Dr. Maxwell Kirshner (Ray Milland) is a famous transplant surgeon. He is also suffering from debilitating arthritis and can no longer operate in the hospital. He is also dying. In the privacy of his mansion he has been working on an experiment that he thinks will be beneficial for him. He has grafted the head of one gorilla onto another. His aim is to have the new head be accepted by the test gorilla. He wants to see if the new head will survive.
Now he is at the point where he needs to bring his associate, Dr. Phillip Desmond (Roger Perry), in on his experiment and his plans. He also hires a new doctor, Dr. Fred Williams (Don Marshall), sight unseen. When Dr. Williams turns out to be black Dr. Kirshner’s racism is evident. Dr. Williams has an iron clad contract for six months so Dr. Kirshner is obligated to keep Dr. Williams on.
He’s next step is to remove the head of the original gorilla and see if the grafted head will take its place and be accepted by the body. His experiment works. Now he is ready to try the experiment on a human. Dr. Kirshner plans on finding an appropriate volunteer so that his head can be grafted onto the volunteer’s body. The volunteer must be someone who is already terminal and is willing to be part of the experiment. Before the search for an acceptable body can begin Dr. Kirshner’s health deteriorates rapidly. Since time is of the essence Dr. Desmond reaches out to a friend of his, the Lieutenant Governor, Mitch (George E. Carey). They come up with an idea. The Lieutenant Governor has a chat with the warden of a prison.
The warden talks to the inmates he has that are on death row. He asks the convicts for someone to donate their body to science for the experiment. They are only told that they will not die in the electric chair, however, the experiment will cause their death in the end. One convict who is scheduled to die, and makes it all the way to the chair, decides at the last minute to take up the warden’s offer. Jack Moss (Rosey Grier) claims he is innocent of his murder conviction and thinks that this will buy him a little time to prove his innocence.
Dr. Desmond, knowing Dr. Kirshner’s racist feelings, performs the operation anyway in order to save Dr. Kirshner’s life. As expected, when he wakes up and finds out his head is attached to a black man, Dr. Kirshner is pissed. Jack is not happy about the situation either. Desmond calls in Dr. Williams to help him since his expertise is needed.
Jack escapes, with Dr. Kirshner’s head attached to him, and manages to kidnap Dr. Williams in the process. Now Jack is on the run from the police with Kirshner’s head stuck on his neck. Jack is also determined to prove his innocence. Dr. Williams believes him and wants to find a way to help Jack without killing both of them. Let the hi-jinks begin.
“The Thing With Two Heads” was released in 1972 and was directed by Lee Frost. It is a science fiction/comedy. I had some trepidation about this movie. Then I saw that the critics liked it and as for regular folk, even the ones that rated it low had some good things to say about it. A lot of them put it in the so bad it’s good category. I didn’t read too many of them since I decided to give it a try.
The special effects were good. They were done by Rick Baker. He also plays the gorilla. The car and dirt bike chase scenes were quite intricate and were also well done, and long. All together they were about 25 minutes long. I don’t know how many cop cars Akersville has, or how many got trashed, but I’ll bet it was all of them.
As for the rest of the movie, well, it was OK but not my cup of tea. I didn’t find it funny but I’m not big on comedies so you can’t go by me. If you like cheezy, slap sticky, one liner type of movies it may be something you’d be interested in.
When a clip from the movie was shown ten years later in the satirical compilation IT CAME FROM HOLLYWOOD, narrator Dan Aykroyd jokingly exclaimed, “This picture started the black street fad of wearing middle-aged white men”!
The movie is about an hour and thirty minutes long. All I could find is what looks like it may be a shortened version at an hour and twenty minutes.