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Patrick Cory is a doctor that keeps brains alive and manages to get himself the
brain of "dead murderer W. H. Donovan." [I don't know that he was a murderer
before becoming just a brain, but whatever, right?] This brain becomes an
obsession for Cory and soon the brain is controlling Cory through "telepathic
messages" causing his wife to try and stop things before the brain destroys
both her and her husband. They also have glowing quotes from several places
that are just too gushily ridiculous to recount here. This is a bastion of
truth after all. 1953, 84 minutes, DVD
I don't know where all the flying brains were in this movie. If you've got
yourself an early 1950s movie about a killer brain, it either ought to fly
around or have grown to gargantuan size, preferably both. The only thing the
brain in this one does is sit in a bunch of dirty water in a fish aquarium!
These people were all scared of it and stuff and I never understood why the just
didn't go and dump an eel or crab or something in there with it and let nature
take its course. Of course the movie was just about over by the time I
figured out I had been tricked into watching a movie about a soggy brain
controlling one of those dope scientists that's always in his garage-lab playing
God and stuff, so my enjoyment wasn't overly hampered by the lack of a mobile
and/or large brain (actually lack of a large brain has never really hampered my
enjoyment of most of these movies - in fact, that probably helps) and I'd have
to put this one in the "check it out" category of old time horror flicks,
mainly because of what Lew Ayres (on the downward slide from his Holiday days, I'd wager) is able to do playing not only the scientist who's kind of an
obsessed boob, but also the scientist who gets possessed by the brain in the
fish tank and turns into a ruthless business man (just like the brain was in
its regular human life). I'm assuming that back when this was made people were
a gentler lot, without having to resort to modern-day stuff like threatening
jerks on the roads
that can't drive, telling clueless bank clerks that they are in fact the most
overpaid people next to Eddie Murphy, Harrison Ford, Stuart Little and the rest
of the has-beens that can't open a movie any better than you
or I could, and urinating on your co-worker's keyboard to lodge your
displeasure at the malicious gossip she's spreading about you (It was dark
and he was wearing a dress! Who do I look like? Eddie Murphy?). Thus, when
Lew's character became possessed and turned from cold scientist into this rich
meanie, we were probably supposed to be put off by him. Times have changed baby
and the whole time I was watching Lew do this shtick I was admiring him for
putting all the poor scum who get in the way of his income tax evasion scam in
their place. I was also admiring how he seemed to be channeling the late Phil
Hartman in several snotty scenes.  Now you can't just up and order yourself a human brain from Amazon.com or
someplace (at least the last time I checked you couldn't), so just how does Dr.
Patrick Cory get his mad scientist hands on one? It all starts innocently
enough with some rather pointless animal research that involves him importing
monkeys and scooping their itty-bitty brains out and putting them in some
liquid and hooking up some electrodes (I've got to look into getting me some of
these electrodes because these things seem to be the key to making all sorts of
mischief.) and checking out the trusty oscilloscope (they always bust these
things out in movies like this to check on stuff like alpha and beta waves -
it's really good for keeping the girlfriend or wife involved because it's
simple enough that even she can read the results to her man as he keeps poking
parts of the brain and saying "how about now?" over and over). Yes, somehow
this guy has gone and got himself a wife. This has always puzzled me about
these mad scientists who are intent on playing God or unlocking the secrets of
the universe or getting free cable or something. First of all, why would they
bother with a wife, second, why would she bother with him, and third, why would
she stay with him when it becomes apparent that he is more interested in
stimulating a monkey brain than her? Shoot, at the end of this movie when
it's all said and done and the brain has been defeated and Dr. Cory is going
off to get prosecuted for re-animating evil brains or something, she's there
kissing him and wishing him well like he's headed off for a day at the office.
Gawd, Nancy! Quit being a doormat and get yourself a career and self respect!
Dr. Cory doesn't just have a wife to ignore though. He also has an alcoholic
doctor buddy named Frank who for some reason insists on going on his drunken
binges at Cory's house. Mrs. Cory is pretty easy going because she doesn't
seem to mind that there's a passed out boozer laying on her living room floor
first
thing in the morning. Of course she's coming back from the monkey store with
her husband, so she's probably what you'd call "unconventional".  Somehow, Dr. Cory along with his wimpy wife (future first lady Nancy Reagan)
and his wasted pal Dr. Frank, manage to get this monkey brain up and running.
It sits in a tank and emits some waves that the oscilloscope picks up which
indicates that it is still functioning. Later they get a call that there's
been a plane crash and they want him to go and help scrape up some of the
passengers from the desert floor. Being the great scientist he is, he whines
about the inconvenience of it all until his wife guilts him into to it. He
brings one of the survivors back to his office and he and Frank operate on him
and try and save him. The guy bites it and then Dr. Cory gets one of those
flashes of inspiration that separates the mad scientists from the rest of us.
