Becoming A Radiologist Technician

Whether they stand for good or for ill, most people love watching mad scientists at work in literature, film, video games, and other mediums. Their appeal comes from the simultaneously impressive and frightening ability to push biology, engineering, physics, chemistry, psychology, and other fields of scientific inquiry to their very limits with an obsessive quality far beyond normalcy. Obviously, lists such as this are highly subjective, but many film aficionados agree that the following figures defined, perfected, or otherwise offered an interesting perspective on what makes a mad scientist.

1. Tie: Dr. Frankenstein/Dr. Frankenstein

It is impossible to acknowledge one Frankenstein without the other. Mary Shelley may not have created the mad scientist archetype when she first penned Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus in 1818, but she solidified it into the veritable platonic solid familiar in today’s storytelling. James Wale’s admittedly loose 1931 adaptation brought the lofty and ethically questionable experiments of Dr. Frankenstein to a broader audience, spawning a number of sequels and remakes and spoofs in the process. First played by Colin Clive (here going by the name of Henry rather than the original Victor), the iconic mad scientist has also been portrayed on screen by highly regarded actors such as Kenneth Branagh, Raul Julia, and even the original monster himself – Boris Karloff.

But it would be a glaringly offensive affront to Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder’s satirical, vaudevillian genius to exclude Young Frankenstein’s Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (pronounced Fronkensteen, thank you very much) from this list. The grandson of the original Dr. Victor Frankenstein himself, Frederick initially dismisses the monster’s creation with the bold, hilarious declaration belief that “[his] grandfather’s work was doodoo!” Destiny, however, has much bigger plans for the younger Dr. Frankenstein, and Wilder goes on to repeat his namesake’s work with the chaotic and highly entertaining results one would expect from a Brooks film.

2. Doc Brown

Christopher Lloyd’s delightfully manic Dr. Emmett Brown obsesses over science, using robotic can openers, building some rocking amplifiers, and eventually creating the flux capacitor that kicks off the events of Robert Zmeckis’s 1985 classic Back to the Future – and therefore the two succeeding films as well. The delightfully eccentric and thoroughly cracked Doc Brown zips Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) from 1985 to 1955 in a DeLorean souped up with the aforementioned flux capacitor and just the right amount of plutonium. Lloyd plays against the typical depiction of mad scientists in fiction, serving as a protagonist to actively assist McFly’s mission to reunite his parents in their youth rather than a morally questionable enemy. He entertains the thought of using his time machine to temporally relocate to the film’s version of Hill Valley, California (of course) during the Old West, a goal he accomplishes by the end of the trilogy.

3. Dr. Moreau

While John Frankenheimer’s 1996 adaptation of the grim, engaging, and provocative H.G. Wells novella The Island of Dr. Moreau notoriously tanked (even appearing as an entry in A.V. Club columnist Nathan Rabin’s excellent My Year of Flops series), the titular mad scientist – portrayed by Marlon Brando in one of his last film appearances – still remains an entirely disgusting and shocking figure. For one thing, he vivisected Ron Perlman. Marlon Brando sliced open Vincent. He sliced open Hellboy. He sliced open One. He sliced. Open. Clay. Morrow. That right there is pretty mad in and of itself, but Dr. Moreau’s continuing parade of grotesqueries extends far beyond that one display of evil. In fitting with the original literature, he experiments with genetics and biology to create tragic patchwork figures – amalgamations of man and beast, of beast and beast…all of them perpetually fighting an agonizing existential battle and questioning what nature remains truest. For better or worse, Brando’s performance understandably remains the one most film aficionados immediately think to, but the ruthless scientist has also been portrayed on screen on two other occasions. Charles Laughton originated the role in 1932’s The Island of Lost Souls, and Burt Lancaster in the 1997 adaptation of The Island of Dr. Moreau.

4. Dr. Strangelove

Peter Sellers’s portrayal of former Nazi scientist Dr. Strangelove (“He changed [his name] when he became a citizen. It used to be Merkwürdigeliebe.”) remains not only one of the most iconic in a career full of memorable roles, but the entirety of film history itself. Throughout Stanley Kubrick’s brilliant 1964 dark comedy and Cold War satire Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, he grapples against Alien Hand Syndrome, helps the American government stave off mutually assured destruction with the Soviet Union, and comes to reveal his past attempts at creating that old staple of mad scientists everywhere - a Doomsday Device. Adding in a former(?) allegiance to the Third Reich, maniacal facial expressions, the aforementioned hand that echoes his subconscious, and bizarre manner of speaking only helps reinforce his place on the list.

5. Dr. Mabuse

Legendary director Fritz Lang directed 3 movies centered around the nefarious literary figure Dr. Mabuse, played first by Rudolf Klein-Rogge (1922’s Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler - Ein Bild der Zeit and 1933’s Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse), then succeeded by Wolfgang Preiss (1960’s Die 1000 Augen des Dr. Mabuse) upon his predecessor’s death. Preiss continued to play the role for 3 more films that stretched beyond Lang’s oeuvre (1961’s Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse and 1962’s Im Stahlnetz des Dr. Mabuse with Harald Reinl and Werner Klinger’s i>Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse later that same year). Two more Dr. Mabuse films popped up in 1964 and 1972 (Hugo Fregonese and Victor De Santis’s Die Todesstrahlen des Dr. Mabuse and Jesus Franco’s Dr. M schlägt zu, respectively), though none with the same lasting prestige and influence as Lang’s interpretation of the character.

