Things You Never Knew About "THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE"

[Mr. Lobo]

Things You Never Knew About The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962)

by Mr. Lobo


*   The Brain That Wouldn't Die was also known as The Head That Roared, Head For The Hills, There's A Brain In My Soup, and Sweet Noggins.
*   Director Joseph Green wanted actress Virginia Leith to lose 10-15 pounds for the role and joked about renaming the film The Brain That Wouldn't Diet.
*   To dispel "casting couch" rumors, the film's casting director stated that in comparison to other actresses up for the part of "Jan in the Pan", Virginia Leith's head was just more outstanding.
*   In the opening scene's operating room, Dr. Bill Cortner and his father are actually just pretending to perform surgery. The decision was made to stage the procedure after losing four patients in rehearsal.
*   When reaching into the burning wreck of his convertible, Dr. Cortner originally saves his car stereo - particularly incredible since car radios were mono at that time.
*   The set for Dr. Cortner's country house was built in the beautiful Vermont countryside, which is a shame since most of the film is shot indoors in the basement or in other rooms with no windows.
*   The mechanical head spent most of the movie broken-down, and was unavailable for nearly all front-view shots. This led Joseph Green to use the hole-in-the-table effect with Virginia Leith's real head. Many think this added to the "chilling" quality in the final release, and that it would have been too "cheesy" if they had used the fake head as much as originally planned.
*   While in the uncomfortable laboratory table setup which was built around Virginia Leith's head and neck, the actress ad-libbed many of the famous lines from the film such as "Let me die...", "Get me the hell out of here!", and "Where is my check?"
*   At 92 minutes in length, it takes 12 minutes more to watch the film than it took Rex Carlton and Joseph Green to make it.
*   Leslie Daniels' line, "The paths of experimentation twist and turn through mountains of miscalculations and often lose themselves in error and darkness!," was a quote from J. Edgar Hoover.
*   Brad Pitt was considered for the role of Kurt, but unfortunately he wasn't born yet when the film was in production.
*   One of the taglines for The Brain That Wouldn't Die was, "Alive... without a body... and marinated overnight in unspeakable horror!"
*   When Kurt said the line, "You're nothing but a freak of life! And - a freak of death!," he was supposed to sing "Yo-o-ou ain't got no-body... and no-body cares for you".
*   After Dr. Cortner leaves the strippers' changing room, the brunette stripper is seen taking off her white glove - yet when she is slapped and she puts her hand to her face her glove is suddenly back on. She apparently knows where her mouth has been.
*   The close-up of the blonde stripper slapping the brunette stripper shows an extremely hairy and manly arm - which clearly reveals that the blonde stripper was the tranvestite, and not the brunette as most of us suspected.
*   Now there is no real trivia per se concerning the catfight between the two strippers, but let's just think about that catfight for a little while... Yeah... Mmm-hmm... Wha? I forgot you were still here.
*   When Dr. Cortner goes to the "Body Beautiful" contest to find a suitable body for his fiancá's head, the MC announces that there are five finalists - but he only brings out four. The fifth was disqualified because she already gave her body to one of the judges backstage.
*   The line "Oh, come on now, Doris. Do I look like a maniac who goes around killing girls?" was later published in Dr. Cortner's Big Book of Pick-up Lines.
*   One of Adele Lamont's model photographers was Sammy Petrillo, who also starred in Bela Lugosi Meets A Brooklyn Gorilla. Ironically, his head now belongs to Jerry Lewis.
*   After Kurt has his arm ripped off by the beast in the closet, he stumbles through the house smearing blood on everything (including the chair and table in the entryway)... but the McCall's magazine on the table is far too recent to be in a doctor's office, therefore destroying the film's otherwise perfect realism.
*   An arm is visible as a lump under Kurt's jacket after the monster supposedly pulled it off. This is evidence of a deleted original subplot of the film in which Kurt had three arms.
*   The Brain That Wouldn't Die was released in a shorter version that removes most of objectional footage of doctors smoking.
*   Dr. Cortner moves screen left to make drinks - but after closing the bottle, he picks up the two glasses and he is sudenly on the opposite side of the lab. Those are obviously some damn good drinks!
*   After laying the body of Kurt down, Dr. Cortner goes to to make drinks. When he is done and we cut to the wide shot, Kurt appears to be in a different position than he was left. Like I said, those are damn good drinks.
*   This film was originally shot in 3-D and then someone said... "Why"?
*   Roy Schieder was originally in the cast as "Second Lab Assistant" but was thrown off the set when he ad-libbed the line, "You're gonna need a bigger gravy boat."
*   This film has never been officially released in the UK. It was rejected by the BBFC in 1961 for having "too many scenes with Americans talking for long periods of time" and has never been submitted for a re-rating.
*   This was the "Drive-In Movie" first movie to reach the coveted $1,000 mark.
*   The line, "Nothing you can be is more terrible than what I am," was later used to promote the film Gigli.
*   When Dr. Cortner's monster comes out of the closet, it was originally wearing high heels and ladies underwear!
*   The studio was investigated for false advertising after posters went out with claims like "Fantastic! Weird! Horrifying!" It was eventually determined the posters were fantastic, weird, and horrifying - but not the film.
*   Jan is actually soaking in pan of Southern Comfort, and really believed she was "just a head" by the end of the day's shooting.
*   This movie is said to be a favorite of Walt Disney.
*   Dr. Bill Cortner was played by Jason "Herb" Evers, who later starred in Claws, Basket Case 2, The Illustrated Man and Burger King's failed "Where's Herb?" campaign.
*   While the doctor is attacked by the hideous monster, a rip in the latex skull cap on the monster reveals wrestler Eddie Carmel's hair underneath! This is a let-down, of course, because professional wrestlers are not real.
*   Huge 7'8" Eddie Carmel was also known as "Eleazer Carmel, the wrestling champion of Israel." The previous wrestling champion of Israel was 4'11" "Tudy Idris," deceased.
*   Original plans were for last reel to be in color, with the doctor's head being cut off, and scenes were filmed with rats menacing the head. These was later attached to some prints of The Wizard Of Oz (1939).
*   The film ends with a title card reading "The Head that Wouldn't Die" - instead of "The Brain that Wouldn't Die" - since it was obvious by that point that everyone involved in the production was brain-dead.
*   Some other Rex Carlton film productions were: The Devil's Hand; Blood of Dracula's Castle; C-Man; Mr. Universe, Give Me Another Shot, My Next Movie Will Be Better, I Like Booze, Borrowing From The Mob, Lord Not Another Flop, They're After Me, They're Still After Me; and Goodbye Cruel World.

