THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE (1962)

Modern commentators amazingly may suggest—in the unrestricted freedom of hindsight—that this film has deeper meanings than what appears on the surface. Yes, it is deep. About ankle-deep. This is bottom-of-the-barrel filmmaking, yet this preposterous result has garnered almost more attention than The Longest Day. William Castle’s thumbprints are assumed on each film's canister yet he did not produce it. In this case, imitation is the lowest form of flattery. This decapitated budget disaster was produced by Rex Carlton and Mort Landberg with direction by Joseph Green, who co-wrote the story with Carlton. Though completed in 1959, this science fiction horror double feature was theatrically released with an inane score three years later by American International Pictures. Europe’s salacious eighty-one-minute version includes gratuitous “naughty bits” with no benefit to a bizarre screenplay. This hardly unknown, seventy-minute version is still a good ten minutes too long.

Television stalwart, Jason (Herb) Evers, in his first leading film role, plays the obligatory mad surgeon who has invented a serum to keep human body parts alive. Mary Shelley was way ahead of him. He and his fianceé, Virginia Leith, are cruising to his country estate in her Mercury convertible. As any insane person might do, his speed increases to a point where the land barge has little chance of negotiating the downhill curves. The cheap, oft-used mounting of a camera on the front bumper’s corner fakes a sense of high speed. One can expect a poorly edited crash at any moment. The three-second, decades-old stock sound effect of screeching tires and metal crunching is used. There is a quick edit of Evers’ silently screaming in horror as the camera lens rapidly rotates. He then perfectly rolls down an embankment (whee!) to find the car exactly where it was positioned. It is a clean decapitation of Leith. Well, I think her head simply popped off. Instinctively, Evers grabs her head thinking he could probably do something with that later.

In his estate’s basement laboratory, Evers keeps Leith’s head wired and tubed for days with an added pair of stylish headphones. The effect of her head on a tray is well done, convincing in a gullible way. Her new existence is sheer agony. Her nose itches. He ignores her pleas. Leith brings a new definition to brain power as she instigates a kinship with an insidious mutant by telepathy—Evers’ early experiment gone awry. It is one of the worst makeup attempts in cinema. I think Evers’ surgery has to garner the blame. One eye is positioned forty-five degrees opposite the other with a head shape that can best be described as a descendant of the Conehead family from the original Saturday Night Live skits. A reference photo of any human may have helped. The mutant’s first sounds of grunting or vomiting are pretty funny. If only he had also farted.

Evers, now with the option of taking Leith’s figure to a whole new level, hunts for a body specimen at a sleazy burlesque club, and a beauty contest, and lusts after girls who “randomly walk cul de sacs.” He settles on a former girlfriend—now a “figure” model—a face reminiscent of Elizabeth Taylor from certain angles. Her hair hides a hideous facial scar from a male attacker. Understandably, she is turned off by men. She can add one more to her list as he drugs her and takes her to his country estate's lab.

Given the ridiculous concept of this film and her lack of body language, Leith's alto voice acting is well done as the head of the table. But Evers has had enough of her constant yapping and puts tape over her mouth. This may work at home but is never successful at stopping telepathy. It is pretty ghastly when Mr. Mutant first tears an arm from a lab assistant and then takes a bite out of Evers' neck, spewing blood—and then some—from his carotid artery. The director, wondering how to possibly end this debacle, sets fire to the lab, as one would expect. Leith ends the film with cryptic nonsense, “I told you to let me die.”

Note: This project ended Virginia Leith’s film career—perhaps out of total embarrassment. Understandably, she refused to return for some post-production recording, so her voice had to be dubbed here and there. The drive to the country estate is the first time her voice is obviously dubbed with a higher vocal register complete with a southern accent—most frequently used is an out-of-place laugh. Actress Doris Brent, the nurse at the beginning of the film, did the honors.