The Thing With Two Heads (1972) | Sci-Fi Saturdays

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Two heads may be better than one, but this Thing is just dumb.

Welcome to the return of Sci-Fi Saturdays and the first sci-fi entry for this year’s 31 Days Of Horror. This week goes a little bit retro to find a fun sci-fi/horror film from the early 70s. Is it really science-fiction? Is it really a horror film? Is it really about two heads? I’m of two minds on the whole thing. Stay tuned for The Thing With Two Heads and find out!

First Impressions

What have I gotten myself into? This outlandish trailer has the head of Ray Milland, a white bigot, being grafted onto the body of Rosey Grier, a black man wrongfully imprisoned. It’s like the odd couple, in sci-fi form. Now it’s up to Rosey Grier’s character to prove his innocence on the run from the law, all while a secondary, racist head shouts in his ear. As the narrator says, “it seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Presented below is the trailer for the film.

The Fiction of The Film

Maxwell Kirshner (Ray Milland) is a transplant surgeon of renown, so much so that he has his own one-of-a-kind facility, the Kirshner Transplant Foundation. Unfortunately, this aging man has terminal chest cancer, with only 2-3 weeks left to live. He has been conducting experiments in the basement of his mansion where he has successfully attached a second gorilla head to a gorilla body. His goal is to be able to remove the original gorilla head, allowing the transplanted head to become the new primary owner of the body.

During the process of sedating the two-headed gorilla, it escapes and terrorizes a local corner market. Kirshner’s assistants find it eating bananas in the back, and retrieve it, undamaged. At the Kirshner Foundation, Dr. Fred Williams (Don Marshall) is hired based on his exemplary track record concerning organ rejection. When he arrives, Kirshner attempts to fire him, ostensibly because they have too many doctors, but in reality it’s because Wiliams is black, and the older white man is a bigot. Williams cites the six-month contract he signed and Kirshner begrudgingly gives in.

Back at his basement laboratory, Kirshner invites Dr. Phillip Desmond (Roger Perry) to see his now one-headed gorilla. Desmond is impressed, and is eager to help Kirschner become the first human to receive a similar transplant. All Kirschner needs is a “healthy body.” A call goes out to death row inmates that they can avoid their current death sentence by donating their body to science for 30 days, at which time they will still be killed. Jack Moss (Rosey Grier), who is about to be executed for a crime he claims he didn’t commit, agrees to the procedure. He also happens to be black.

Desmond and his assistant Donald (John Bliss) receive the prisoner, initially questioning the man’s skin color. But with Kirshner in a coma and not able to survive another 24 hours, they decide they must proceed. Jack plans to use the 30 days to help prove his innocence, not knowing of the plan in store for him. The surgery goes as planned and Kirshner’s head is placed on Jack’s left shoulder. The staff keeps the body sedated until one day Jack feigns being asleep and sedates the nurse when she comes to administer the meds. He escapes and takes Williams with him.

Jack steals a gun and threatens to shoot Kirshner’s head, but WIlliams lets him know that would kill him as well. Taking Williams’ car, the two of them (or is that three) avoid a police dragnet and drive into the hills where the car breaks down. They encounter a motocross race over a hill and Jack inadvertently scares a rider with his second head. Kirshner berates Jack (and Williams) and almost every chance he gets, but since Jack is in control the bigot must go along for the ride. They use the motorcycle to avoid up to 14 police cars, causing them all to crash in one form or another and make their way to Jack’s girlfriend’s house.

Lila (Chelsea Brown) has been helping Jack figure out who murdered the man he is accused of killing, but with no luck so far. Williams agrees to help, realizing that Jack is a good (and innocent man) and that Kirshner is a horrible person. Kirshner gains control of the body one night when Jack falls asleep and attempts to make his way to his Mansion so Desmond can remove Jack’s head. Williams stops him and they make it to Kirshner’s before Desmond. When the other doctor arrives, he finds Kirshner’s head on a table hooked up to a heart/lung machine. He begs for them to help find a new body. Williams, Jack, and Lila drive away singing along to “Oh Happy Day” on the radio.

“Is there anything else you got two of?” – Lila

History in the Making

This week Sci-Fi Saturdays is taking it a bit slow, returning from a several month hiatus, and beginning its run of sci-fi themed horror films (or horror filled sci-fi films) for the 2023 edition of 31 Days of Horror. This week is an infamous film. Saying that The Thing with Two Heads is the best two-headed monster film of its time, is not really saying much, but it’s the truth. As far as science-fiction and horror go, there’s not enough of either to recommend this as a genre film. If anything, it’s more of an exploitation picture, but more on that shortly.

The Thing With Two Heads can be considered the first leading role for football player turned actor Rosey Grier. Prior to the late 60s he was known as a defensive tackle for the New York Giants and later the Los Angeles Rams, where he was considered part of one of the best defensive lines in football history. This was his 6th film, but the one that he probably received most credit for. His acting history before and after mostly consists of guest roles on popular shows playing himself or someone very much like him.

Unlike Grier, this was one of the final films for Ray Milland, who’s career had been on a decline since his heyday in the 1940s and 50s. The films he is best known for include The Lost Weekend and Hitchcock’s Dial M for Murder. By the 60s he was attached to any number of low-budget films, some better than average–like X: The Man With the X-Ray Eyes, and some subpar, like Frogs. He too would continue on with guest spots on television shows like Fantasy Island and The Love Boat, but would never have hit films again.

