According to one of my old spiral-bound movie notebooks, I saw Doctor X (1932, directed by Michael Curtiz) some time during my time as a video store owner back in the day. I still have the database from that fiasco, and sure enough, Doctor X was in our inventory. I don't remember seeing it, though. My suspicion is that the version we had on VHS was a seriously deficient edition, probably the black and white version of the film, though it's possible we had a washed out version in technicolor. The timing was right. It's a miracle that the technicolor version exists at all, given that it was thought to be a lost film after Warner Brothers discarded all their two strip technicolor materials in 1948. A print was found in Jack Warner's collection of private film holdings after his death in 1978, however, which found its way into distribution over the next decade or so. It underwent an extensive restoration in 2020.
All of the major Hollywood studios were getting into the horror movie business in 1932 after seeing box office returns for Dracula and Frankenstein a year before. All of the major studios except MGM--and all of the minor ones too--were in dire financial straits in 1932. It was the worst year of the Great Depression. Everyone was desperate enough to try anything to stay afloat. Movie studios were not exempt. They were even willing to try horror movies. Warners handed the keys to Michael Curtiz for a pair of technicolor horror films--the other one was The Mystery of the Wax Museum the following year. Both are distinct from the films made by Universal or Paramount (we'll get into that as the month goes on). They feel like Warner Brothers movies, in spite of the horror elements. Doctor X in particular is more overtly a characteristic pre-Code film than most of the films Universal was making, particularly in regards to the strata of society it was willing to depict. The ostensible hero--or at least the audience surrogate--is a hard boiled reporter who hangs out in whore houses. This is not in the subtext. It's right there on screen. Warners always strove for street cred, for want of a better phrase. They were the studio of the common man, the everyday Joe, The New Deal, and that runs through their horror movies and makes them distinct. That they were willing to lavish two strip technicolor--a process that was not at all common--on horror movies WAS out of character, but it was a gamble that paid off handsomely. Both films were successes for a studio that desperately needed them.
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