I'm sure I've mentioned this before but my
affinity towards watching crap movies is genetic. Take
this movie, 'The Thing with Two Heads' from 1972 for
instance. Invariably my mom will be watching television,
a crap movie would come on and she would excitedly call for me
and I would excitedly answer because I was gonna watch a crap
movie with my mom. I didn't know the movie was crap at
the time, probably believing 'The Thing with Two Heads' to be
a legitimate exploration of post civil rights race relations,
but how could a movie coming on some local channel at late
night, with Rosie Grier and Ray Milland's heads stuck together
be anything other than a crap movie? I watched 'The
Thing with Two Heads' again the other night, for the first
time in probably thirty years… and it's wretched.
Gloriously wretched. It's actually an exploration of how
a movie made forty years ago can only get more wretched with
time.
Dr. Max Kirshner (Milland) is the foremost authority on
transplant surgery, but right now things aren't so good for
the doc. Cancer, arthritis, shingles, cataracts,
bunions… you name it, Dr. Kirshner has it and all seems
lost. But not so fast my friends for Dr. Kirshner has
been working in his secret lab on a landmark medical
breakthrough. See that gorilla with two heads? Doc
Kirsh did that. The methodology is to sew the head of a
sick gorilla onto the body with a healthy gorilla, then after
a couple of weeks the sick gorilla's head catches on and then
you can cut off the head of the healthy gorilla. And now
the sick gorilla is all good. Genius! If you
ignore the simple fact this is impossible!
So it looks like his gorilla
experiment was a success, which is good because the Doc has
taken a major turn for the worse requiring his people to step
up the plan to do this
wacky head transplant. Unfortunately
the only body available is that of black death row inmate Jack
Moss (Grier). Did we mention that Doc Kirsh is a
virulent racist? Kirshener's right hand man Dr. Desmond
(Roger Perry) knew he wasn't going to like this but
whaddayagonnado? The only reason Moss agreed to this was
because he, like all death row inmates, claims innocence and
figured that a few days of life would help him clear his
name. Thus when he eventually learned that the plan was
to cut off his head in a couple weeks, he was none too pleased
with this.
To cut to the quick, somehow Moss breaks out of the secret
lab, which is really just a basement, with this white man's
head stuck to his shoulder, grabs tissue expert and fellow
African American Dr. Fred Williams (Don Marshall) as a
hostage, and now Moss, Doc Williams and Kirsher's head are on
the run. Good Lord are they on the run. In what
could possibly be the longest, most drawn out chase scene in
cinematic history, the majority consisting of the two headed
man and the hostage doc on a dirt bike, our heroes will be
chased, and it will never end.
When it does finally end the three… uh… two and a quarter men
make it to the home of Moss's girl Lila (Chelsea Brown) who
promptly avoids sex with her man for whatever reason,
cockblocked by the second head, and then served up some fried
chicken and greens just to upset Doc Kirsh who we have already
established hates black folks and anything closely associated
with black folks. Gotta love his 'watermelon' crack even
though everybody I know from the North Pole to Chile likes
watermelon.
What Moss needs is for Doc Williams to agree to cut off
Kirshner's head and give him his life back, but Kirsh is
gradually gaining control of the big man's body. I do
wonder, if Kirshner succeeds in this, how he's going to
explain to the public how he's now 6'5", weighs a good 2-fiddy
and is black from the chin down, but I guess he'll cross that
path when he gets there. Ultimately it will be up to Doc
Williams to decide if the convicted murderer is really
innocent or if the loon racist stuck on that dudes shoulder is
the one who gets to live, because somebody's head has got to
go. I wonder who the brother is going to choose? I
wonder.
Directed by legendary schlock director Lee Frost, it don't get
much more schlockier than 'The Thing with Two Heads', a mix of
slapstick, social commentary and bad acting, mostly turned in
by the great Roosevelt Grier, but we still love the man.
While the movie is pretty darned horrible, no denying that, we
do have to admit watching Academy Award winner Ray Milland
clinging to the back of Rosey Grier shouting racial epithets
was some subversive humor if ever there was any. And
that chase scene… my goodness Lee Frost… what the heck was
that? If only Lee had sacrificed ten minutes worth of
chase sequence to maybe dream up of two minutes worth of a
better ending. I hate to spoil it for you but three
black people, sans racist head, driving down the street in an
old Buick singing 'Oh Happy Day' didn't make to a thrilling
ending to this alleged monster movie thriller. Mind you,
Moss is still an escaped death row convict, but I guess that's
neither here nor there because they are singing 'Oh Happy
Day', which means everything is all right.
'The Thing with Two Heads'. Worse than I ever dreamed,
and everything anybody could hope for.
