Back in 1983 I was first introduced to this film like
many Brits by the Medved brothers’ TV series The Worst of Hollywood showcasing some of the celluloid stinkers of
the past. However, they may have been unfair to this 1972 AIP release as it’s
too consistently and inappropriately funny to be anything other than
intentional spoofery! The dialogue alone is priceless and even when meant to be
serious compounds the hilarity, so I’ll be joyously quoting it at length here
(and giving them the benefit of the doubt intention-wise). Admittedly there are
elements that are just plain wrong but we’ll get to those as well.
The Thing With Two Heads is a
Blaxploitation companion piece to the seemingly more serious AIP horror
exploiter The Incredible Two-Headed
Transplant (1971) wherein Bruce Dern as the scientist grafts a murderer’s
head onto a large, child-minded adult with predictably catastrophic
results.
Here, the tone initially appears straight.
Re-invigorated horror genre star Ray Milland plays Dr Kershner, ‘one of the foremost transplant specialists
in the world’, a paraplegic scientist with a bitter racist streak. This is
clearly signposted early on as he tries to fire his new young black staff
surgeon Dr Fred Williams (Don Marshall) under a pretence of budgetary cuts. His
sneer of racist disgust is accentuated by condescending Fred with faint praise
as a mere ‘lab man’.
Clandestinely, Dr Kershner is experimenting in the
field of head transplants and has already grafted a second bonce onto an adult
gorilla. The evident ‘guy in a monkey suit’ soon makes a break for it and in
lieu of strangling his agent ransacks a mini-mart till he’s cornered, both
heads enjoying a banana each.
Kershner’s colleague is Dr Desmond, amusingly portrayed
here by Roger Perry, a man whose gift for science is rivalled only by his
talent for understatement. On understanding the near immortality offered by
such transplants on humans he mutters
“This could revolutionise the whole profession”.
Of course the deranged Dr Kershner wants to use the
technology for his own head to be given new life atop an uninjured body: “Perhaps someone with an inoperable brain
condition”. In ‘70s exploitation cinema, that’s a broad field of
opportunity. His inhuman selfishness extends to demanding the operation be
carried out in secret to avoid public ‘scrutiny’. A prison is contacted and a
hilarious speech by an officer over the tannoy invites a volunteer to come
forward from Death Row - with the comforting thought that should the operation
be fatal they would have “the personal
satisfaction that your life has aided humanity and the scientific world”.
(Maybe medical altruism is the last thing on a condemned man’s mind?)
A wrongly-convicted hulking black man Jack Moss (former
pro football player Rosey Grier) is about to be given the electric chair.
Another possibly unintended laugh is the officer who prefaces the juice with “More power to you, brother”’. Jack’s
reaction is understandably non-plussed. He’s about to get a very unnatural dose
of said power coursing through his body. With nothing to lose, he decides to go
for the experiment and before long we cut to the operating theatre.
Leaving aside the queasy unintended(?) racism of going
from a gorilla to a large black human subject, the operation is a success.
Curiously, in the sequence where Kershner’s severed head is moved across, it
looks more convincing in close-up than in a wide shot. The one fly in the
ointment is that on waking, Dr Desmond has to break the news to Kershner that
he’s now sharing a body with a member of his racial enemy. On seeing his big meaty arm raise up, Milland
comically responds: ‘‘Is this some kind of a joke?’
The premise is now set for Jack to go on the run to
prove his innocence of the original crime attached to the unwilling and
appalled (at times crap papier-mache) head of Kershner who continually schemes
to hijack the whole body for himself. This conflict echoes the serious intent
of the Curtis/Poitier film The Defiant
Ones (1958) where a bigoted white and a black prisoner are grudgingly
forced into racial harmony by being shackled together through a prison break
and beyond. Here though it’s played for preposterous fun, including a wild
cross-country car-chase on motorcycle (with Fred on the back) versus a redneck
set of Keystone Kops police cars. Amongst the carnage, the police ham-string
themselves. “What kind of assistance do you require?” asks the base of one of
its’ vehicles after a crash.
“Well, a tow-truck would be nice”, groans the
defeated driver.
Along the way, AIP also pulls off a well-used
exploitation trick of theirs by inserting all-too-obvious stock footage from a
desert scramble bike event into our unlikely heroes’ chase
Eventually, the three (ish) wind up using Jack’s girlfriend’s
pad as a hideout. She could also use some acting classes as her underplaying is
surely not meant to be so bad. On seeing
her escaped lover sharing his body with a white-man’s head for the first time: “You get into more shit…”, she
dead-pans. Her mind swiftly computes side-benefits though. “Do you have two of anything else?” Later, in a private moment
with Fred, she also demonstrates the same gift for understatement as Dr
Desmond, defending Jack’s innocence: “He
certainly doesn’t deserve what he’s getting”.
Kershner’s lack of principles as well as his bigotry
knows no bounds. He secretly attempts to persuade Fred to help him amputate
Jack’s head in return for claiming all the medical credit from Desmond as the
original operating surgeon. No dice.
At one point elsewhere, unbeknownst Desmond defends his
unscrupulous boss with a hugely funny throwaway mumble of back-story: “He’s not had an easy life…Even his
childhood”.
If the evidence so far isn’t enough to convince you of
the film’s deliberate parodying, listen to the car radio newscastor who plays
an interview with the failed police officer from the chase; “I’ll get ‘im. I’ll get the b-“ before
being cut off.
Finally, Fred does the decent thing and removes
Kershner’s head. It is left at his house awaiting Desmond plaintively: “Philip. Get me another body please.” We
are left with the joyful trio of Fred, Jackie and his girlfriend driving off
singing ‘Oh Happy Day’
The Thing With Two Heads is a two-headed, wrong-headed pleasure…
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