[odinn7]

Another good list.

These 3 were great:

* In the opening scene's operating room, Dr. Bill Cortner and his father are actually just pretending to perform surgery. The decision was made to stage the procedure after losing four patients in rehearsal.
* When reaching into the burning wreck of his convertible, Dr. Cortner originally saves his car stereo - particularly incredible since car radios were mono at that time.
And my favorite: * At 92 minutes in length, it takes 12 minutes more to watch the film than it took Rex Carlton and Joseph Green to make it.

[Mr. Lobo]

Thanks for the compliments, Odinn! These were harder to write than "Things You Never Knew About Night Of The Living Dead" that I did last week. I think I'm more comfortable shooting at "sacred cows" than "fish in a barrel". Next weeks show is "Gigantis the Fire Monster"...I don't know what the Hell I'm going to do with that.

Your TV horror host,
Mr Lobo

[nshumate]

LIES!! ALL LIES, DO YOU HEAR ME??

I'm so disillusioned!

[Menard]

It's all true...true...true!

[trekgeezer]

Who here can define what truth is? The truth is always shaded by the perspective of the observer, therefore, no one can claim ownership to the absolute truth.

Of course, from my perspective Mr. Lobo's writings are as full of BS as the previous paragraph of this post, however, his BS is far more amusing.

[odinn7]

"Who here can define what truth is? The truth is always shaded by the perspective of the observer, therefore, no one can claim ownership to the absolute truth. "

Trek! You've impressed me yet again. That is deep.

[dean]

Insert generic 'A few good men' quote about truth, laugh, and then sigh in dismay at the predicability of it all.

Besides, the truth is whatever you wish it to be, just as long as nobody tells you otherwise.

[Just Plain Horse]

*a rumored second project, "The Ass That Wouldn't Sit" was rejected after too many misunderstood the film was about a stubborn donkey, believeing it too be "too distasteful".

[odinn7]

Wow, Dean, I'm going to have to say that you're a downer...

[Mr. Lobo]

I think some brains on this board just died.

[dean]

Downer? Why? Well ok then...

Perhaps Kurt can sum up better:

'The paths of experimentation twist and turn through mountains of miscalculations and often lose themselves in error and darkness! '

It seems that that was where I was lost , as confused as that above quote is, and a post which twisted and turned through mountains of miscalculations and misjudged ideas.

Anyway, I'll attempt to add something more appopriate now:

Dr. Cortner's line, "Oh, come on now, Doris. Do I look like a maniac who goes around killing girls?" was added after Joseph Green overheard Jason Evers trying to pick up Doris Brent, who played the Nurse.  After agreeing to go out for dinner with him, she mysteriously dissappeared that same night, but since her scenes were already filmed nobody really gave it a second thought.

[daveblackeye15]

Dude, you're a big fat liar and you know it!

This is even more incorrect than your NOTLD topic.

UGH!!!

It's so off it's funny!

[Menard]

Ain't ya happy that you have someone like me around that you can depend upon to tell the truth, Dave?

[odinn7]

I don't know that I'd be talking to Dave like that if I were you, Menard. I think he was starting to forget about you but now you've just reminded him you're here. Careful, you know how those psychotics are...

PS- Dave...Did you still want to buy that 2 pounds of C-4, the 7mm Magnum with Starlight scope, and the HK G36 assault rifle from me or what?