THE
BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (1959)Director: Joseph Green
Synapse Films
THE
BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE (1959)It's been a few years since I last saw this film, and I am astonished just how bad it seems to me now -- and how worthless.
Don't get me wrong; I love this kind of under-produced trash (just read my enthusiastic critique of FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER) but only when the end result is able to overcome it. This time I just felt plain bored, wishing that director Joseph Green could squeeze more life out of his actors and that the camera would stop lingering on the same shot and scene for so long. I've enjoyed many an inept 50s production, but something fun is lacking here.
Herb Evers is a surgeon who loses his wife in a car crash, due to his reckless driving during the one exciting scene of the movie. He is able to salvage her head and takes it to his laboratory where he and his assistant place it in a photo developing tray and wire it up to keep it talking...and talking...and talking.
Herb then cruises town to search out the babe with the most gorgeous body that he can find, thus preceding Steve Martin's similar plight by over twenty years. I must say that he has a nice variety to choose from.
After a few very talky and uninteresting escapades, he settles on a really stacked tomato with an unsightly scar on one side of her face. He lies to her by promising to fix her looks, and takes her back to his place where he drugs her.
Throughout all of this, the talking head in the lab has discovered that she has the ability to communicate with an unseen creature that Herb keeps locked away in a small room in the corner of the cellar. When she learns that it too has been a failed experiment of her husband's, she plots a modest revenge with her new ally. As Herb takes his unconscious victim to the laboratory, the caged mutation breaks out and kills him. After the deformed conehead floors the doctor, he decides to take a little bite out of his shoulder for good luck and hold it up for us in a moment which could have worked better had it come across less contrived. And yes, the movie ends in flames.
The print presented here by Synapse is the "unedited" version with the gore scenes (like the one mentioned above) left intact. There is also the segment wherein Herb's assistant gets his arm pulled off and runs around the house for what seems like hours with the right side of his lab smock full of blood. Despite the staginess of all of this, it's a good thing to have included.
There is a nice booklet enclosed where Bryan Senn (author of the superb Golden Horrors 1931-1939) gives us a lot of information on the production. I can't help but agree with his guess that Herb Evers may have changed his name to Jason Evers because of this film. I can tell you that I recently sent Mr. Evers a photograph, which he graciously sent back to me with his signature; but he ignored my request for an interview to coincide with the release of this DVD!
But getting back to the print -- while it's complete, it's not perfect. I doubt that any fan of the movie will mind too much, but while acceptable enough, it's a tad weak-looking, and not as clear and sparkly as we're growing accustomed to. It's also got its share of spots, scratches and other markings. I must also point out that while the packaging promises a "windowboxed" edition, I didn't see a black border around my screen unless it was the width of a thread.
The audio sound is mono, and quite acceptable.
Other features include a theatrical trailer (beat-up but welcome) and a still gallery with at least one topless photo of one of the girls in the clutches of the monster.
For those of you who enjoy this movie, I think it is overall a decent representation and one which is worth the price. I credit Synapse for their interest in this type of picture and would love to see them add many more from this period to their catalogue. (Joe Lozowsky)