The Head (1959)

The Head 
Directed by Victor Trivas
Written by Victor Trivas
1959/West Germany
Rapid Film
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Dr. Brandt, alias Dr. Ood: Yes, I’m sick. Yes, I’m sick, and you’re the only one who knows it, but I don’t care. You belong to me and me alone. Professor Hartmann experimented on my brain. The results were fantastic. It made a genius of me. Hear me, a genius! [He clutches the window in a parody of the crucifixion.] But these spells are the debt I paid. The price of my genius was madness. My whole being became sick. The moon, and the wind, and that confounded dog![/box]

This film represents the absolute nadir in the career of the great French actor, Michel Simon.

Dr. Ood is mad, completely mad.  He learns that Prof. Dr. Abel (Simon) has succeeded in keeping a dog’s head alive after its death.  Abel hires Ood as an assistant because of his interest in organ transplants.  Abel is dying of heart failure and needs Ood to perform a heart transplant.

Ood double-crosses Abel by ditching his body and preserving his head.  Ood’s next project is to attempt to graft the head of a saintly but hunch-backed nurse onto the body of stripper.

This is kind of a combo of the ever popular head-in-a-box genre with shades of Frankenstein.  The version I watched was dubbed and was very bad.  I don’t think the dubbing had anything to do with it.  On the other hand, it does have its cheesy charms.

From the IMDb trivia: Michel Simon, a major star in France at the time, had used some tainted makeup on a previous film that had resulted in his body and face becoming temporarily partially paralyzed. Since that time he had been unable to find work and took a role in this low-budget German horror film because he needed the money and only his head would be shown, and he didn’t think a film of this caliber, which could adversely affect his career, would be seen on the rest of the continent. Unfortunately he was wrong, and the film was in fact a hit on both sides of the Atlantic.

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