Villain(s)  Mad scientist

Actor(s):  Una Merkel, Lionel Atwill, Nat Pendleton, Claire Dodd

Brief Description  The Mad Doctor of Market Street (1942) is a Universal Pictures B-horror film directed by Joseph H. Lewis and starring Lionel Atwill as a deranged scientist who flees the law after a failed human reanimation experiment, winds up shipwrecked on a remote Pacific island, and forces his absolute rule over the native population by posing as a deity. Universal Pictures produced this film on a shoestring budget using its contract players. It was allegedly filmed in just three weeks.

Plot:
The Failed Experiment: In San Francisco, the brilliant but cruel scientist Dr. Ralph Benson (Atwill) conducts unauthorized experiments on reanimation and suspended animation. He lures a destitute man (played by Hardie Albright) to his Market Street laboratory with a promise of $1,000 to be his first human subject. The experiment fails, the man dies, and Benson is forced to escape out the window as the police knock on his door.

The Escape and Shipwreck: Benson assumes a new identity and boards a luxury ocean liner bound for New Zealand/Australia to escape the law. En route, the ship catches fire and sinks. Benson escapes on a lifeboat with five other survivors—including Patricia (Claire Dodd), her fiancé Jim (Richard Davies), and a comedy-relief traveler, Aunt Margaret (Una Merkel).

The God of Life: The lifeboat washes ashore on a remote Pacific island. The native islanders are initially hostile, but Dr. Benson uses his medical supplies to administer an adrenaline injection to the chief's comatose wife, reviving her from the brink of death. Believing he has godlike powers, the natives pronounce him the "God of Life".

Terror on the Island: Power goes entirely to Benson's head. He orders the natives to burn the lifeboat, trapping the other survivors. Delusional with dreams of global conquest ("Just as the natives worship me, so will the whole world"), he uses his absolute authority to force the survivors into becoming involuntary test subjects for his continuing reanimation experiments. He also demands that Patricia marry him, despite her love for Jim.

The Climax: The survivors must figure out a way to break Benson's psychological hold over the indigenous populace, expose his "miracles" as mere medical science, and escape the island before they are killed in his laboratory.