One of the downsides of being a horror movie fan for over 40 years is that, by this point, I’ve pretty much seen it all.  I cut my teethon the Universal monster movies, grew up withthe Hammer horrors, schooled myself with the Corman Poesand paid my dues with the Italian gialli and the American slashers before branching out to the terrors of Asia, Indonesia and India.  Even stuff that was rare when I was a kid, such as THE GHOUL(1933) withBoris Karloff, has since been found, restored, and exists now in fine fettle on DVD.  One side of me (the calm, rational side, who tends to the poor and is well-respected among London high society) feels fortunate to have been able to see most if not all of the monster flicks I read about as a boy; the other side (the feral, unfettered, dark side with the low forehead, who skulks around Whitechapeland consorts with procurers and showfolk) feels bitter that there seems to be (LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT notwithstanding) little undiscovered country and far too few new old worlds.  And then life throws you a curveball.  Such is the case with DR. RENAULT’S SECRET (1942).

I suppose I first heard about DR. RENAULT’S SECRET in the pages of Carlos Clarens’ An Illustrated History of the Horror Film, which was my Bible back in the infancy of my love of the grotesque and arabesque.  Clarens didn’t spill much ink on the subject of this 20th Century Fox B-film, providing only a thumbnail sketch of the plot before claiming it wasn’t as good as Fox’s equally rare THE UNDYING MONSTER (1942).  The title popped up again in various genre studies, such as Denis Gifford’s A Pictorial History of Horror Moviesand Ed Naha’s Horrors: From Screen to Scream – plus I’m sure I must have seen a picture from it in the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland, one of the same two pictures you always saw from that movie… of weird-looking J. Carrol Naishlooking all weird out of a mansion window in one and being threatened with a whip wielded by perennial mad scientist George Zucco in the other.  I don’t know if I took my cue from the rather tepid reactions of horror critics or formulated my own opinion based on those two production stills.  Bottom line:  I wasn’t interested.  For one thing, the title DR. RENAULT’S SECRET was too classy-sounding, like MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD (1935) or MYSTERY OF MARIE ROGET (1942) or any number of non-monster movies that my local horror host was always trying to fob off as classic horror.  And then there was the Secret… he looked lame, like an Italian wearing four or five layers of clothing and a Don Ho wig.  How could this guy compete with Bela Lugosi’s DRACULA (1931), Boris Karloff’s monster in FRANKENSTEIN (1931) or Lon Chaney, Jr.’s THE WOLFMAN (1941)?  Long story short, he couldn’t… so I didn’t at the age of 12 or 13 sweat the likelihood that I would never see DR. RENAULT’S SECRET.

And yet, when 20th Century Fox released Vol. 2 of their FOX HORROR CLASSICS on DVD recently, I had to have a look – even though I thought the boxing of CHANDU THE MAGICIAN (a 70 minute feature condensed from Fox’s1932 serial), DRAGONWYCK (1946) and DR. RENAULT’S SECRETwas a borderline uninteresting follow-up to Vol. 1′s .  dynamo triple bill of John Brahm’s THE LODGER (1944), HANGOVER SQUARE (1945) and THE UNDYING MONSTER.  I guess it’s the classicist in me or the romantic or I don’t even know… if it’s in black-and-white and the dead walk or somebody meddles in God’s domain, I’ve got to see it.  So having seen DR. RENAULT’S SECRET finally, after a distance of over thirty years, I’m here to tell you, it’s… it’s… well, I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

DR. RENAULT’S SECRET is the story of a young scientist (John Shepperd, later Shepperd Strudwick) who travels to France to marry the neice (Lynne Roberts) of an older scientist, the eponymous Dr. Renault (George Zucco).  Renault seems an agreeable old coot but his Javanese manservant Noel (J. Carrol Naish)  is something else entirely.  And that just might be literally true, as the rather simian Noel has an uncanny sensitivity to the presence of other animals and dogs hate him.  When a series of murders rocks the otherwise quiet French countryside, Noel is the primalprime suspect.  But could the guilty party actually be Renault’s gardener, a brawny habitual criminal named Rogell (Mike Mazurki)?  Our hero (who may himself be a target for the elusive killer) and the local gendarme (Arthur Shields – of course – sure and begorrah he’ll get his homme) join forces to solve the mystery but wind up tearing the curtain back on Dr. Renault’s dirty little secret.

If you’ve seen ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932) or CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN (1943), you shouldn’t have any trouble figuring out what’s going on but there’s more going on here than what merely goes on.  Fox wasn’t known for making cheap horror movies but when they did the result tended to have an A-film gloss you didn’t see from Universal or Columbia – such is the case with DR. RENAULT’S SECRET.  Directed by Harry Lachman (a postimpressionistpainter turned set designer and assistant director – he was acclaimed British director Michael Powell’s first boss) and shot with a keen eye for shadows and framing by Virgil Miller (veteran DP on a number of Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto and Sherlock Holmes whodunits), DR. RENAULT’S SECRET is never less than thrilling to watch even when the scenario (Gaston Leroux’s source novel Balaao had been adapted previously as THE WIZARD in 1927) feels, by today’s standards, shopworn, over-familiar and a little silly.  J. Carrol Naish’s pathetic turn as a man-made missing link looks ahead to his role as the hunchback of Universal’s HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1944).  In both films, Naish’s quasi-monstrous character moons interminably over a pretty girl and dies for love but rather than pitching helpless victims to their deaths from high windows (as Noel is wont to do when in a fit of pique), HOUSE finds him given the heave-ho by Frankenstein’s monster.  (A few years earlier, Naish had appeared in the Lachman-directed CHARLIE CHAN AT THE CIRCUS, as a human killer who masques his identity under a gorilla suit! and was a pince nezed monster maker in THE MONSTER MAKER.)  Naish’s shtick may be the contract breaker for the curious.  While he could be a sophisticated detective hero (as in THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS) or a menacing villain (as in THE WHISTLER), here he’s a little precious, a little too hungry for sympathy.  Happily, this shortcoming is offset (at least for me) by a nice balance of skulduggeryand savagery (the death of a dog is grim stuff even though communicated entirely in silhouette) that keep the energy up for the tight 58 minute running time.  And the final confrontation, set in and around a lakeside mill, is a triumph of atmosphere and adrenaline. 

Truth be told, I’m glad DR. RENAULT’S SECRET is in my life after nearly a lifetime in the shadows.  It may never be more than a redheaded stepchild to the Universal canon but it’s good fun and might make a nice curtain warmer for your Halloween film fest.