The Man Who Changed His Mind

"There's always something queer about a genius," argues brainy and beautiful young doctor Anna Lee; she is leaving the medical establishment—and ditching her handsome boyfriend—to join exiled former colleague Boris Karloff, whose brilliant past work has been recently overshadowed by his pursuit of ideas and research just a little too weird.

Brilliant and eccentric, yes; but is he mad? "I shall show you strange things about the mind of man," Karloff says. In his complex and visually impressive laboratory, he claims to have developed a process to take the "thought content" out of one brain and put it into another—basically, to switch brains. He tries it on two chimps…but would it work on humans?

Lee and Karloff are both very good, especially in the wonderfully intense scenes in which they spar over the limits, the purpose, the morality of science. Each character derives strength, meets powerful resistance from the other; each actor seems to draw energy from the other's presence as well.

The supporting cast includes John Loder as the boyfriend who would prefer that Lee stay in the city and marry him; he follows her out to the sticks and eventually manages to get mixed up in the plot. Not exactly the standard dashing rescuer—in fact, quite the opposite.

A very exciting climax tops off this suspenseful and well-written thriller. A gorgeous and fully furnished mad scientist's laboratory, too!

Star Boris Karloff's second British horror film, following THE GHOUL (1933), proves a more satisfying vehicle and quite an underrated (if minor) classic; apart from director Stevenson (later to helm some of the Walt Disney studio's most popular live-action films), its imposing credentials include producer Michael Balcon (one of the most influential in British cinema) and co-screenwriters John L. Balderston (a genre fixture who had worked on some of Hollywood's finest entries) and Sidney Gilliat (later a Hitchcock collaborator and an important film-maker in his own right, often teamed with Frank Launder)!

Production-wise, it's a modest effort – mostly confined to studio interiors – but one which, in its brief running-time, exhibits both style and substance in a gripping (if familiar) plot line that manages to encompass drama, comedy, romance, chills and suspense! Incidentally, the transference of souls from one body to another was also the theme of THE BROTHERHOOD OF Satan (1971) – which I just happened to watch the previous day – where it's given an occult slant, as opposed to the sci-fi approach of the Karloff film!!

In fact, the star's 'mad scientist' character here (named Laurience but pronounced Lorenz!) was the second in a string of similar roles he played from 1936-1942; I've only watched the first two and the last one but I have two more coming up tomorrow and the day after, while the rest will be released as part of Columbia's Karloff set next month! Anyway, he's excellent as always – driven, menacing or poignant as the situation demands – but he's ably supported by a wonderful British cast: Anna Lee (the director's own wife and with whom Karloff would reteam, memorably, in Hollywood in the Val Lewton-produced BEDLAM [1946]), John Loder, Frank Cellier, Cecil Parker and especially Donald Calthrop; the latter almost manages to steal the show with his crippled and cynical doctor's assistant, whose brain is then put into Cellier's body: the scenes where he tries to act up his new persona provide some delightful – and unexpected – moments of black comedy!

As usual, Karloff's love for the leading lady is unrequited (though she sure admires his genius!) and he concocts an elaborate plan to win her affections which, needless to say, is thwarted in the final reel. In fact, the film's climax (in which Karloff and Loder, having switched brains, attempt an impersonation of one another and then the process has to be reversed in order to save the hero's life, Karloff having thrown himself – in Loder's body – from a window to escape police capture!) is somewhat far-fetched but nonetheless exciting. The DVD transfer is acceptable for such a rare item, with the only negative note being some persistent hiss on the soundtrack.

This is one of the earliest examples of the "mad scientist" characterization that would become so much a part of Boris' stock in trade over the following decade. What's most interesting about THE MAN WHO CHANGED HIS MIND is that it is not as much science fiction as it is an observation of what we might today call the "PR machine," and it takes some lacerating swipes at journalism, publicity and self-promotion.

Karloff is Dr. Laurience, a reclusive scientist who believes he can transfer the consciousness (or soul?) from one brain to another. Ably assisted by Dr. Clare Wyatt, Laurience draws the interest of newspaper publisher Lord Haslewood (whose son, Dick, is Clare's fiancé). Eager to promote his foundation, Haslewood offers to sponsor Laurience's work - without knowing exactly what it is. Before the dust settles, Haslewood feels swindled, Clare feels suspicious and Laurience feels used, vowing to employ his work to his own ends rather than for the benefit of mankind.

Boris' performance is exuberant, and supporting players Anna Lee, John Loder and Donald Calthrop are effective, but Frank Cellier, as Lord Haslewood, walks away with the picture whenever he is on screen. Without giving too much away, let's just say that Cellier is called upon to portray more than one personality, and provides the film with its most enjoyable scenes.

THE MAN WHO CHANGED HIS MIND definitely has its moments, along with a little something to say. With its takes on the press and the pitfalls of corporate control, it not only conveys messages to which we can relate today, but illustrates how little some things have changed in 70 years.

It's difficult to say that a movie from the 30s is filled with clichés, because at the time they weren't so. The mad scientist, the arrogant businessman, the cocky boyfriend and the kind and clever woman, they are all here and doing the same things they do in today's movies. Perhaps at time time they were book stereotypes...

