A buddy of mine works in the Electronic Communications dept (or something like that) at Vanderbilt and every year, when a new class of residents graduate from the program, they do a short spoof film featuring the graduates of the medical residency program. The idea he’s come up with is to do a “look back” kind of film where in the year 2020 they do a retrospective on the class of '06 and discover that they’ve gone on to “interesting” careers. One of them is Dr. Frankenstein, one is Bruce Banner, another is Dr. Frahnkensteen!, another is Carradine’s character from Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Sex, another is the guy from Repoman who’s smuggling the dead aliens in the trunk of the Chevy Nova, and that’s pretty much where we’ve run out of ideas for mad scientists. So does anyone have any suggestions? The scientists need to be from films that are fairly well known, and not insanely obscure, and preferrably on video so that we can have reference material to try and replicate the scene as closely as possible. Thanks.
Rotwang from Metropolis. The creation of the feminine robot is one of the most beautiful scenes in Mad Scientist Movie history.
Dr. Janos Rukh from The Invisible Ray. He glows real pretty from all the radiation, and you get to do your Boris Karloff imitation.
Dr. Praetorius from The Bride of Frankenstein. Best got-damned Mad Scientist evah.
Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde (lots of movie versions).
You gotta do a Vincent Price one, like the Abominable Dr. Phibes.
Dr. Clayton Forrester from MST3K would qualify. TV’s Frank once described him (and himself) as “more evil than a 3-dollar bill”.
Someone must be Dr Vornoff from Bride of the Monster, and create their own race of atomic supermen which will conquer the world!
How about Lugosi’s character from Plan Nine From Outer Space?
or
Dr Walsh from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 5)
please let us see the video/film on line when it’s finished, ok?
John Lithgow as Lord John Whorfin/Dr. Emilio Lizardo in Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension
Ya know, that’s the department head’s (an ER physician) favorite movie.
I’ll suggest to my buddy about making the film available, but I’ve no idea what the rules at Vandy are.
Dr. Herbert West, from Re-Animator. The pride of the Miskatonic U. Medical School.
The Bela Lugosi character from **Bride of the Atom ** (now, that’s a mad scientist!).
The WB cartoon Marvin Martian character whose intent is to blow up the earth. (You guys’ll need to sacrifice a broom head and a football helmet for this one…
Doctor No.
I would suggest Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies but he’s probably too obvious and too played out.
Technically, The Brain from “Pinky and the Brain” shouldn’t be allowed since he’s neither a doctor nor a human being but he does do a lot of mucking about with science so I’ll name him.
You may want to consider Dr. Gogol from Mad Love (1935) because a list of mad scientists just doesn’t seem complete without a character played by Peter Lorre.
Wikipedia’s god a nice list of mad scientists, and is helpfully divided for films, TV, novels, etc.
As for myself, I’ll suggest Dr. Moreau (Marlon Brando’s version would be the most recognizable, but Andy Godwin in the Taproot Theatre version is, IMO, one of the best. Like an evil Rex Harrison.); Jeffery Franken (from *Frankenhooker[/ur]*); and [url=http://www.doctorsteel.com/]Doctor Steel.
And, of course, Jeffery Comb’s Herbert West from Reanimator.
Hey, maybe you could do a montage section where you “pay tribute” to all the mad scientists who passed away in the last year (like in the Oscars), and make it out of slow-motion clips of when the scientists were killed by their own creations, as Through the Years plays in the background. (You should have no trouble finding the right footage. I’d reccomend one sequence from The Brain that Wouldn’t Die where a fellow in a surgical gown gets his arm chewed off by a mutant, and stumbles around the lab, smearing blood on the walls in 50s black & white. ) Dubbed in “applause” sound effects are optional.
How about the scientist from The Fly?
I always liked Dr. Cyclops, from the movie of the same name.
John Carridine , Father of David and Keith, played a great mad scientist many times as well as other cool roles such as Dracula. He was even mad scientist Dr. Bernardo, in the Woddy Allen classic “Everything You always wanted to know about Sex”
Dr. Zeitman in Evil Spawn in 1987
Dr. Kozmar in Evils of the Night 1985
Apparition of Dr. Frankenstein Frankenstein Island 1981
Dr. Warren The Boogyman 1980
Dr. Sigmund Hummel The Bees 1978
Dr. Edwards Crash 1977
Dr. Smith The Killer Inside Me 1976
Dr. Vanard Blood of Ghastly Horror 1972
Dr. Rynning Horror of Blood Monsters 1970
etc etc etc
You’ve got to find out something for me. Has he ever said “don’t pull on that; you don’t know what it might be connected to” during an actual surgery?
Odd there aren’t female mad scientists getting mentioned. Even the Wikipedia list comes up short there.
All I can think of is Sean Young in “Dr. Jekyll and Ms. Hyde”, which is hardly original.
Is “Mad Scientist” a male profession?
Not al these are in movies, but they would be interesting
Dr. Nikola – Guy Boothby
Dr. Fumanchu, Dr. Petri – Sax Rohmer
Dr. Livingstone
Med Tech Calhoun – The Med Ship Series by Murray Leinster. He saves planet populations.
Doc Holiday
Doc Savage _ James Bama
Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
Doctor Doolittle – Hugh Lofting
Dr. Zarkov – Flash Gordon Series
Dr. Bombay – From Bewitched. You could show him making house calls.
A person working in the labs for Ingen. “Jurasic Park”