"The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" is one of my all-time favorites. It's worth hunting down the recently restored version, which uses various techniques to produce a print that looks as clean as it probably appeared when it first premiered.

I just watched Mad Scientist Dr. Gerald Deemer ( Leo G. Carroll) in "Tarantula!" Directed by Jack Arnold ( the Incredible Shrinking Man, the Creature From the Black Lagoon ) Recomended... with edibles in your lawful state. Next up! The Deadly Mantis! It sounds... deadly. I can't wait!

I just watched "Torture Garden" an Amicus anthology film based on Robert Bloch's short stories and the script written by him. The only worthwhile story is the last one "the Man Who Collected Poe" starring Jack Palance and Peter Cushing... I met Robert Bloch decades ago at an A.B.A convention years ago. I hadn't read any of his books. I had only seen "Psycho" thru the Dartmouth Film Society. None of my friends had seen it before ( it wasn't on t.v. and video didn't exist ) We were completely terrified! Mr. Bloch was signing and promoting his new book "Psycho 2" It was just me and him. I could have sat with him for longer. Talked about Lovecraft. I didn't know at that time that he was an early pen-pal with him.... That visit to L.A. was the only time I visited the Magic Castle. They let me and my boss and several co-workers in based on my amateur magic business card. I wanted to see the close-up. We saw Tom Mullica at the Palace of Mystery. Peter Pitt also played there. Like a robot who has done his one act too many times. Obviously drunk. Tom Mullica was great. There was an ice-hole heckling him throughout, about him being a "fag". Afterwards, one of my co-workers threatened to beat the sh!t out of the heckler for screaming during the performance. I stopped the fist fight. The Magic Castle!

O.K. Off the Mad Scientist kick for the moment. But will probably return to it in a grand way with numerous Boris Karloff movies.. Tonight I watched the Wyche... or is it the Witch? This film get's better every time you watch it. Never seen it? Do.

Dr Thomas who used to teach at the uni I did my PhD in.

We had new labs built. When we moved him we were told the floors where chemical proof and couldn't be stained. He managed it within an hour.

I seem to recognize the name. Is this the same late Dr.Thomas ( Dr. Thornley
Thomas?) who resurrected a deceased lab rat?

Instantly--before I noted that this thread seemed to be focused on cinematic baddies exclusively--I thought of Dr. Sivana, mad scientist bent on world domination and nemesis of Captain Marvel in the DC comics of my youth. Me and my sidekicks "back in the day" only got to thrill to the misdeeds of the movie bad guys once every week or two at best, but we lived with the madmen in the stacks of comic books on our bedroom floors, such as Lex Luthor, Brainiac (who actually shrank and then stole Superman's home city back on Krypton), Professor Zoom and others.

However, it was definitely Thaddeus Bodog Sivana (Dr. Sivana) that my pals and I shot most often with our ray guns and cap pistols and gored with our carnival-cane swords, as he was not just BAD but actually CRAZY, and what 8-year-old with a pair of six-guns, a lightning-fast bicycle and a bedsheet cape couldn't identify with that, eh? --Those were the days when it really meant something to be on the side of Truth, Justice and the American Way--SHAZAM!