How we can't improve on the story of films after 80 years is a testament of our complacency as humans. Perhaps this is why mad scientists appear, they are only men of science at the beginning, but the world drives them mad. There is such a scene in the movie and one of the few in the genre that try to explain the desperation that takes one to do insane things. In this time, the madness of the scientist is a given and nobody cares why he does it, only that he die in an explosion wild eyed and screaming "Noo!".

All in all, a classic of horror.

This is not one of Karloff's better-known films among the mainstream public, but it is very close in quality to the best of his prolific output. It may be shorter and far less grandiose than Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), and especially Bride of Frankenstein (1935), but it touches on many of the same themes as the Frankenstein films while allowing his Karloff his turn in the role of a mad doctor.

Karloff is Dr. Laurience, a well known neuroscientist who had a reputation for being brilliant but whom we learn has developed a reputation as an off-his-rocker quack in the last few years. As The Man Who Changed His Mind opens, we meet the charming young Dr. Clare Wyatt (Anna Lee). A colleague says that this is the last time he will be working with Wyatt. We learn that she is heading off to be Laurience's research assistant. Everyone warns her not to go, especially Wyatt's boyfriend/fiancé-hopeful Dick Haslewood (John Loder), a budding reporter who works for the newspapers owned by his father, Lord Haslewood (Frank Cellier).

Wyatt is determined and a bit stubborn. She heads off to Laurience's manor while basically forbidding Haslewood to go along. He follows anyway. Wyatt soon learns why Laurience has a questionable reputation--he's been experimenting with siphoning off the mind, or the "soul", as he calls it, from monkeys by using sophisticated scientific equipment. Now that Wyatt has arrived and Laurience finally has a capable, trustworthy assistant, he plans on experimenting with two monkeys in an attempt to swap their minds. If that goes well, he says he is going to try the same with humans. Wyatt is disturbed by this, claiming it is highly unethical. But when Lord Haslewood offers financial backing for an exclusive (including copyright ownership) on Laurience's published results, Laurience has the facilities he needs to accelerate his goals. What will be the result of the experiments?

Director Robert Stevenson, whose career interestingly went from hard-boiled genre films to serious dramas before he finally settled into almost exclusively directing live-action Disney classics throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, engenders a thematic and atmospheric kinship to the early 1930s Universal horror classics in the earliest moments of The Man Who Changed His Mind. Thematically, we're first deposited in a clinical, respectable "high science" environment, before our hero(ine) makes a journey to a distant land, first via train, then by coach (which is characteristically driven by someone afraid to complete the journey) to a dingy, Gothic mansion to meet the antagonist. The antagonist has that role more by a compelled disposition than by choice. The journey signifies the transition between a cheery contemporary public façade for scientific endeavors and the "nasty truth" underlying the obsession with the current outgrowth of technology--that it is rooted in the mysterious, dangerous and uncouth "magic" of the alchemists. The mad scientist is in the role of the obsessed alchemist, of course, foolishly toying with God's creations in what amounts to a Satanic bid to become God himself. This is the well-known ideological basis of Dr. Frankenstein, and Stevenson carries it over to the present film.

Interestingly, the trio of screenwriters included John L. Balderston, who not only co-wrote Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, but also the play that formed the basis of Dracula (1931), Universal's first sound horror film of the Gothic era. Dracula features a similar journey at the beginning, even if the surface mechanisms involved in the conflict there are not scientific, but bureaucratic, centering on a real estate deal.

The Man Who Changed His Mind, like the Frankenstein films, uses "gobbledy-gooky" contraptions to fuel its bizarre metaphysics. Also like Frankenstein, the basic principle involved is electricity. In fact, The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) even has a similar plot device to this film, even if it's not so much the focus there. Laurience's motivation here may be more selfish than Dr. Frankenstein's--he's ultimately trying to find a way to prolong his own life, but this make him no less dangerous as an antagonist.

Balderston and his co-writers Sidney Gilliat and L. du Garde Peach also go a bit further in trying to get at difficult scientific and philosophical issues here concerning "what is mind?" Of course, they can't quite give an answer, but that's not surprising, as a few hundred years of work from philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists and such hasn't exactly provided an answer yet, either. Because of this, and for other ex-positional reasons, The Man Who Changed His Mind sometimes has very fast, "thick" dialogue (this is probably exacerbated by the 60-some minute running time, as well), but the dialogue never becomes burdensome. Audiences in this era were expected to be quicker and more intelligent. It's quite refreshing. The script also has more biting humor than one might expect, but you have to listen closely to make sure you do not miss some of the odder and more scathing jokes.

As it is heavy on dialogue and light on environment changes and things like special effects (aside from the Frankenstein devices), films like this must ultimately succeed or fail on the performances. Karloff is entrancing, complex and convincingly obsessive, even if he's not exactly playing the kind of guy you'd like to take out for a few beers. Lee is a delight as a headstrong, intelligent, powerful woman--especially given that this wasn't the norm for genre films of the era. Donald Calthrop is excellent as a feisty quadriplegic, and Cellier does a fantastic job in a demanding role that requires drastic changes of character.

If there's a flaw, it's merely that the short running time makes the film feel a bit lighter than it should. But Karloff fans and any fans of genre films of this era can't afford to miss this one.