picture. Still, an admirable job all around, with a horrific (if unexplored) twist to the doll-people: will-less, they can do nothing unless mentally directed by someone of normal size. Written by Browning, Garrett Fort, Erich von Stoheim, and Guy Endore (whose famous novel, The Werewolf of Paris, was published three years earlier).