The Return of Doctor X
Nervy "New York Morning-Dispatch" reporter Walter 'Wichita' Garrett [Wayne Morris]
has just scored an interview with prominent stage star Angela Merrova [Lya Lys], who
has invited him to her apartment in the Park Vista Hotel. When Walt gets
there, he finds to his horror that Miss Merrova has been murdered. Someone
has stabbed her right under the heart and left her body lying on her
bedroom floor. With a scoop like this, Walt calls in the story to his
newspaper even before he calls the police. Before Detective Lieutenant Roy
Kincaid [Charles Wilson] arrives on the scene, the Morning-Dispatch has headlined the
murder in their extra edition. But, when Kincaid arrives at Miss Merrova's
apartment, the body has disappeared. The next day Merrova shows up at the
newspaper with the announcement that she's suing them for $100,000 for the
damage to her reputation due to false reports of her death. Not to mention
that the Park Vista Hotel also intends to sue for defamation to their
reputation. To top it all off, Walt is called on the carpet by his angry
boss and finds himself out of a job.Trying to find answers to how a person can be stabbed to death and
then show up alive, Walt pays a visit to his friend, Doctor Mike Rhodes [Dennis Morgan], a
surgeon at Jules Memorial Hospital. When Walt explains how he found
Merrova with a stab wound just under her heart, Mike admits that it's
unlikely she could survive. If the wound itself didn't kill her, she would
quickly bleed to death. "That's it!" Walt exclaims, suddenly realizing
that Merrova's corpse was dead white, as if all the blood had been drained
from her body, but where was the blood? Extreme pallor couldn't set in
that quickly, says Mike. Walt remembers that when he saw Merrova that
morning in the boss's office, she was as pale then as when he saw her as a
corpse.Mike offers to speak to Doctor Flegg [John Litel], the hospital's reknown
hematologist, In the meantime, however, Mike has problems of his own.
Stanley Rodgers [John Ridgely], the professional blood donor for Doctor Flegg's 10 AM
surgery has not shown up. Nurse Joan Vance [Rosemary Lane] has telephoned him and found
that he overslept but would be right over. Time passes, however, and
Rodgers still doesn't show. Mike doesn't know it, but Rodgers is never
going to show...he's dead. Dr Flegg has arrived, and the surgery is ready
to go. With no Rodgers, however, there is no blood donor. Furthermore,
Rodgers has Type I blood; only one in 700 people have that blood type.
Fortunately, nurse Joan is Type I and offers to step in for Rodgers.The surgery goes well. When Mike checks on Joan's condition, she is
still feeling a bit weak, so Mike asks her for a date tomorrow night. Mike
is suddenly called by the police and asked to come immediately to 438 Gore
Street. Since Walt is standing next to him and overhears everything, he
tags along. When they get there, they find Stanley Rodgers has been
stabbed near the heart and all the blood drained from his body...same as
Angela Merrova. Furthermore, the wound is so clean and precise that it
doesn't look like a stab wound at all; in fact, it looks like it was made
with a surgical instrument. Oddly enough, the coroner has identified blood
stains on the carpet as being from Group IV, which is impossible, as
Rodgers was definitely Group I. Thinking the coroner might have made a
mistake, Mike takes a sample of the blood to re-analyze.Back in the laboratory, Mike learns that the blood sample is
definitely NOT from Rodgers...nor from any human. In fact, Mike's opinion
is that it isn't even from an animal. Tired out from the day's activities,
Mike says goodnight to Walt and heads home to sleep. First, however, he
decides to take the blood sample over to Dr. Flegg's house, not knowing
that Walt is tailing him. As Walt peeks in through an open window, Mike
waits for Flegg in his laboratory. where he is joined by a strange looking
man with a pasty complexion and a skunklike stripe of white hair down the
center of his head. The man introduces himself as Flegg's assistant,
Doctor Marshall Quesne [Humphrey Bogart]. As Quesne is just about to talk with Mike about
the study of blood composition, Flegg returns. Obeying Mike's request to
take a look at the blood sample, Flegg pronounces it Type IV human blood
showing "the usual chemical changes accompanying post-mortem coagulation."
Mike wonders whether the blood has an artificial quality. Quesne, who has
been listening to the conversation, suddenly breaks a glass beaker that
he's been holding. Reiterating once again that the blood sample is Type
IV, Flegg shows Mike the door.Just as Walt is about to leave his perch at the window, a taxi drives
up and Angela Merrova gets out. Wondering why Merrova would be visiting
Flegg, Walt continues to peek in the window. He watches as Merrova enters
Flegg's examination room and promptly faints. When she comes to, she
complains of feeling cold, faint, and being unable to catch her breath.
