One Sheet (27"x41")
I'm writing this post as a result of finding a collection of Lobby Cards that have been in a box since 1991, long forgotten...BUT...brought back a flood of memories from when I first saw the film on late night T.V. with my mom. I was 8 or 9 years old, and it REALLY messed me up at the time. For those of you not familiar with this delightful piece of celluloid dreck, here's the plot:
The film starts with Dr. Bill Cortner saving a patient who had been pronounced dead, but the senior surgeon, Bill's father, condemns his son's unorthodox methods and theories of transplanting.
Later, while driving to his family's country house, Bill and his beautiful fiancée Jan Compton become involved in a horrific car accident that decapitates her. Bill recovers her severed head and rushes to his country house basement laboratory. It is here that he and his crippled assistant Kurt revive the head in a liquid filled tray. But Jan's new existence is agony and begs Bill to let her die. He ignores her pleas and she grows to resent him.
Then it gets good, Bill decides to commit murder to obtain a body for Jan. So he hunts for a suitable specimen at all the viable locations: a burlesque nightclub, on the streets and at a beauty contest. Meanwhile, back at the lab Jan begins communicating telepathically with a hideous mutant (an experiment gone horribly wrong), that is locked in a laboratory cell. Kurt accidentally leaves a hatch on the cell door unlocked, the monster grabs and rips off Kurt's arm. Kurt then dies from his gruesome injury, to the delight of Jan.
It is at this point, Bill successfully lures an old girlfriend, figure model Doris Powell, to his house, promising to study her scarred face for plastic surgery. He drugs her and carries her to the laboratory. Jan protests Bill's plan to transplant her head onto Doris's body. Tired of Jan's protests, he tapes her mouth shut...which irritates the monster.
When Bill goes to quiet the monster, it grabs bill through the hatch and breaks the door from its hinges. Their struggles set the laboratory a blaze. The monster, a seven-foot tall giant with a horribly deformed head, bites a chunk of flesh from Bill's neck-killing him. The monster grabs the unconscious Doris, and carries her to safety. As the lab goes up in flames, Jan says "I told you to let me die." As the screen goes black you hear Jan's maniacal laugh...
Pretty trippy stuff for an 8 year old, to say the least, needless to say I had nightmares... My mom was really good at exposing me to all sorts of horror films when I was kid, and nurtured my love of monsters and everything offbeat and strange, turning me into the weirdo I am today. But it wasn't until 1991 when I made the move to California that I purchased the following Lobby Cards and b&w stills with my best friend Dan, in a cluttered movie memorabilia store in downtown Burbank, that was lined with rows of filing cabinets filled with photographs, lobby cards and various movie ephemera. I had never seen anything like this in my life and I thought my head was going to explode. I walked over to an unlabeled filing cabinet drawer, opened it and the very first thing I saw was a lobby Card for: The Brain That Wouldn't Die...I almost shit myself! I hadn't thought about that film since I was a kid and all of a sudden the memories came rushing back! I immediately began searching through the drawer gathering every single piece of printed material I could find of that film. I had to have EVERYTHING! When all was said and done, I had found a complete set of 8 Lobby Cards and 16 b&w movie stills- and paid $25 for them. I had NO idea what I was going to do with them at the time, but I hung onto them to this day...just to make this Blargg Post. Now if I could get a hold of decent One Sheet or Half Sheet poster-I'd be a very happy boy. The following are the Lobby Cards that started my movie memorabilia collecting habit.
Lobby Cards (11"x14")
These are the photographs I purchased that day
Film Stills (8"x10")
A few screen grabs from the film
Jason Evers as Dr. Bill Cortner
Virginia Leith as Jan Compton
Anthony La Penna as Kurt
Adele Lamont as Doris Powell
Eddie Carmel (The Jewish Giant) as The Monster
This guy freaked me the fuck out as an 8 year old in 1974.
Half Sheet (22"x 28")
Window Insert (14" x 36")
The film went into the public domain from the day of it's release due to a flawed copyright notice, so remember kids, ALWAYS take your time filling out paperwork! As a result you can watch it on YouTube! ENJOY....
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