The Return of Dr. X (1939)
The appeal of this movie may be the opportunity to see Humphrey Bogart play a fearsome monster — the horrible Dr. X. Dr. X (known in this film by two names: both “Marshal Quesne” and “Maurice J. Xavier”) — a murderer and medical genius brought back to life by John Litel, who plays an eloquent scientist passionately interested in saving life. Litel invents a “usable, renewable synthetic blood” that will waken the dead. The problem is that it fails to “recreate itself” unlike human blood. Bogart thus must steal the blood of others to stay alive, which makes him a very pale, nervous, unlikely vampire. There is an appearance by Lya Lys as a half dead European movie star (she is also the female lead in Salvatore Dali and Luis Bunuel’s surrealist classic — L’Age d'Or). But what really makes The Return of Dr. X a cult film is the revelation that through all this lunacy and under pounds of white clown makeup, eye shadow, and (weirdly) lipstick, Bogart somehow remains Bogart. Though he certainly played sensitive men as well as thugs, Bogart always remained himself. So does his performance in The Return of Dr. X challenge our belief in the ultimate power of cinema to deceive? It does not. The fact that Bogart is Bogart, and not a monstrous zombie (named either Marshal Quesne or Maurice J. Xavier) makes his presence more — not less, compelling. For Bogart was never actually playing himself. That too, was an illusion. He was playing the 'Bogart’ he decided to present to the American public. Who was Bogart like when he was at home with Bacall? Did she yank on a dildo and screw his ass? Even if we are really more interested in movie stars than the characters they play, none of it is real. That’s about as far as I can go with this movie; except to suggest that Dr. X is really Dr. Fauci (who, in case you have been living under a rock, is the long reigning head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and presently America’s top doctor). It’s time to decimate the horrible Dr. Fauci. He is definitely up to something — and even if he is a character wearing a mask, it is the mask that tells the truth. All this is doubly confusing because Fauci masquerades not as a truth teller, but just a humble human in search of the ultimate answer. For just as Einstein did not invent the atomic bomb: merely E=mc squared, Dr. Fauci did not invent social distancing; he merely theorised that some people may die of COVID-19. None of Fauci’s statements are certainties. This is the hallmark of a scientist, and something the rhetorician Gorgias warned us of; those who tell us they know nothing are manipulating us, because they know we wouldn’t trust anyone who claims to know the truth. Fauci, because of the nature of science, can never be sure… of well….anything. And it is that uncertainty that has plunged our lives into the terrifying maelstrom of the undecided, where all we can confirm is doubt. The hallmark of scientists is that when another experiment comes along they may discover their initial findings were wrong. So they bring us the latest theory, humbly. They make no grand claims, other than to say that it has been tested more than other theories at this present time, and may -- or may not -- prevail. They are, they assure us, ‘doing the best they can.’ So Fauci says social distancing is not the final answer, only the temporary solution until we find a better one. And when asked point blank: 'Does being infected with COVID-19 gift us with immunity from the illness?’ — he says carefully: ‘as far as we know.’ And then the inevitable: ‘after all, we know so very little about this disease.' And: 'we are really in the dark.' This is not just the climax of his beguiling self-effacement, but a cul-de-sac; something akin to a devil’s whirlpool or a black hole, with the potential to suck us into its deadly vortex, and strangle us -- with its infinite, soul-destroying inconclusivity. If nothing is certain, then we must — after all — to be safe — fear the worst. I am not suggesting a conspiracy here; just that the sine qua non of science — and it’s enormous power — lies in its humility. Am I being unfair to poor Dr. Fauci? Well, he personally is responsible for AZT, which he prescribed in high doses during the 90s as a possible final solution for AIDS. It killed countless gay men. But much worse is this vaccine business. Fauci assures us the pandemic may only be over once there is a vaccine. But don’t forget he also promoted himself as the prime force behind the development of an AIDS vaccine that — after nearly 40 years — has never surfaced. That’s reason enough not to trust him. I don’t blame Fauci personally for not finding a cure for AIDS, I blame him for dangling a cure for AIDS in front of us when there was no chance of finding one. But perhaps the problem for me is just doctors in general. I hate them. Why should we think they have more integrity than other people? Is it because of the lab coats? Might there not be just as many asshole doctors and nurses as there are asshole car salesman? When my father died he owned an apartment in a lovely seniors' residence. The hallways had names like Willow Avenue and Tulip Lane. But I always knew that there was a hospital at the centre which was its humming heart, hiding benignly behind the well-appointed rooms and lush landscaping, waiting to envelop him. When he was diagnosed with cancer, three nurses appeared from nowhere. I will never forget my father lying inert on the couch, as these ever-cheerful Chatty Cathies discarded the pills he would no longer be needing, because, well — after all, he was dying. My father could hear them, and he was as bewildered by death as by anything that wasn’t television, tennis, or a plate of mashed potatoes. At one point he asked them — ‘So what am I supposed to do, just lie here and wait for the phone to ring?’ He was talking about the woman he loved, because she too was a nurse, and had long ago promised to come to him when he was dying. But — unfortunately, when he died — she was otherwise engaged. These three heartless purveyors of the truth, these humble couriers of honesty, couldn’t answer his question. Instead, they chirped: “I’m afraid you won’t be needing these,” as he watched them pop the pills that he had so depended on for the last 20 years into a garbage can. I don’t hate them or even blame them. I do blame science, for pretending to be something that it is not. And by that I mean for pretending, in its own deceptive, circuitous way -- to be the answer to everything.
