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Bud Brewster Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)

Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 17637 Location: North Carolina
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Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2014 11:41 pm Post subject: The Brain that Wouldn't Die (1962) |
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A sick movie, yes . . . but fun---ny! (Click on the poster and watch it! )
A surgeon (Jason Evers) and his fiance' (Virginia Leith) crash their car on a lonely road, causing her to be decapitated. Evers takes Miss Leith's head to his modest one-room laboratory (one small room, with very little equipment).
He puts her head in a shallow, liquid-filled pan and connects it to a few tubes. Voila! The head lives! (And talks. Never mind where the air comes from).
Then, in an effort to find a replacement torso for his poor fiance', Evers goes "body shopping" -- cruising the streets in his convertible while he ogles numerous shapely women in tight skirts. (In fact, there doesn't seem to be anything but tight-skirted women walking the streets in his neighborhood. How curious.)

Considering every possible option, Evers sweet talks several exotic dancers, carefully hiding the fact that he doesn't exactly love them for their minds . . .
But with so many shapely female bodies to choose from, the good doctor gets overly picky about physical endowments, and he takes too long making his choice, even though he finally does decide on a lucky girl to received this rare honor.
The wife loses her mind -- which is about all she had left, sad to say . In a climactic orgy of bloody justice, Jason gets his just deserts when he is attacked by the dreaded Thing In The Closet, an imprisoned creation from a failed experiment.
We knew this was coming, and it came not a moment too soon!
Written and directed by Joseph Green. _________________ ____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon Jul 18, 2022 2:13 pm; edited 8 times in total |
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Eadie Galactic Ambassador

Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 1670
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Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 9:29 am Post subject: |
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Kind of makes you wonder what this (and other low budget movies) would have been like if the actually had a decent budget. |
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Krel Guest
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Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 1:13 pm Post subject: |
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The moral of the story, and others like it? Always, ALWAYS dispose of your botched and failed experiments. Keeping them around is just asking for a visit from the karma train. And the karma train is a freight train!
David. |
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Bud Brewster Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)

Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 17637 Location: North Carolina
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Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2014 1:43 pm Post subject: |
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Excellent advice, David.
The disposal of unwanted biological experiments in a safe and "green" manner is the key to preventing our laboratories from become polluted by the messy body parts of lab works ripped asunder whenever those disgruntled creations escape.
Yes, indeed — I'm pretty sure THIS guy wishes he'd listen to you, David!
__________________ _________________ ____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Thu Sep 16, 2021 12:07 pm; edited 6 times in total |
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Bud Brewster Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)

Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 17637 Location: North Carolina
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Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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Jimbo Berkey's website, Free Classic Movies has this to say about The Brain that Wouldn't Die.
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If you watch this old movie with twenty-first century eyes, it may look very foolish and silly, but think about 1962 people.
Just a few years earlier the first artificial heart was emplanted in a dog, and it survived for 90 minutes. Doctors all over the world were experimenting with transplanting kidneys, livers, hearts, and more, and they foretold of a day when almost any human body part that went bad could be replaced with a new one. There was great debate over whether man should attempt to replace and renew what God had given us.
Would transplanting human parts become commonplace in extending our lives, or would it lead to demonic and evil unintended consequences?
This movie investigates the possibilities, and concludes that only monstrous things can happen when men fool around with God's creations. I'm sure that most people that watched this one came out of the theater with a lot of fears about medical advances, but in reality, it is only a mad-scientist murder thriller, of the ilk of Frankenstein, dressed in 1962 science.
Our movie opens in an operating room where father and son surgeons are working on a patient on the operating table. When the patient dies, the father sadly accepts that he lost the fight to save the man.
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Bill Cortner, the son, takes over then and 'miraculously' brings the man back to life. It seems that the son has been experimenting with life and death, and has been stealing body parts from the hospital morgue to experiment with at the family lodge in the mountains. With various parts from dead bodies, he has discovered a serum that can allow the various body parts to be sewn together and a complete human body that lives is created.
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But this 'thing,' cobbled together from different body parts starts to evolve in some evil way, and the doctor's assistant, who is at the country place helping with the experiments, calls Bill and tells him that he must come quickly because something is very wrong.
Bill and his lovely fianc?? get into Bill's new 1962 convertible and race off to the mountain home to see what is up. As Bill is racing faster and faster, he misses a stop sign, and then at a sharp bend in the road there is a horrible accident, and Bill is thrown free from the car. But when he staggers back to the car he finds his girlfriend decapitated. He quickly wraps her head in his suit coat and takes it to his country home, where he and his assistant put it into a pan on the table and hook up tubes that provide a steady flow of his miracle serum.
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Her head comes to life, but she wants to die — and wants revenge on her fianc?? Bill for bringing her back to life.
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Meanwhile, Bill is off in search of a beautiful female body to bring back to the country home and transplant to girlfriend's head. He finally finds the right girl, brings her to the laboratory in the basement, and prepares the operation.
But there is a 'thing' locked in the closet. Bill's girlfriend's head has been communicating with this 'thing' and they plan to get revenge on Bill for creating them.
Everything comes to a head (so to speak) as Bill prepares the girl he kidnapped for the operation to take off her head and replace it with the head of his girlfriend.
What evil will happen as Bill starts to operate? Will the thing in the closet get loose to help his girlfriend's head get revenge on Dr. Bill? Will the head in the pan live on when sewed to the body of another?
Will the thing in the closet find a new life with the head in the pan? Will you toss your popcorn at the sight of the black-and-white 'gore' that had become all the rage in 1962? In the older movies, we never saw the blood and guts of the dying, but in 1962 it has become popular to add extra 'shock' to the story by depicting gore. By today's standards it isn't really very scary or realistic, but this is state-of-the-art Science Fiction Horror in 1962, and it succeeded in scaring the bee-jeebers out of most of the movie fans of the day.
____Jimbo Berkey _________________ ____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Mon Oct 28, 2019 12:25 pm; edited 5 times in total |
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orzel-w Galactic Ambassador