"You're a failure," Quesne challenges Flegg. Flegg orders him out, then
procedures to hook up Merrova for a blood transfusion.The next day, Walt drops in on Mike and tells him what he saw through
the window. Walt is certain that he's seen Quesne somewhere, but he can't
remember where. At that moment, Flegg walks into Mike's office and asks to
speak to him alone. After Walt has left, Flegg asks Mike to forget
everyone he met and everything he saw last night at Flegg's house. He also
asks for the name and address of the nurse that provided the Type I blood
for yesterday's transfusion. When Flegg has exited, Walt returns. He tells
Mike about seeing Angela Merrova last night at Flegg's house and watching
him give her a blood transfusion. Mike suggests that they have a talk with
Merrova and plan to meet at her apartment that night at 9 PM. Remembering
his date with Joan, Mike agrees to bring her along; they can go to Club El
Ray afterwards.When they arrive that evening at Merrova's suite, they find her
languished on her settee, awaiting Dr Flegg. When she orders them out but
collapses in her chaise, Mike assumes his role as doctor, finding her
hands as cold as ice. He instructs Walt to pour her a shot of whiskey. The
whiskey seems to revive her, and she responds to Mike and Walt's
questions. She admits to being of Type I blood. She also tells them what
happened the morning she was murdered. After speaking on the telephone
with Walt, she became aware of someone in her room. Then a hand went over
her mouth, and she felt a sharp pain in her chest. After that, she lost
consciousness and has no recollection of what happened to her until the
next morning when she awoke in her own bedroom. She agrees to meet Walt
tomorrow morning at 10 AM and talk more about it then. Just then, Dr
Quesne, acting in Flegg's stead, enters the room.While on the way to drop Mike and Joan at the El Ray, Walt makes a
quick stop at his boss's house to tell him about Merrova's admission that
she was stabbed and to let him know that she plans to visit the paper in
the morning and tell them all about it. Excited at having his newspaper
exhonerated, the boss telephones the paper and orders them to hold the
presses for a news bulletin. He is surprised to find that a news flash has
just been issued...Merrova is dead, this time for sure. In fact, she's on
her way to Bixby's Undertaking Parlor, screams the boss as he tosses Walt
out the front door.Not willing to believe that Merrova is truly dead without seeing her
body, Walt and Mike head over to the undertaker. While Walt keeps the
undertaker busy, Mike examines Merrova. She's dead all right, he tells
Walt after they've left the parlor. Apparently, she died of natural
causes, and it was Flegg who called the undertaker to pick up the body.
Being as how it's after 1 AM by now and Joan is still sitting in the car,
they all head over to Gus's for hamburgers.The next morning Angela Merrova's death is in all the papers. Walt
goes over to the newspaper office and gets his buddy Pinky [Hunz Hall] to give him
access to the clippings files. After searching everything from A-W, Walt
starts in on X, and there it is! Marshall Quesne is Dr. Maurice J. "X"
Xavier, a prominent surgeon who was given the death penalty for his
experiments in which he allowed a baby to starve to death. According to
the newspaper clippings, Dr X was electrocuted two years earlier. Just to
be sure that the execution actually took place, Walt contacts the warden
who assures him that Dr X was indeed electrocuted, Dr Flegg claimed the
body, and Dr X now lies buried in Greenlawn Cemetery. Walt and Mike head
over to the Cemetery where, with the help of the cemetery caretaker, they
find Xavier's grave and dig it up. The coffin is empty.Walt is convinced that Flegg is guilty, but Mike isn't; they agree to
give Flegg a chance to explain. Flegg obliges, admitting that Quesne and
Xavier are the same person and that he has found a way to bring a dead man
back to life. He demonstrates the procedure on a dead rabbit. First, it is
necessary to prepare the rabbit by electrocuting him and decoagulating the
blood, something that the electric chair had already done for Dr X when he
came dead to Flegg. Next, he moves the rabbit over to another table where
he begins to transfuse ordinary rabbit blood into the rabbit. Then he adds
his special formula--"a compound ester in which essential blood salts have
been precipitated." After charging it electrically, he injects it into the
transfusion tubing. Within a few moments, the rabbit has been revived.
Mike and Walt are understandably astounded.This is essentially the same thing that was done to Dr X following
his death, explains Flegg. Although Dr X was a convicted murderer, he was
also a medical genius, and Flegg admits that he needed Dr X's help for
further research. However, after returning a person to life, there is the
further problem of sustaining it. A second project Flegg has been working
on is to create synthetic blood. That's the blood I found in Merrova's
body and in Rodger's apartment, exclaims Mike. The problem, Flegg
explains, is that the synthetic blood fails to recreate itself, which
means that Quesne stays alive by killing for human blood. And the blood he
needs is Type I. "May God forgive me," Flegg hangs his head. "I've created
a monster."No one has noticed that Dr. X has been listening at the window. When
Mike and Walt leave Flegg's house but are stopped outside by Lt Kincaid,
Quesne shoots Flegg and steals his list of Type I blood donors. Just
before he dies, Flegg tells Mike and Walt that Quesne has taken the list.
Knowing that Joan's name is on that list, Mike, Walt, and Kincaid go
looking for her, leaving Kincaid's assistant to care for Flegg.Unfortunately for Joan, Dr X is faster. Quesne tracks her down and
convinces her that he's been sent by Mike to take her to Flegg's home.
Joan goes willingly into a cab with him, until she realizes that they
aren't headed towards Flegg's house. Meanwhile, Mike and Walt have
discovered that Quesne went off in a cab with Joan and was overheard
telling the cabby to take them to Jersey. Walt remembers one of the
newspaper clippings that mentioned an abandoned duck club just outside of
Newark, the place where Dr X starved that baby. Walt, Mike, and Kincaid
head for Jersey.As Dr X prepares to exsanguinate Joan, Mike, Walt, and the cops
arrive. As Dr X comes at Joan with a scalpel, she screams, and the police
open fire. Dr X tries to escape via the roof, but he is shot down by the
police. As he lay dying, Dr X tells Walt to tell Dr Rhodes that they'll
have to postpone their talk on blood composition.Epilogue: Walt has been reinstated at the Morning-Dispatch, and his
heroic efforts have been rewarded by the mayor and district attorney. The
boss [Joseph Crehan] is now begging Walt to stay with the newspaper, but Walt has decided
to return to Wichita and refuses to sign a contract...until the pretty new
secretary brings it into the office. [Original synopsis by bj_kuehl]
murder