matthewmercy Hilariously, profoundly awful, The Man Without a Body (1957) really does need to be seen to be believed. A cheap-as-can-be sci-fi / horror B-movie, produced in Britain but certainly bearing marks of American-made drive-in flick influences, it stars George Coulouris as a volatile, bad-tempered industrial mogul who discovers he has a malignant brain tumour; consulting with experimental scientist Robert Hutton, he discovers the only way to save his own life is to undergo a brain transplant, so with an admirable 'aim high' mentality, he decides the only brain that will do the job is that of the four hundred years-dead French seer Nostradamus. Following a spot of grave-robbing and an unclear laboratory process whereby the long-decayed tissues of Nostradamus' head are totally re-generated ready for grafting onto Coulouris' shoulders, the lusty carryings-on of his unfaithful mistress (From Russia With Love's Nadja Regin) and the crafty disembodied head's own plan to bankrupt the businessman result in the death of Hutton's assistant Sheldon Lawrence, after which his body becomes the recipient of the psychic's bonce and goes on perhaps the most uneventful monster rampage in film history. Nostradamus might have been able to see into the future, but I bet even he didn't predict his eventual fate would be to have his severed noodle swinging from the bell ropes of a Twickenham church tower…One of the first attempts by a different production company to capitalise on the nascent UK horror boom spearheaded by Hammer's The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), this totally barmy film has far more in common with US-made trash like Frankenstein's Daughter (1958), in that it is completely impossible to take seriously. Written by somebody called William Grote (given that this individual has no other credits at all, I would assume the name is an alias of some collection of random contributors) and supposedly co-directed by Billy Wilder's brother W. Lee and the unsung Charles Saunders (Tawny Pipit), the legend is that Saunders actually had no hand in this mess at all, and was merely hired to be present on set to satisfy quota regulations ensuring a certain number of films made in the UK were actually employing Brits. Coulouris, a respected actor and colleague of Orson Welles who had appeared in Citizen Kane (1941) and whose filmography contains a sprinkling of other classics, must have wondered what the hell he had got involved in with this shocker; in terms of special effects and scare-value it makes its sister film Womaneater (1958), from the same stable and again starring Coulouris, look like The Thing (1982) by comparison. The veteran actor gives it his all, and Regin's nympho routine is convincing enough, but they were never going to carry the film; I mean Raging Bull-era DeNiro couldn't have made this insanity fly all by himself.This is well worth a watch if you want to pee yourself laughing, though; The Man Without a Body is unsurprisingly not available on DVD, though it is on YouTube in a poor-quality upload.

mlraymond I have only seen this movie once, in the early Seventies. It was on a Friday night horror show program, and I have never seen it since. All I really remember are a few scenes, including one of obnoxious millionaire George Couloris being told his mistress is threatening to kill herself, and he basically says he's too busy to be bothered with it. I remember the grave robbing scenes, but the one image that really sticks with me is a couple of scientists conversing with the head of Nostradamus, and the head nodding and expressing interest in all the new developments of the Twentieth Century. It seemed to me at the time a terrible movie, which has, perhaps not surprisingly, disappeared from circulation.

wcpag7-2 One of the best in the classic science fiction cinema library of tales where a simple idea becomes a complex twist of monkey business.You'll love the ending of this film after watching its eerie plot unfold as Quartemass and the Pit and Frankenstien unfolded. Beware of trusting the man who would steal the head of Michele de Nostradame a famous french prophet who wrote the centuries. As he betrays the scientist with the stock market predictions a struggle between what is morally right and wrong takes place. Nostradamus finally has the last laugh.Having this classic in your sci fi library is a must! My favorite scene was when the head awakens and the climactic debate begins between Nostradamus and his captor. I don't want to give the ending away but at the end of this film, Nostradamus is hanging around with a big smile on his face.

telegonus This is an engagingly nonsensical film about a businessman with a brain tumor, the head of Nostradamus, and a number of other issues; it is extremely well photographed and designed, resembling a spy movie more than a science fiction or horror film. There's a kind of shabby cosmopolitanism to the picture. As it features the excellent George Coulouris in the lead, as well as several other decent actors, it has a way of seeming on occasion better than it is. It just goes to show what talented people can do with a lousy script.