Much like Dr. Frankenstein and Dr. Moreau, Dr. Mabuse originated in a novel – in this case, a series by Norbert Jacques. He does not tackle engineering like Doc Brown or Dr. Strangelove, nor biology like the Frankensteins and Dr. Moreau, making him something of a rather unique interpretation of the mad scientist archetypes represented on this list. Rather, he taps into the psychological sciences and utilizes hypnotism and complex mind games to overthrow society before stepping in as its uncontested leader. Dr. Mabuse, der Spieler - Ein Bild der Zeit, for example, he brainwashes Berlin as a means of earning massive sums of money on the stock market and in the gambling parlors.

6. Dr. Seth Brundle

David Cronenberg’s tragic and horrifying 1986 remake of The Fly starred Jeff Goldblum as twitchy scientist Seth Brundle (later operating under the self-moniker “Brundlefly”), who obsessively experiments with teleportation. He finally succeeds, but during one fateful trial run manages to splice his own DNA with that of a common housefly. What follows is a sickening but extremely intelligent exploration of Goldblum’s increasingly monstrous body transformations, and none so mentally and gastrointestinally unsettling as his own continuous experimentations on himself and the bizarre life he never asked for in the first place. Where most movie mad scientists (as well as those in literature, video games, and other media) seem to possess some sort of external motivation – usually either the betterment of mankind or complete megalomaniacal control – Brundle uses himself as his own guinea pig. Rather than maneuvering through manuals and computers for raw data and research, following his accident he must navigate his own body in search of answers that may or may not actually exist.

7. Dr. Frank N Furter

The “Sweet Transvestite” himself Dr. Frank-N-Furter is both a scientist (it says so right there in the credits) of the highest caliber as well as exceptionally, depravedly mad. In a fit of sexual frustration, he applies his biological prowess to creating an idealized man to help him with, to put it bluntly, “relieving [his] tension.” An obvious homage to the Frankenstein archetype emerges, this time blonde, buff, and clad in an obscenely tiny gold swimsuit rather than a shambling horror of scarring and rotten, piecemeal flesh. Jim Sharman’s movie adaptation of musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show has been screening continuously in theatres since its release in 1975, making it the longest-running film of all time – and much of that can be attributed to Tim Curry’s delightfully bizarre acting debut in the twisted, freaky role Frank-N-Furter as the accompanying skits, costume contests, and audience participation.

8. Dr. C.A. Rotwang

German expressionism lent itself perfectly to the mad scientist template, with its moody explorations of the delicate balance between intelligence and insanity and dramatic, otherworldly lighting, set pieces, and special effects. One of the more memorable characters to emerge from the sadly short (the rise of the Nazi Party snuffed it out quickly) but creatively fertile and highly influential movement was Dr. C.A. Rotwang, played by the incomparable Rolf Klein-Rogge in his second appearance on this list. Fritz Lang’s (another second) stunningly gorgeous 1927 silent film with a beautifully sculpted narrative Metropolis features Klein-Rogge as an antagonist adrift in a lab full of bubbles, baubles, glassware, Tesla coils, and intimidating art deco machinery. On the orders of the scheming mayor Johann Fredersen (Alfred Abel), he kidnaps heroine Maria (Bridgette Helm) and downloads her likeness into a very famous robot decoy in a very famous film sequence. The mechanical Maria proceeds to rip into the titular city’s highly restrictive social structure in order to destroy the original’s reputation.

9. Dr. Horrible

During the Writer’s Guild strike of 2008, writer-director Joss Whedon gathered together his friends and allies to create a three-part web series in only 6 days. Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog became a runaway hit and featured the venerable Neil Patrick Harris as an aspirant mad scientist with a “PhD in horribleness” and lofty goals involving death rays, freeze rays, and membership in the Evil League of Evil. In spite of his giddy delight over the usual murder, mayhem, and devastation that accompanies the role of science-oriented supervillain, Dr. Horrible and his alter-ego Billy are incredibly sympathetic. He falls sweetly for a local homeless care advocate Penny (Felicia Day), who finds herself immediately attached to his arch rival, the supremely annoying (a never-better Nathan Fillion). As he bumbles his way through song after song, viewers cannot help but love the evil genius as he wrestles between unrequited infatuation and his dedication to a life of comedic terrorism.

10. Tie: The entire main cast of Real Genius/the titular protagonists of Ghostbusters

Any number of characters from either movie could have easily made this list, so a tie as an ensemble cast of mad scientists is the only fair solution. Both films zero in on the exploits of eccentric geniuses who wield their talents in the service of humanity rather than the exploitation, though the similarities end there. Martha Coolidge’s 1985 film Real Genius centers around the collegiate world of Pacific Tech (inspired by the California Institute of Technology), where naïve child prodigy Mitch Taylor (Gabriel Jarrett) finds himself suddenly under the guidance of energetic, brilliant, and charismatic Chris Knight (Val Kilmer). Wacky ‘80s hijinks ensue, including a five-megawatt laser used to heat oceans of popcorn, a dorm converted into an ice rink, and some rather unwieldy scuba equipment.

The Ghostbusters, of course, really need no introduction. Drs. Peter Venkman (Bill Murray), Raymond Stantz (Dan Ackroyd), and Egon Spangler (Harold Ramis) pool together their psychological and paranormal research with former Marine Winston Zeddemore (Ernie Hudson) to protect the streets of New York from supernatural mayhem. Ivan Reitman’s 1984 pop culture phenomenon Ghostbusters took the mad scientist archetype to hilarious extremes, placing the altruistic protagonists as willingly putting their lives on the line against “spook[s], spectre[s], [and] ghost[s],” ancient Sumerian gods, marshmallow kaiju, and the perils of unlicensed nuclear material – all while passionately firing off technobabble at an endearingly rapid-fire pace.

Evil or angelic. Engineer or biologist. Classic or contemporary. No matter their characterization, at their core these mad scientists both entertain and intrigue viewers and challenge them to consider the possibilities present in their respective areas of interest.