The Man Without a Body

Hilariously, profoundly awful, The Man Without a Body (1957) really does need to be seen to be believed. A cheap-as-can-be sci-fi / horror B-movie, produced in Britain but certainly bearing marks of American-made drive-in flick influences, it stars George Coulouris as a volatile, bad-tempered industrial mogul who discovers he has a malignant brain tumour; consulting with experimental scientist Robert Hutton, he discovers the only way to save his own life is to undergo a brain transplant, so with an admirable 'aim high' mentality, he decides the only brain that will do the job is that of the four hundred years-dead French seer Nostradamus. Following a spot of grave-robbing and an unclear laboratory process whereby the long-decayed tissues of Nostradamus' head are totally re-generated ready for grafting onto Coulouris' shoulders, the lusty carryings-on of his unfaithful mistress (From Russia With Love's Nadja Regin) and the crafty disembodied head's own plan to bankrupt the businessman result in the death of Hutton's assistant Sheldon Lawrence, after which his body becomes the recipient of the psychic's bonce and goes on perhaps the most uneventful monster rampage in film history. Nostradamus might have been able to see into the future, but I bet even he didn't predict his eventual fate would be to have his severed noodle swinging from the bell ropes of a Twickenham church tower…

One of the first attempts by a different production company to capitalise on the nascent UK horror boom spearheaded by Hammer's The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), this totally barmy film has far more in common with US-made trash like Frankenstein's Daughter (1958), in that it is completely impossible to take seriously. Written by somebody called William Grote (given that this individual has no other credits at all, I would assume the name is an alias of some collection of random contributors) and supposedly co-directed by Billy Wilder's brother W. Lee and the unsung Charles Saunders (Tawny Pipit), the legend is that Saunders actually had no hand in this mess at all, and was merely hired to be present on set to satisfy quota regulations ensuring a certain number of films made in the UK were actually employing Brits. Coulouris, a respected actor and colleague of Orson Welles who had appeared in Citizen Kane (1941) and whose filmography contains a sprinkling of other classics, must have wondered what the hell he had got involved in with this shocker; in terms of special effects and scare-value it makes its sister film Womaneater (1958), from the same stable and again starring Coulouris, look like The Thing (1982) by comparison. The veteran actor gives it his all, and Regin's nympho routine is convincing enough, but they were never going to carry the film; I mean Raging Bull-era DeNiro couldn't have made this insanity fly all by himself.

This is well worth a watch if you want to pee yourself laughing, though; The Man Without a Body is unsurprisingly not available on DVD, though it is on YouTube in a poor-quality upload.

I defy anyone to find a 1950's film more off the wall and unpredictable than this. Even Nostradamus himself wouldn't be able to do it! Calling this campy trash is taking the easy way out. The film has more original ideas than a dozen big budget Hollywood films from the same period that cost a hundred times as much. If you have never seen "Man Without A Body" before, find it on Youtube, where it is presented in complete and pristine form. Then sit back and get ready to be amazed by the entertaining absurdity of it all.

To cover the basics of the plot, an egomaniacal millionaire in the vein of Charles Foster Kane and Howard Hughes is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor after he has head pains and starts answering phantom phone calls. Veteran actor George Coulouris plays Karl Brussard with lots of vigor. Of course Brussard cannot contemplate his own end, so he hooks up with renegade scientist Dr. Merritt, who has found a method of keeping long dead monkey heads alive and in perfect condition.The crazed Brussard has the idea to imprint his mind and personality upon the head of the greatest man who ever lived...the French prophet Nostradamus! After a grave-robbing expedition, the dessicated head of Nostradamus is brought back to life and asks Dr. Merritt and company: "Have they burned all my books?" Despite the cheesy effects, there is something quite eerie about the ease with which Nostradamus adapts to his new situation, saying "I have always lived in the future". Soon Brussard tries to brainwash Nostradamus into thinking he's Brussard, leading to one of the craziest scenes ever filmed.

Meanwhile, there's a lot more going on. Brussard's sexy nymphomaniac mistress Odette, whom he treats like an annoying pet, has hatched a plot to murder the old man with the help of Merritt's assistant Lou. At the same time, Merritt's female assistant Jean tries to get this frosty egghead to thaw out and return her advances. Finally, in an amazing scene, Nostradamus is transformed into a Frankenstein-like monster with a giant paper mache blob encasing his head. This crazy creature goes on the rampage in search of the now-fugitive Brussard, whose company has been ruined due to false stock market advice given by the prophet.

The ending is very abrupt, yet quite appropriate. It seems Nostradamus had foreseen everything all along, resulting in a satisfactory resolution where everybody gets their due.

Despite the cheapness of the production, "The Man Without A Body" holds you in a spell from the get go, with better direction than you would think. This film is begging to be discovered! I wonder if the real Nostradamus could have ever foreseen his participation in a movie like this?

A wealthy business man discovers he has a brain tumor and seeks medical help. The business man finds a scientist experimenting with transplanting monkey heads on different monkey bodies.

How can you go wrong when Billy Wilder's brother directs? You simply cannot. Especially when he has a nice scene that acts as free advertising for Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum.

What I find most interesting about this film is that it implies the French have discovered the secret to keeping corpses fresh. You would think that after a few hundred years, Nostradamus' head would be nothing more than a skull (if that). Yet, he is hardly rotten at all and even has his vocal cords in working order.

Man Without a Body, The (1957)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

A wealthy businessman learns he has a brain tumor but thankfully he's met a doctor who's doing experiments on head transplants. The rich man decides to steal the head of Nostradamus and put on his body. There are a few interesting ideas scattered throughout the film but the poor direction and screenplay doesn't allow anything good to happen. I think a better screenplay could have made this one of the better horror films of its era but what we end up with is nothing more than a disappointment. The film is way too slow and overly long, which is never good for a horror film.

As preposterous sci-fi movies go, this one takes some beating. George Coulouris is the millionaire "Brussard" whose doctors tell him he has a tumour in his head and isn't long for the world. He refuses to admit defeat and concludes that some sort of transplant is probably his best plan. Allied with the inventive "Dr. Merritt" (Robert Hutton) who has been experimenting for ages on prolonging the life of a brain by sewing the head of one monkey onto the body of another, he procures that of Nostradamus (looks more like Rasputin to me, but anyway...) with a view to using his mathematical genius to capitalise on his already extensive fortune. Thing is, the headless body is a little narked at being decapitated and plumbed into some bubbling test tubes on a formica table, and so sets about wreaking a very static, but effective, revenge on his rapidly declining patron. What happens next? Well that doesn't really matter. By now the film has reached the depths of silly science backed up with some very dizzying visual effects and a few gadgets plundered from the school lab. The ending is fun, but in a ridi-colouloris sort of fashion. Not very good, sorry.