Well Deserved Praise

Strictly average movie

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

***SPOILERS*** Greedy and unscrupulous financial investment/banker Karl Brussard, George Coulouris, learns from his doctor Phil Merritt, Robert Hutton, that he has a terminal brain tumor that will end up killing him within a year. Refusing to accept the enviable Brussard seeing that he's experimenting with the brains of dead monkeys and bringing them, the live monkeys that he's experimenting with, back to life Brussard convinces Dr. Merritt to do the same for him. The rub in all this is that in Dr. Merritt's mind is that doing the same experiments with a human being is unethical and even worse, for Brussard, who's brain does he want to replace that of his his own? Thinking big in the brain he wants to have Brussard goes to France to check out the mausoleum when the great seer and philosopher Nostradamus, Michael Gordon, is in-terned in. Brussard plans to have his head surgically removed and have it brought back to life by the very reluctant, in not knowing who's head it is, Dr. Merritt. It's the sneaky Brussard who's planing to use Nostradamus' brain to predict future stock markets moves and thus profit from them. But the great Nostradamus knowing what a creep that Brussard is has plans of his own that in the end , by Brussard flowing his bad advice, will end up bankrupting him!You don't quite understand, unless he's insane, Brussard's plans to become the richest man in the world by using Nostradamus' future stock predictions to do it since he hasn't long to live anyway to enjoy it? As Brussard is losing his money in the fake stock predictions that Nostradamus is giving him he's slowly losing his life from the terminal brain tumor that's killing him. With both his money and life on the verge of expiring Brussard really loses it and in an attempt to get back at Nostradamus tries to kidnap his head and destroy it!***SPOILERS*** This total insane action on Brussard's part has the head, that's Nostradamus, re-unite with the body, that of someone else, and keep the by now completely out of it Karl Brussard from his attempt to destroy it! By the time the movie is finally over Nostradamus loses his head for the second time but unlike the first this time it really counted. That by him putting and end to Brussard's crazy plans to rule the world of finance by using his head to do it!

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.

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.