John Barrymore was easily the most suitable actor for film, in comparison with his older brother and sister. He knew when it was right to town down the theatrical approach and when to be a bit larger-than-life. "The Mad Genius" was Barrymore's final film for "Warner Bros." He was paid the rather handsome sum of about $70,000 a film and gave some fine performances. "The Mad Genius" is a remake of a previous film for the studio, "Svengali." The former movie is far better than this inferior remake. The above film suffers from a very poor plot, leaden pacing and disappointing dialogue. Only the performance of John Barrymore and the direction from Michael Curtiz save this film. Boris Karloff is completely wasted in a brief appearance at the beginning of the film. "The Mad Genius" has no imagination or much in the way of sustaining the viewer's interest.

I quite enjoyed this one when I first saw it many years ago, but it doesn't stand up well. Barrymore is the main problem. His is a ranting, self-glorifying, drown out everyone else in the cast performance, which, to my surprise, director Mike Curtiz indulges rather than trying to keep a lid on it. And I don't know that it was a good idea of the screenwriters not only to keep so much of the moribund stage play in the action, thus slowing it down, and then pandering Barrymore with long speeches, and thus slowing things down even further. Director Mike Curtiz seems to be in awe of Barrymore and favor him with eye- rolling close-ups and long takes at the expense of other members of the cast, especially Marian Marsh. In fact some of our favorite people have very little footage, including Boris Karloff who makes a significant entrance and then totally disappears. We do see a lot of Donald Cook, however, despite the fact that he is, at best, a rather stodgy, humdrum actor with – at least in this movie – little in the way of charisma. I'm not surprised the movie failed dismally at the box office. Sometimes, not often, mind you, audiences showed good taste! This movie is available on very good Warner Brothers DVD, but with no extras, alas!

John Barrymmore plays a puppeteer who takes in a small boy who grows to be a great dancer. Things get dicey when the boy's eye strays from dancing toward one girl in particular.Intrguing pre-code film that, at times, has Barrymore giving a great performance. Watch his early scenes and you'll see just how good he was. During bits later in the film he seems to be phoning it in but he's still a joy to behold. The movie itself is a potboiler in the Svengali mode, but it's entertaining. I love the ballet sets which are decidedly of the time the film was made.Worth a peak.

When Michael Curtiz directed this odd ballet and horror film he presumably had the recent success of the John Barrymore - Marian Marsh film SVENGALI (from George Du Maurier's TRILBY) in mind. That story was based on a novel wherein a great singer is actually controlled (by hypnosis) by her impresario. Although Svengali's character in the novel was quite obnoxious, the film version softened it to make one realize he was in control of Trilby but loved her and could not be certain if she loved him back. In the end it turned out she did. The story of THE MAD GENIUS was similar - Donald Cook is a brilliant ballet dancer who was trained by impresario Barrymore, and the latter is determined to get his protégé the career he deserves - by all means necessary. This means derailing anything or anyone who Barrymore concludes will prevent this. Marsh is a female member of the ballet company that Cook is falling for, and Barrymore is willing to push her out of the company, and even turn her into a wealthy nobleman's mistress to keep Cook in line.The film actually works. In the background was a misunderstanding of the relationship between Diaghilev and Nijinski (who many thought was that impresario's puppet). Here one realizes Barrymore is a man who is so hung up on the success of his adopted son that he does not stop even while he realizes he is doing harm to so many others. To perfect the boy's dancing (and the company's) he is willing to be the drug supplier to dance master Luis Alberni (one of the first examples of cocaine use in movies). When not pimping for his wealthy aristocratic backer, he runs a tight ship on all the dancers and his factotum associate Charles Butterworth. But he is human. One of the funniest aspects of the film is how Barrymore picks up his own sexual partners from starry eyed young woman coming in to join the ballet company. He always uses the same line with them, and even the same hour the next day to visit his office (three o'clock). Butterworth adds his bit too, as he tries constantly to interest Barrymore or anyone in a really bad ballet he's written (Barrymore, who is happy and drunk when Butterworth finally corners him, slowly sobers up when hearing this idiotic story line, and ends up saying he never realized what an ass Butterworth really was). Finally there is a cameo that I find fascinating. This is the film wherein Boris Karloff (for about one minute) shares screen time with John Barrymore. They never did so again.