Joined: 19 Sep 2014 Posts: 1865
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Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 4:53 pm Post subject: |
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Jimbo Berkey wrote: | Would transplanting human parts become commonplace in extending our lives, or would it lead to demonic and evil unintended consequences? |
Depends on how much money is involved. _________________ ...or not...
WayneO
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Brent Gair Mission Specialist
Joined: 21 Nov 2014 Posts: 466
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Posted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 6:28 pm Post subject: |
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Eadie wrote: | Kind of makes you wonder what this (and other low budget movies) would have been like if the actually had a decent budget. |
I agree with Bud's answer.
The primitive nature of these low budget productions is a significant part of their appeal (for me, at least). Big dollars won't help.
One reason I can never get into THE SHINING is that, every time I try to watch it, the only thing I can think is, "this is that Kubrick horror movie with Jack Nicholson" .
I have a small collection of Eskimo soapstone carvings...nothing high dollar...maybe ten pieces worth about $100 each (some much less). The individual pieces show the work of men doing the best they can with limited resources and simple tools. If they all got together and bought a $200,000.00 CNC machine connected to CAD/CAM work stations, they wouldn't produce a more appealing product. The end result would be more polished and more consistent but it wouldn't interest me.
There needs to be a dark corner of the movie world where geeks like me can enjoy the flawed efforts of people with limited talent and limited money trying their best...even if the results are inglorious face plants. |
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Bud Brewster Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)

Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 17637 Location: North Carolina
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Posted: Thu Aug 17, 2017 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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Brent Gair wrote: | The primitive nature of these low budget productions is a significant part of their appeal (for me, at least). Big dollars won't help. |
I just can't enjoy bad movies like this one, any more than I could enjoy artwork by an untalented artist, or a song delivered by someone who sings so far off key that dogs flee in terror at the horrible sounds they produce.
In other words, watching bad movies is like eating spoiled food. They make me feel like puking. It's a reflex.
The only exception to this I can think of off-hand is The Green Slime . . . and I still think it was secretly made as a spoof of bad movies. _________________ ____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
Last edited by Bud Brewster on Fri Aug 18, 2017 3:50 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Krel Guest
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Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 10:37 am Post subject: |
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Bud Brewster wrote: | I just can't enjoy bad movies like this one, any more than I could enjoy artwork by an untalented artist, or a song delivered by a someone who sings so far off key that dogs flee in terror at the horrible sounds they produce. |
So Bud, I take it that you are not a fan of Johnathan and Darlene Edwards? Real names, Paul Weston and Jo Stafford.
Bud Brewster wrote: | The only exception to this I can think of off-hand is The Green Slime . . . and I still think it was secretly made as a spoof of bad movies. |
You have to love a movie where EVERYONE in the movie makes the wrong decisions.
David. |
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Bud Brewster Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)

Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 17637 Location: North Carolina
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Posted: Fri Aug 18, 2017 3:54 pm Post subject: |
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Krel wrote: | So Bud, I take it that you are not a fan of Johnathan and Darlene Edwards? Real names, Paul Weston and Jo Stafford. |
I guess not because . . . ummm . . . I've never heard of them!  _________________ ____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958) |
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Bud Brewster Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)

Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 17637 Location: North Carolina
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Posted: Mon Oct 28, 2019 12:32 pm Post subject: |
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________________________________
I just had a very disturbing thought.
The picture below shows the poor woman's living head in the pan of blood, completely without a body . . . and yet she's wearing makeup!
I get this sick mental image of Jason Evers carefully applying her lipstick and eye liner to make his beloved "look her best".
Oh Dear Lord, the injustice of it . . .
__________ [/url][size=12] _________________ ____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958) |
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ralfy Mission Specialist

Joined: 23 Sep 2014 Posts: 473
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Bud Brewster Galactic Fleet Admiral (site admin)

Joined: 14 Dec 2013 Posts: 17637 Location: North Carolina
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Posted: Thu Sep 16, 2021 12:04 pm Post subject: |
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________________________________
The YouTube video below has a good picture and a fine introduction by a "Late Night Movie" host who goes by the name Lon Madnight.
The opening alone made me a fan of this guy.
_MadNight Movies Presents The Brain that Wouldn't Die
__________  _________________ ____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958) |
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