User Reviews

A year after their goofy "The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant", A.I.P. recycled the basic premise, this time adding a racial angle. Esteemed transplant surgeon Maxwell Kirshner (Ray Milland, a long way from "The Lost Weekend") is dying, and figures that his best chance to beat death is to attach his cranium to a donor body. (Intending to, at a later point, remove the original head.) But a last minute development sees Kirshners' head attached to the body of black death row inmate Jack Moss (Rosey Grier, "The Glove"), and Kirshner, wouldn't you know it, is a raging bigot. Assorted comic hijinks ensue as the two-headed man flees from the cops in the attempt to clear Jacks' name.

This is very daft stuff, but the filmmakers do seem to be well aware of the fact, and wisely play the material for laughs much of the time. Lee Frost ("The Black Gestapo") directs, from a script by him, his frequent collaborator / actor Wes Bishop, and James Gordon White. The sight of Rays' and Rosey's heads nestled together is such a hoot, and the expected bickering between the two of them is quite funny. Rays' expression just screams out, "Dear Lord, has it come to *this*?". They receive able support from Don Marshall ("Terminal Island") and Roger Perry (the "Count Yorga" movies), and there are cameos by the likes of William Smith ("Invasion of the Bee Girls"), music star Jerry Butler, veteran film producer / director Albert Zugsmith ("Confessions of an Opium Eater"), and newscaster Dick Whittington. Chelsea Brown ('Laugh-In') is appealing as Jacks' understandably perturbed girlfriend.

Much livelier than "The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant", this film obviously went to a lot of care to set up various stunts and action scenes, with protracted chase scenes taking up much of the movies' second half. The various old-school car crashes are quite entertaining to see, with the police force in this story portrayed as *very* incompetent.

The music is excellent, with a great schlock movie score by Robert O. Ragland; Frost and company are able to send us away with a smile as Rosey, Chelsea, and Marshall do a rendition of "Oh Happy Day", and the nefarious Dr. Kirshner gets his just desserts.

Six out of 10.

This film is bundled on a DVD with THE INCREDIBLE 2-HEADED TRANSPLANT and while they are both very bad, perhaps THE THING WITH TWO HEADS is a bit worse--though this is like comparing cholera to cancer--they're both quite nasty!! This film from American-International is a strange melange of genres--being a horror, Blaxploitation, action comedy all rolled into one. And, sadly, it really does none of these genres very well.

It begins with a rich racist doctor (Ray Milland) announcing that he's dying and only has a couple weeks to live. It seems that his body is dying and he has a crazy notion to graft his body onto a donor body AND eventually have the donor's head sliced off--placing him in total control of the body. Considering that this is illegal and immoral, they decide to find a guy on death row. But the only available donor is the very large and very Black Rosey Grier. This is a serious problem not just because the head and body would not match, but because Milland plays a very, very racist man and he's not happy when he awakens to see his new body!

Rosey isn't particularly thrilled by the new arrangement and instead of just sitting by passively until they saw his head off, he decides to run away in order to prove he isn't a murderer as well as to get someone to remove Milland. In this escape scene the film degenerates to amazingly low levels of entertainment. The getaway seems to last almost a third of the film and looks more like an episode of "The Dukes of Hazzard" or SMOKEY AND THE BANDIT with its ridiculous police chase. It begins with Grier/Milland AND a Black doctor jumping on the back of a mountain bike in a race. Grier's riding ability is better than that of anyone in the race as the others just keep falling off the bikes again and again--leading to Grier et all actually winning the race!!! Then, cops begin to give chase and in the process 14 police cars are totaled and the guys escape!! Talk about ridiculous!

There's more to the film than this and it actually is occasionally funny (I love the line the girlfriend says when she asks if they have two of EVERYTHING), but in spite of this it still really stinks. But, if you are a bad movie fan, you actually might like it because it's THAT bad--so bad you will laugh along with it--particularly since the film never really takes itself very seriously.

The movie starts with a rich doctor named Kirshner (Milland) who's developed a way to transplant the head of another creature, in this case an ape on to another's body and it survives. It will revolutionize science. Since he's the leading expert in medical transplants a young black doctor Williams (Marshall) wishes to work with him and learn all he can. We soon see that Kirchner wants nothing to do with blacks and says he can't work there. Williams gave up a lot to go there and is mad, so Kirshner reluctantly allows him to work for a short time. Kirshner confides in his colleague Dr. Desmond that he is dying and must have body immediately. The word goes out, and a death row inmate decides to "donate his body to medical science." Jack (Grier) claims he's innocent, but is brought over and put under for the procedure. In one of the funnier parts of the film Kirshner wakes up on a black mans body. They plan was to keep the other head sedated until Kirshner can control the body, but Jack makes a run for it, with Kirshner's head attached, taking Marshall hostage. In a chase that never seems to end Jack finally gets away from the cops and the brothers decide to get rid of the white mans head. One thing leads to another and Kirshner ends up with his head ready to be transplanted again while Jack, Marshal, and his girl take off for freedom. The End, what a stupid film.

This has to be one of the dumbest films I have ever scene. Not only is it totally outlandish, everything else is bad as well. From the acting to the special affects its just bargain basement bad. With all that being said I watched the whole thing and was amused by most of the film. The effects are so bad you can't help but laugh, especially at Milland's head on Grier's body throughout much of the film as they run, ride and elude police. The effects are laughable, certainly Rick Baker went on to much better things. I guess this would be practice for future works with ape costumes, King Kong, Mighty Joe Young and Planet of the Apes (all remakes). And the story, Racist white guy gets his head put on black man's body? That's funny. This is your classic blaxploitation film with most of the white guys being shown as villains in the film, but just from a comedic angle. There are plenty of solid films of this nature but this is not one of them. This only serves to garner some stupid laughs from a stupid script. One of the worst parts of the film has to be the never ending chase. For what seems like and eternity Grier is chased by the cops on a dirt bike. But its goes on FOREVER! they must have spent half the budget on crashed police cars. Milland's a good actor so I'm surprised he did some of these low budget yarns, somewhat like "Frogs." The rest of the cast did their job, Grier was amusing nothing bad to say just a silly film all together. So overall stupid film of the era, but so bad its good quality bumps it up bit, 2 and a half stars.