The Mad Genius

THE MAD GENIUS was an unsuccessful sequel to SVENGALI (1931). Not that it had the same characters, just that it had much the same story and the studio seemed to be attempting to fly on the coattails of the latter. Barrymore is a raving lunatic, a marionettist whose mother had been a Russian ballerina. His own club foot has kept him from following a career of pirouettes and pas de deux, so when he saves Darro from the abuse of his foster father, Karloff, he is heartened to see that the young boy is a natural dancer. He raises Darro until the boy grows into Cook, then takes on the job of producing for a well-known ballet company, where his stars are Cook and M...