The Head is probably the darkest "Head in a Pan" movie I've ever seen. I've always gotten the idea that these things are going to be campy (a la The Brain that Wouldn't Die). But here, the head of brilliant scientist Dr. Abel (I think that was his name?) just wants people to kill him, because he hates being alive as just a head. It's pretty depressing, and towards the end he proclaims "I'm just so tired" like some elderly person waiting to die. Happy Holidays!
But the medical acts against nature are two-fold in this film. Before any head in a pan business, the mad genius Dr. Brandt (I think - I need to start writing down names in my notes) has joined forces with Dr. Abel. They are looking into the science behind organ transplants (at the time this was made, a scientific reality for only 5 years - and only then with a kidney). Dr. Abel in particular has a lot on the line, for he has a heart condition that will surely be fatal if he does not get a transplant. And Dr. Abel has also invented a "z-serum" that will keep these organs living and viable - in fact, he was able to keep a dog's head alive for months! (We don't see this, thankfully.) He is also looking to help out his good friend Irene, and hunchbacked nurse who desperately wants her deformity fixed. Really, both the good Dr. Abel and the evil Dr. Brandt are the kind of doctors that just like to mess around surgically and see what they can do. The big difference? Dr. Abel only does this with consent and within the bounds of nature. Dr. Brandt? Not so much.
Dr. Brandt, in the guise of performing heart surgery on Dr. Abel, cuts off his head and keeps it alive in the z-serum. Once he's got that out of the way, he decides to see if he can swing a full head transplant. He already has the head picked out (Irene), he just needs a body. But he has to resort to dubious means to get the body, as neither the head nor the body (obviously) are willing participants. What havoc will Dr. Brandt's evil medical experiments cause? Tune in to find out!
The subject matter/dark tone of The Head seems a little before it's time - I generally don't expect such dourness to come from a 50's movie. I could see this story being better suited to a dark, trippy 70's flick, with a little more of a surrealist take on things. It's got an okay story and decent performances, but the pedestrian sets/shooting and bland overall look make the 90 minute run time a bit tough to get through. And I am by no means a Black & White hater, but this movie really could have used some color. The B&W photography is nothing special, and some color would have sexed things up a bit.
Really, everyone in The Head is either a bummer or gets killed. After the transplant, Irene is really depressed and wracked with guilt - she doesn't even enjoy her new body! There are a couple of scenes where she seems to struggle between her old head and her new body (coffee vs. whiskey! I can't dance vs. yes I can!) but it's never played for laughs. You feel bad for her both pre- and post- operation. And Dr. Abel's head just chills most of the time - he slurs his speech and mostly seems like he's on serious opiates the whole time. But he is cognizant enough to ask anyone who walks by to please kill him, so there's that. Even our "hero" (a starving artist type who knew "the body" of post-op Irene) is clearly more motivated by wanting to get laid than by doing the right thing.
(Although I did just find out just now (thanks imdb!) that The Head is a German film. That could help explain why it had a darker feel to it than I was expecting - I feel like a lot of the cheap American sci-fi of the time was generally going after a more fun tone. It was another 50 Tales of Terror budget pack film where I couldn't really tell if the lips were moving with the dialogue or not. So good work dubbers! The picture quality isn't great, but a step up from The Long Hair of Death.)
And the evil Dr. Brandt just isn't quite crazy enough for my liking. He just sits in this gray area - not quite dark enough to be disturbing, but not cheesy enough to be entertaining. He gets a couple of speeches explaining his reasoning for playing God, but they essentially amount to "I was curious."
The special effects were pretty solid though. Dr. Abel's decapitated head actually looks pretty seamless - I couldn't see any split screens/fake table fronts or anything like that. I mean, there's only one way to really put a living head on a table, but they cover their tracks better than most here.
Overall though, it's a tough sell. It feels longer than it's 91 minutes - it would have been better suited to the 65-75 minute range (again, maybe the length is it's German-ness shining through). It's just kind of a drag, with all the depressed characters and overall gloominess. Other than that, there's not anything that makes it stick out. It's dark tone would maybe make for interesting counter-programming in a "Head in a Pan" movie marathon, as I would expect most of these would tend towards the cheesy side (I keep picturing an evil head ordering people around as it laughs maniacally). But for me, that's about all The Head had to offer.
I would not recommend this film.
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