Dr. Cyclops (1940)

A brilliant but unstable physicist (Albert Dekker) conducts secret experiments in the depths of the Peruvian jungle. Two biologists (Janice Logan, Charles Halton) are invited by the demented doctor for assistance and they bring along a mineralogist (Thomas Coley) and a mule guide (Victor Kilian). But the doctor's welcome is brief and the four, along with a Peruvian worker (Frank Yaconelli), find themselves guinea pigs in the doctor's diabolical experiments. Based on a short story by Henry Kuttner and directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack (MIGHTY JOE YOUNG). Long before THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING MAN (1957), this bright Technicolor science fiction piece explored similar terrain albeit not so seriously. The miniature people are even terrorized by a "giant" pet cat. It's good fun if not particularly well thought out which leads to some nitpicking. For example, after they are shrunk, where did they get the little clothes we see them wearing. It certainly didn't come from the doctor whose shrinking of them was impromptu. And when one of the little people is shot by a regular size bullet, surely his body would have been splattered everywhere instead of just dropping. Well, obviously this is the kind of movie where it's best not to think too much. Curiously, this is one of the rare films of its era where the cast is not mentioned in the opening credits and it's not until the end card of "cast of characters" that we find out who played who.