The Man Without a Body (1957)

Overrated and overhyped

Nice effects though.

Am I Missing Something?

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It's been a little while now, maybe a few months, since I saw this obscure title thanks to Netflix. I've been searching out goofball old movies like this for some years, and even I had not heard of this one, that's how obscure it is.I had seen a few films previously by the director, W. Lee Wilder, the much less talented brother of Billy Wilder. These included Phantom From Space and The Snow Creature, both of which I thought had a lovable, shaggy-mutt quality of boisterous genre thrills on a rock bottom budget. But still, those films, as ridiculous and low-rent as they were, made some kind of sense.This film makes hardly any sense AT ALL.Too many weirdnesses in the story and strange plot holes to even begin listing them. But the overall effect is like Ed Wood at his most hallucinatory. The movie feels like a sweat-drenched fever dream glimpsed obliquely through an oppressive cloak of madness draped over and blocking out the everyday world you and I inhabit. When a filmmaker, or any kind of artist, can achieve an effect like that on his audience, well, this is an artist that one cannot just dismiss wholesale. As ludicrous as this film is, it will make you sit up and take notice, even if it is only to groan "What am I LOOKING AT????" If you are an Ed Wood fan, and you appreciate his type of skewed reverie, this is a must-view. Even for those casually interested based on this review and the others listed here, I would encourage you to check it out. May not be a life-changing experience, but it is a loopy, way-out way to spend 80 minutes of your life.

George Coulouris was well cast in this film, as he almost always played morally bankrupt and selfish roles. Here, he plays a dying rich man--and he is determined to do anything to stay alive despite his brain tumor. His quest leads him to a scientist (Robert Hutton) who is doing weird experiments with monkeys. He's able to actually keep their heads alive using all sorts of machinery--and inexplicably, Coulouris likes this as a way to stay alive (yuck). And the researchers even seem to be able to revive heads that have been dead for some time--and Coulouris has the idea of reviving some of the great minds of history in order to put his consciousness into them or take advantage of them or I dunno--and I saw the film! Confusing? Yep...this is no ordinary transplantation film.It's amazing when you think about it, but this is actually a VERY familiar plot! It's about the 10th film I've seen involving scientists with disembodied heads and most, incidentally, involve rich guys wanting to cheat death! "Donovan's Brain", "The Brain That Wouldn't Die", "The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant" and "The Frozen Dead" are just a few of the films like "The Man Without a Body" I can think of just off the top of my head--but there are plenty more. A few of these films are pretty good and most are pretty dumb. So what about this particular film--is it among the good head-transplant films or the bad? Considering that it's really not clear EXACTLY what Coulouris or the doctors' plans are with this bizarre technology, that's one strike against the film already. I much more straight forward head transplantation plot would have probably worked a lot better than this confusing plot. Also, not having Nostradamus' head come SOMEWHAT to life and talk would have been a good thing--it came off as pretty dumb--even for a transplant film. In fact, aside from a good premise, the whole film just seemed muddled and like a wasted opportunity. Why Coulouris ran amok near the end was beyond me and the ending was really, really dumb. As a result, the film ranks among the lower echelon of disembodied head films (a dubious distinction indeed).By the way, why did they pick a lady for the film who barely spoke intelligible English? Someone thought the Hungarian lady in the fame was a good idea. It wasn't.

George Coulouris generally played character roles and occasionally second leads. In "The Man Without a Body", he gets his "big chance" to play the lead role in a movie. He should have passed—the movie is so ridiculous that it's laughable.Coulouris played a long line of rich and stuffy businessmen or industrialists, and here he's at it again. Unfortunately, his character is diagnosed with a deadly brain tumor and told to go home and die. Coulouris has a different idea, however: he schemes to exhume and steal the head of 16th-century philosopher Nostradamus, and implant that purloined brain in his skull. His new brain, Coulouris reasons, will have visions of the future, so it'll be great for business! Geez, why didn't I think of that? Coulouris travels to France, makes off with Nostradamus' head (which had been buried for 400 years), and smuggles the head back to the U.S., where he enlists the help of the local mad doctor, Robert Hutton. Somehow, Hutton is able to "activate" Nostradamus' head, so the good doctor and Coulouris can have some pretty interesting conversations with Nostradamus about his prophecies. Hutton's assistant is killed, so Hutton—apparently not wanting to waste a perfectly good 400-year-old head—transplants Nostradamus' head onto the assistant's body. The Nostradamus/assistant transplant guy naturally gets loose and goes for a stroll, falling to his death after a few preposterous scenes.I certainly hope Coulouris and Hutton were well-paid for this mess, because the film truly is dreadful. Imaginative? Yes. Good? Not at all. However, the animated conversations with a Nostradamus' old, old head are sort of entertaining, even if they're entertaining in the wrong way. You've been warned.

Absolutely incredible! Not only are there head grafts, but they manage to graft Nostradamus' intact head onto a person's body! Imagine his confusion. Terrible movie, but mercifully short, and so unbelievable it's worth a stare.