Oddness lies everywhere.
It's when you find odd movies in the normal places is when you find the strange stuff. For example, on your way to the local video store that you've been to for eons. You pretty much know every movie they carry and near the exact place they carry it. Of course, this is when the true oddities pop out. They hide in your peripheral vision, waiting for that day when you take a wrong step and your eye catches them. I've been a victim of this phenomena exactly three times: each time gave me two Paul Naschy films in my shitwater suburbanite town, an Italian ripoff called "Supersonic Man" by the same guy who directed "Pod People," and a trip which netted me "I Was A Teenage Werewolf" and "Street Hawk: the Pilot."
This movie, however, came out of nowhere when I was searching through the IMDB one day, on a quest to find what movie's poster was on the cover of the current "Psychotronic" Film Magazine. It turned out to be some piece of (possibly) AIP crap called "Bluebeard's Ten Honeymoons." I caught the director's name, some fellow by the name of W. Lee Wilder. And after looking into W. Lee Wilder's career, I found he made a few movies that I actually owned/taped! He was the guy who directed "The Omegans" and "Killers From Space" which featured Peter Graves and a few aliens that were completely humanoid except for the Ping-Pong balls they called their eyes. Actually their eyes, I kid you not. Not since the days of Larry Buchanan....
But I had seen "Killers From Space," and a few minutes of "The Omegans" (which I taped off of Sci-Fi earlier this year). So, for the moment I was hooked. Plus, I saw he had directed our experiment for today that I had also taped off of Sci-Fi back a year and a half when I first got cable. So, somehow I had come into possession of a few films of a director whose films were so bad that the people behind "Wild Picture" just threw away their homework and did their spectacular "Al Adamson/Phillipino Horror" review on. So, I popped on "Man Without A Body" and was hooked immediately.
"Man Without a Body" is the story of Dr. Karl Brussard, a total asshole
with a tumor in his head that makes him paranoid and extremely irrational.
Or, at least, that's what everyone presumes. The movie only
gives us the tumor information after we see this jerk rip the phone cord
out of his young-enough-to-be-his-daughter girlfriend's room, accuse her
of cheating on him (like she has a reason....) and treat his housestaff
like shit. So, this narcissistic little man wants to prolong his
life and goes to scientist Philip Merritt who has revolutionized a process
which keeps dead organic parts living. We get a good example of this
by:
Which is sorta odd. Why would Brussard immediately assume that his personality and consciousness would resume once another brain was placed in his body? This is one part of the plot I never did understand, but Merritt does say that Brussard could be 'preserved' until medical science could find a way to take the tumor out of his brain. But, Brussard seems happy with this way (preserving himself until the time comes) and happier to find a way to return dead tissue back to it's living state. So, he goes off to find some dead figure from history to help him. He comes across Nostradamus.
Why Nostradamus? Because, as the movie states, all his predictions came true and he foresaw the Industrial Revolution! He saw this film was going to be made! He can see THE FUTURE!
Or is supposed to. Suspend your disbelief and pretend that Nostradamus is really this all-wise foreseeing machine. I think reality is a bit more pessimistic on that little historical fact. Anyway, Brussard steals Nostradamus's noggin and takes it to Merritt's lab, where Merritt does the 'Gee, where did you get this head' thingie, noting that whomever severed the head did a fine job. Somewhere in time, the maker of the Guillotine thanks him.
Speaking of which, I must confess that I know nothing of Nostradamus, aside that he was a foreseer of things to happen. The only thing I truly know is that his writings are quite open to interpretation. But I doubt that his remains were stored in a crypt which kept them perfectly preserved OR that he would know how to speak English when finally awakened. Or that he would still ask "Are my writings still read?"
Anyway, the rest of the movie centers on how Nostradamus finds Brussard a complete asshole and gives him erroneous information on stocks Brussard has put his whole fortune on. Now, could this really be Nostradamus's fault? The man is a petrified head from the 16th century. There is NO fucking way he will be able to give decent stock information. But, Brussard wants Nostradamus dead for this and tries to shoot him in Merritt's laboratory, instead nailing Merritt's assistant square in his noggin. So, Merritt calls the cops but ALSO uses his assistant's body for the new body of NOSTRADAMUS!! Surely we can't have the GREATEST mind in history just fall over dead again!! NOOOOOO!! So, after attaching Nostradamus's head to the assistant's body with a LARGE plaster square, the new Nostradamus goes after Brussard, who also wants him dead. Somehow, Merritt and the cops come into play in this, only to watch the final battle between Nostradamus and Brussard in a clock tower. Brussard suffers from a brief moment of vertigo and falls to his death. Or rather, a dummy dressed like him does. Then, a few seconds later, so does another body. Merritt and the cops look up, only to find the Nostradamus's head, surrounded in that silly plaster, dangling from the bell ropes, looking down at the scene with bemusement. Of course, he's dead, Brussard's dead, and everyone leaves. THE END.
Nostradamus seems to be prime ground for sci-fi movies, including Toho's "Last Days of Planet Earth." Or, rather, "The Movie Where Tokyo Bites It Without Any Monsters." This was when Toho was playing with deanglicizing many characters for use in their monster flicks, like King Kong and Frankenstein. While not a bad film, today's experiment is certainly flawed. The whole 'Brain' question is quite absurd: even if Brussard's body was able to survive with another brain inside, eventually the body would die and THEN where would Brussard be? A fixed brain in need of a body. All and all, quite stupid. And Nostradamus? I get the feeling he was main reason of this flick and Brussard, a character deserving of a beating as well as his own story, was just there to advance the plot along.
And Nostradamus is played as the all-around good guy. Not bad for an opium eater, but I'm sure this is historically incorrect. How would he know about the stock market? What are the rules to Nostradamus's seeing into the future? Oh, now my head hurts!!!
RATING: Maybe the guys at Wild Picture were on to something when they chose Al Adamson over W. Lee Wilder. But this movie has a twisted appeal to it, especially for the last scene. Two stars out of Four. You could see worse. I know I have.
--Zbu