The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962): watch the full film free, legally

Bill Cortner's forbidden transplant experiments

The Brain That Wouldn't Die is a 1962 American science fiction horror film directed by Joseph Green and written by Green and Rex Carlton. Jason Evers and Virginia Leith star. The picture centres on Dr. Bill Cortner, a doctor pursuing unorthodox theories about transplantation and a means of keeping human body parts alive. His work brings him into conflict with his father, a senior surgeon who condemns Bill's methods after Bill saves a patient who had been pronounced dead.

Bill drives with his fiancée, Jan Compton, to his family's country house when a car accident decapitates her. He retrieves Jan's head and races to the basement laboratory at the house. With help from Kurt, his disabled assistant, Bill revives her in a liquid-filled tray. Jan is alive, but her new condition causes her agony. She begs Bill to let her die. He refuses, and her resentment toward him grows.

Bill resolves to find Jan a new body, even if murder is required. He looks for a suitable woman at a burlesque nightclub, on the streets and at a beauty contest. The laboratory also holds another result of Bill's work: a lumbering, malformed brute from an earlier experiment, locked in a cell. Jan begins telepathic communication with the creature. After Kurt leaves the cell hatch unlocked, the monster attacks him. Bill later brings former girlfriend and figure model Doris Powell to the house, claiming that he wants to study the scars on her face for plastic surgery. He drugs Doris and takes her to the laboratory as Jan protests his intended operation.

From The Black Door to release

The film was independently shot around Tarrytown, New York, in 1959, under the working title The Black Door. Although completed that year, it did not receive a theatrical release until May 3, 1962. It was released as a double feature with Invasion of the Star Creatures. AIP picked up the film for release and cut it to 71 minutes for theatres.

Producer Rex Carlton proposed the title I Was a Teenage Brain Surgeon, following the style of similar titles of the period. The project was later called The Head That Wouldn't Die. Prints have used both The Brain That Wouldn't Die as the opening title and The Head That Wouldn't Die as the closing title. The film is also known by the latter name.

The monster in the laboratory was played by Eddie Carmel in his first cinematic role. Carmel was a Mandatory Palestine-born circus performer known as “The Jewish Giant.” Diane Arbus later photographed him for “The Jewish Giant at Home with His Parents in the Bronx, N.Y., 1970.” The main theme, “The Web,” was composed by Abe Baker and Tony Restaino, and was noted for creating a sinister mood.

Later cuts and critical responses

A 35 mm print was used for Synapse Films' Special Edition release in 2002. This uncut version runs 85 minutes and includes more of the stripper catfight and extra gore. In December 2015, Shout! Factory issued a Blu-ray edition of the uncut film with a high-definition transfer taken from the negative.

Boxoffice described the Rex Carlton production as “unrelievedly concerned” with the familiar mad-scientist character, and said Joseph Green's screenplay offered “little unanticipated developments from fade-in to fade-out.” Rotten Tomatoes lists a 38% approval rating from 13 reviews, with a weighted average of 4.63 out of 10. Leonard Maltin gave the film 1.5 out of four stars and called it “poorly produced.”

Dave Sindelar, writing on Fantastic Movie Musings and Ramblings, found that the film built some tension and had good gore effects, but said its lack of likable, intelligent characters and its “inability to decide just how it wants to be taken” ruined it. TV Guide gave it two out of four stars, calling it “one of the most genuinely bizarre 'brain' movies.”

Film details from the Wikipedia article “The Brain That Wouldn't Die”. Text adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0.