Rerturn of the Ghost of the Son of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 17 - The Head

Mad doctor’s and scientists – and you don’t get much madder than German Mad Doctor’s and scientists  ever since the cabinet of Dr. Cagliari they’ve had a special padded cell in mad scientists wing.

Which brings us to 1959’s The Head – we open with a Hunchback nurse delivering x-rays to one of the assistants to ‘the professor’ the assistant is worried however the professor , he feels, is about to venture into realms where man dare not go, and oh yes he does feel that he can cure the hunchback Nurse – the Nurse uneasy walks out and runs into Dr. Ool – Super Creep – who does a  half leer and asks where is the professor’s house?

Dr. Ool it seems got the name from a ship – his parents drowned when that ship went down and since nobody really knew what to call him Ool it was.  I’d think the German version of Smith might have been a better idea but there you go.

Anyway the professor is glad to see Ool as the new experiment is about to start and he’ll need the help – Ool drops a bit about the professor keeping a severed dogs head alive for months which the professor shrugs  it off but it’s a real creepy way to start a conversation.

So after that to unwind Dr. Ool goes to a strip club – were we meet Lilly and x – X the son of a prominent judge who has quit studying at law school to become an artist , he is involved with Lilly although they bicker – Lilly is the headline striper in the this club which features among other things bartenders that are dressed like ice cream sales men right down to the white hats.

We see that Ool is impressed with Lilly.  Which one can’t help but feel bodes ill for Lilly.

Okay – the next day the plot gets rolling – the prof has a weak heart  - so they wheel in this dying guy that they are going to take the heart out of but he dies before they can get  the operation going – assistant #1 is all for abandoning the procedure – especially since the prof’s vitals are sinking fast as well but Ool is going to go save the Prof any way he can even if it means killing the first assistant and burying him in the woods. Which he does. 

Ool assisted by the Prof’s remaining living assistant Bert – saves the professor’s brain.  He awakens says the standard let me die stuff but Ool is only interested in his special formula that keeps dead tissue alive (formula Z). Also Ool has the hots for the hunchback Nurse who is Assistant #1’s cousin so he cons her into thinking the professor is going to do the operations, puts her into a room, goes out, gets Lilly tanked up on booze – we also learn that Lilly’s real name is Stella and she poisoned her husband, how does he know this, Ool’s real name is Dr. Brandt and he did some plastic surgery on Lilly to help her get away – which means now – after having lured Lilly to the prof’s nightmare of a house – he takes the head of the hunchback nurse and puts it on the body of Lilly – he then takes the other head and body and  tosses that under a train .

Did you follow all this?

Irene the formerly hunchbacked nurse  wakes up to find she’s not who she sued to be, Ool almost loses it a few times with her and she ends up in the arms of Paul (it’s small cast and a small town, everybody  knows everybody). 

Ool’s world spins out of control – seems he is the victim of a operation that made him a genius but left him subject to fits – and as the police close in he burns the place down and sort of dives out of a high window. 

It’s a very creepy little film with Ool really chewing on scenery and it has a very oppressive atmosphere that isn’t really dissipated by the ending.

Enjoy with Schnapps.