We've got this monkey brain working! We've got this body here and its brain is
going to waste! Are you thinking, what I'm thinking? Dr. Frank and Mrs. Cory
are both thinking that Dr. Cory is looking at five years in prison for
operating on a corpse, but you and I both know that that's "glass is half
empty" thinking and luckily for fans of killer brain mayhem, Dr. Cory thinks so
too. Out comes the surgical saw and the next thing we know, the family gold
fish gets its ass flushed down the commode to make room for Dr. Cory's new pet
brain! So who's brain was this? Usually in these body part movies, it's
someone like a serial killer or something, but this time the guy (Walter
Donovan) turns out merely to be a rich jerk that does crappy stuff like refuse
to donate to charity and avoids his tax burden by hiding his money in bogus
bank accounts. Just think how history would have been changed if Dr. Cory had
lived in Iowa and ended up with the Big Bopper's brain instead of this Donovan
guy's brain. If nothing else, the movie would have had an excuse to play Chantilly Lace a couple of times. But maybe this movie is scary enough on its own. 
Dr. Cory is just like any of us when we get a new pet. We've got no time for
our friends anymore and want to spend time only with our faithful companion,
except in this case the faithful companion isn't some cuddly dog or turtle, but
is a stinky brain who is faithful in the sense that it's trying to take over
Dr. Cory's mind to use him as its tool of evil! I was never sure how we ever
made the leap from just keeping this dumb brain alive in a dirty fish bowl to
having this brain gain super powers that allowed it to control human beings,
but then again, I was just trying to figure out what the point of keeping a
brain alive in 1953 was in the first place. Sure, Dr. Cory babbled something
about how they had transplants and stuff and this was just the next step, but I
think transplanting a brain (and I think Abbott and Costello can vouch for
this) is a little more involved than sticking a new liver in some drunk.
People don't usually croak because their brain goes out on them, so you're
looking at trying to find suitable candidates for the body the new brain goes
into. Then you've got to go and harvest the brain of the other dude
before it suffers irreversible trauma. Most of us don't plan on dying when we
do, so that might be a bit of a problem as well. The most sensible thing to do
is for someone to build cyborg bodies to put the brains they manage to save
into, but Dr. Cory is busy being manipulated by Donovan's blasted brain so
we'll have to leave these dilemmas to someone else. I also would guess that if
keeping these brains alive past their bodies' death turns them into
super-powered monsters, you might have to look into rethinking the entire
concept. Anyway, slowly and surely this brain turns Cory into Donovan complete
with limp, handwriting, and gruff manner. For some reason, the brain is using
its new found ability to continue to try and cheat the government out of the
taxes that the brain owes it. I think this is a refreshing change from the
usual schemes these monsters cook up. No plans for world conquest or revenge
on an unfaithful lover here. But if that stinkin' IRS thinks it's getting one
nickel from me, they are seriously mistaken, mister! I think the movie spent far too much time on scenes with Dr. Cory meeting with
cronies of Donovan's and flying around withdrawing all this money he had
stashed away in different banks. There were moments where I almost forgot that
there was a killer brain on the loose (well, not exactly on the loose, but you
know what I mean). Cory's wife and drunk friend are worried about him and Cory
attempts to escape the brain's control by getting himself run over by a truck.
That didn't work out so well, but they figure out that the brain can only
control one person at a time, so they manage to concoct some type of plan
involving a lightning rod and a thunderstorm while the brain is busy killing a
tabloid reporter or something. Obviously, this movie makes absolutely no
sense, but not in a way that you were contemplating hooking electrodes to your
privates to keep you interested. I suppose that the movie was passable because
it never tried to do more than it was capable of doing. Having a single brain
take over a guy to raid his secret bank accounts plays better with this dopey
concept than having an army of brains in this position trying to take over the
world (though it still would have been nice to see a brain flying around a
little). Everything is contained in its own little world, so you can kind of
swallow the whole "experiment gone wrong" scenario. Ayres is able to use the
inflections of his voice to signal when he's evil-Cory and when he's just
mad-scientist Cory and there are nice touches like having Cory order Donovan's
favorite cigars and getting Donovan's style of suit made for himself. That's
the
kind of detail that some brain trying to recreate its past life would probably
do, instead of figuring out how to invade the White House or something. The
rest of the cast is fairly nondescript, but they aren't given much to do so
they don't detract at all from the goings on. Naturally, you spend a lot time
cringing that Dr. Cory's wife would later run the free world when her husband
was taking naps or losing his mind or whatever, but would you rather see
Hillary in this movie? Solid enough for what it is, though it's obviously
over-rated by people who liked it better than me. There's just too many holes
in the
story to overlook (pretty lucky to have that thunderstorm when they did, huh?),
but I liked Lew Ayres well enough in it so that my own brain didn't end up
feeling like it was floating around in filthy bilge water.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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