A vanished breed

A vanished breed

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Originally published 9 October 1989

What­ev­er became of the Mad Scientist?

If you think there have been few­er Mad Sci­en­tists in the movies late­ly, you are right. British soci­ol­o­gist Andrew Tudor has stud­ied almost 1,000 hor­ror movies made between 1934 and 1984, and reports his obser­va­tions in a [August 1989] issue of Nature. He detects a steady decline in the pro­por­tion of sci­ence-based hor­ror movies after 1960 and the vir­tu­al dis­ap­pear­ance of Mad Sci­en­tists. By the late 1970s, says Tudor, even the most explic­it­ly sci­ence-ori­ent­ed hor­ror movies pay lit­tle atten­tion to science.

The Mad Sci­en­tist made his spooky debut in the Goth­ic cas­tles and cob­web­by base­ment lab­o­ra­to­ries of the 30s. The vil­lains of those ear­ly films were most­ly humor­less exper­i­menters pur­su­ing knowl­edge at the expense of human val­ues. The arche­typ­al Mad Sci­en­tist, of course, was Baron Franken­stein, a soli­tary genius who tin­kers with forces of nature that go wild­ly out of control.

By the time I became a movie buff in the 50s, sci­ence was still fre­quent­ly a source of may­hem, but often the Mad Sci­en­tist seemed dis­turbing­ly nor­mal. Two movies from that era that come espe­cial­ly to mind are The Thing (1951) and The Fly (1958). Thanks to video cas­settes, it was an easy mat­ter to view both films again.

Crash-landing its flying saucer

The hor­rif­ic Thing crash-lands its fly­ing saucer near an Amer­i­can research sta­tion at the North Pole, set­ting off all kinds of sci­en­tif­ic instru­ments: sound detec­tors, seis­mo­graphs, mag­ne­tome­ters, com­pass­es. “This geiger coun­ter’s going crazy!” says one young researcher pre­dictably. “Could be the Rus­sians,” replies dash­ing Air Force cap­tain Pat Hendry. “They’re all over the Pole like flies.”

Yes, it is 1951, but it’s not the Russkies this time. The Thing is a giant man-like plant, intent on suck­ing human blood. What to do? Cap­tain Hendry orga­nizes an assault. The chief sci­en­tist, Dr. Car­ring­ton, has oth­er ideas. Destruc­tion of the mon­ster would betray sci­ence, he insists. This walk­ing car­rot from out­er space knows “the secrets of the stars,” and must be studied.

Car­ring­ton is impressed by the Thing’s excep­tion­al brain, pure veg­etable intel­li­gence unen­cum­bered by human dis­trac­tions like love and sex. “No emo­tions, no heart, our supe­ri­or in every way!” the doc­tor enthus­es, reveal­ing what Hol­ly­wood thinks of sci­ence at its worst.

We all know how the movie turns out. Car­ring­ton rush­es up to the mon­ster shout­ing, “I’m not your ene­my. I’m a sci­en­tist.” Whack! So much for naive curiosity.

Cap­tain Hendry saves the day by fry­ing the Thing with high-volt­age electricity.

By 1958, heart­less sci­ence had giv­en way to pure-heart­ed bum­bling. In The Fly, gen­tle Andre, lov­ing hus­band and father, has devised a mat­ter trans­porter in his base­ment lab­o­ra­to­ry. An object goes in Cab­i­net A. Whirring nois­es. Flash­ing lights. The object rema­te­ri­al­izes across the room in Cab­i­net B. Andre expounds the device’s many virtues to his spouse: “There need nev­er be a famine. Sur­plus­es can be sent instan­ta­neous­ly at no cost, any­where. Human­i­ty will nev­er want or fear again.” His pret­ty wife is less sure. “Oh Andre,” she says. “I get so scared some­times. The sud­den­ness of our age. Elec­tron­ics. Rock­ets. Earth satel­lites. Super­son­ic flight. And now this!”

Now this, indeed.

In his mad rush to oblivi­ate human­i­ty’s want and fear, Andre tests the device on him­self, fail­ing to notice a fly in the trans­porter. Atoms get min­gled. Sci­en­tist is reassem­bled with a fly­’s claw-like hand and a fly­’s head.

There are things a man should nev­er exper­i­ment with,” he laments, too late.

The rise of the psychotic villain

So what hap­pened to these mar­velous Mad Sci­en­tists of yes­ter­year? Sci­ence needs them even if Hol­ly­wood does­n’t, to inspire us to pas­sion and remind us of our excess­es. Accord­ing to Andrew Tudor, the demise of the Mad Sci­en­tist coin­cides with the rise of the psy­chot­ic vil­lain. Appar­ent­ly, we have become more inter­est­ed in worlds inside our heads than in the world outside.

There may be anoth­er rea­son why sci­ence has dis­ap­peared from hor­ror movies. In an essay on The Imag­i­na­tion of Dis­as­ter, Susan Son­tag wrote: “Ours is indeed an age of extrem­i­ty. For we live under con­tin­u­al threat of two equal­ly fear­ful, but seem­ing­ly opposed des­tinies: unremit­ting banal­i­ty and incon­ceiv­able ter­ror. It is fan­ta­sy, served out in large rations by the pop­u­lar arts, which allow most peo­ple to cope with these twin spectres.”

Per­haps the Mad Sci­en­tist no longer serves to alle­vi­ate the banal­i­ty of life because sci­ence has itself become unremit­ting­ly banal. Peo­ple are bored with sci­ence. They are glad it’s there, like elec­tric­i­ty, but they would just as soon not think about it. They per­ceive it as the drab, soul­less ser­vant of indus­try, gov­ern­ment, and the mil­i­tary, and accord­ing to Tudor that is exact­ly how sci­en­tists are now por­trayed in the movies.

For sci­ence to be a source of fan­ta­sy hor­ror, it must first be held in awe. In the movies of the 80s, says Tudor, sci­ence is just one more face­less instru­ment by which the estab­lish­ment exerts pow­er over a resist­ing pop­u­la­tion. The con­clu­sion seems to be this: We have so few Mad Sci­en­tists today because we are in short sup­ply of sci­ence heroes.

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