Donovan's Brain (1953)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Felix E. Feist

Writers:

Curt Siodmak (novel)
Hugh Brooke (adaptation)

Release Date:

30 September 1953 (USA)

Genre:

Sci-Fi | Horror

Plot:

Yet another version of Curt Siodmak's novel about an honest scientist who keeps the brain of a ruthless dead millionaire (Donovan) alive in a tank...

Plot Keywords:

Brain | Murder | Doctor | Disembodied Brain | Banking

Cast

Lew Ayres	...	Dr. Patrick J. Cory
Gene Evans	...	Dr. Frank Schratt
Nancy Davis	...	Janice Cory
Steve Brodie	...	Herbie Yocum
Tom Powers	...	Donovan's Washington Advisor
Lisa Howard	...	Chloe Donovan (as Lisa K. Howard)
James Anderson	...	Chief Tuttle (as Kyle James)
Victor Sutherland	...	Nathaniel Fuller
Michael Colgan	...	Tom Donovan
Peter Adams	...	Mr. Webster
Harlan Warde	...	Treasury Agent Brooke
Shimen Ruskin	...	Tailor

Runtime:

83 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Recording)

Certification:

Finland:K-16 | USA:Approved (PCA #16420)

Company:

Dowling Productions

Trivia:

Orson Welles played the part of Dr. Corey in "Donovan's Brain" on the only two-part broadcast ever produced on radio's "Suspense", 18 May and 25 May 1944.

Quotes:

Dr. Patrick J. Cory: Perhaps I'll cure Frank and every other alcoholic if I can solve the mystery of Donovan's Brain. I think it's a matter of chemistry how the brain thinks. The problem is to find out what chemical combinations are responsible for success... failure... happiness... misery.
Janice Cory: Sounds impossible.
Dr. Patrick J. Cory: But it is not. It can't be. There has to be a way.

Movie Connections:

Featured in Child's Play (1988)

Flawed Experiment

In the original Frankenstein film, the good doctor's experiment is flawed from the start when Dwight Frye takes the brain of a criminal from the medical school to give to Colin Clive for the final touch to his research. That was what Lew Ayres overlooked.

Imagine if Dr. Albert Schweitzer had been in a plane crash and his brain had been harvested by Lew Ayres and Gene Evans? Would Ayres's experiment have turned out differently? We'll never know because on the day that research scientist Ayres was called away from his work to do actual doctoring it was for Warren H. Donovan, misanthropic millionaire.

Ayres and Evans have devised away to keep Donovan's Brain alive in a saline solution with electrodes. Unfortunately the brain's really thriving in it, the brain and the ego inside. As it grows it takes over the personalities around it, though at this early stage it can only dominate one person at a time and it does need sleep like the normal human brain.

Donovan's Brain has some big ambitions, nothing less than world domination of the global marketplace. The suspense that the film has involves whether this thing can develop before they're capable of destroying it.

Stars Lew Ayres, future first lady Nancy Davis, and Gene Evans all do good work here. The performance I like the best is that of blackmailing reporter/paparazzi Steve Brodie. Donovan's Brain deals quite nicely with him.

For modern audiences who think it can't happen, imagine in the age of the internet Donald Trump's disembodied brain in saline solution like Donovan's Brain near a laptop.