One thing I have joked about on Sci-Fi Saturdays is the American International logo popping up before films. AIP means that the quality is probably pretty low. And in this case, it does not disappoint. Director Lee Frost was a constant director of exploitation movies for AIP which include such lusty titles as Love Camp 7, Chain Gang Women, Chrome and Hot Leather, and Private Obsession, as well The Black Gestapo, and Dixie Dynamite. The Thing With Two Heads was geared to be made as quickly, and as cheaply as possible, while getting as much bang for their buck on screen as possible.

Genre-fication

Exploitation films seemed very much like a staple of the 60s and 70s. They mostly revolved around violence, sex, and fast cars, usually catering to the teenage and counterculture audience, but also catering to the horror and sci-fi crowd with titles like The Last House on the Left, Death Race 2000, and Laserblast. The wrongfully accused man aspect of this film, as well as the racism aspect plays well into the themes of revenge and retribution often seen in exploitation films. In fact, The Thing With Two Heads can be considered a loose entry as a blaxploitation film. These are films, popularized with titles like Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song or Shaft (both from 1971) about strong and vengeful black protagonists.

Of course the reason this film makes the cut for Sci-Fi Saturdays this October is due to its science-fiction and horror themes, however fleeting those themes are. Even while the film’s overall plot is based on a long history of mad science films, with characters which pervert nature by running ethically and morally deficient experiments often on human bodies, there have been very few films featuring characters with additional appendages. The first film on the books is probably The Manster (1959), an American/Japanese co-production in which the protagonist is given a drug that causes a second head to grow from his neck. However, The Thing With Two Heads was probably more a reaction to a 1971 film, The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant, which has a similar idea with a mentally deficient head being attached to a serial killer’s body–with its own head, of course.

There were also laughable offshoots of the transplant genre like Brain of Blood (1970) which deals with simply replacing the brain of one person into another body, or the The Amazing Transplant (1971) which is a sexploitation film about a penis-transplant that doesn’t go as expected (like The Hands of Orlac, but with male genitalia). Surprisingly, with the advancements in film technology and special effects, there has not been more of a resurgence in films about two-headed characters and monsters. Instead, audiences have instead got films like Basket Case and Malignant, about parasitic twins. If Sharknado can be a thing in the early 20th Century, then the time has come for a remake of The Thing With Two Heads!

Societal Commentary

Let’s face it, this film is not about any shades of gray. It’s literally black and white, with its overt themes of racism. But unlike some films of the 70s (or even television shows), the racism feels extremely superficial. Kirshner acts like a complete ass when it is revealed that Dr. Williams is black, something that people who have been discriminated against can probably relate to. The terms of the deal suddenly change for no apparent reason. Excuses like “we have lost funding,” or “there was some clerical error” cover for the real reason, which is the color of his skin. Milland does a great job of showing the subtle facial twitch when he realizes his mistake. And Marshall provides a great comeback as he stands up for his rights and himself. Unfortunately there could have been much more.

The remainder of the film, as the white head resides on the black body, consists of not much more than minor jabs and irritation than anything substantial. At this point, Jack is in charge of both Kirshner and Williams (to an extent). It would have been easy to just smack the white head in the mouth, but his whining and insults come off as so petty, it’s almost sad. In the end, Kirshner gets his comeuppance, not just for his racism, but also for his unethical medical procedures. Audiences may also feel that Dr. Desmond is complicit in the downfall, as he chose to go ahead with the transplant knowing Kirshner’s dislike of black people, but he would need to agree to let Kirshner’s head die in order to wash his hands of his inaction.

The Science in The Fiction

One note that I made while watching the credits for The Thing With Two Heads, is that the film has not one, but two medical advisors! Now, that’s either a clever PR move, or the advisors cashed an easy paycheck. The 1970s were a different time however, and medical dramas did not try to approach anything close to reality. The overly long surgery scene uses a ton of medical jargon, but without any reality. It’s as if the writers were given the names of a bunch of medical equipment that could be used in such an operation, and decided they must use the name of everything. It’s one of the many laughable things about this premise.

Kirshner talks about the process of the head transplant which involves electrical stimulation to allow the nerves of the new head to attach to the hosts nerve endings, creating total spinal alignment. Let’s not forget the host’s own head is still there, even if it gets shifted over a bit. No discussion of blood vessels, trachea, or anything that explains how Kirshner’s head is able to talk or breathe. There is one funny gag which shows that Jack’s lungs must be hooked up to Kirshner’s head as the white head takes a drag on a cigarette and the smoke comes out of Jack’s mouth.

Williams warns Jack that shooting the white head would kill him, yet pulling off the head is a simple procedure, at least compared to attaching it. And then let’s not even get started on how the new head gets stronger over the course of 28 days; strong enough to take control of the body. At some point with films like this, which have questionable science, it’s best just to ignore it completely and not try to explain anything. Let the audiences make up their own mind, or maybe they’ll never even think to ask.

The Final Frontier

When a two-headed gorilla is introduced, what audience member wouldn’t want to see it run amok? What happens instead is silly. It runs out of the mansion, down an uncrowded street and finds the closest grocery store so that it can get…some bananas. It’s a funny moment, but it might have been nice to see something more with this. As a side note, future makeup and special effects guru Rick Baker is the actor inside that suit. Gorillas were a passion of his and he would continue to advance the look of apes on film from King Kong (1976) to Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984) to his pinnacle in Gorillas in the Mist (1988).

In summation, The Thing With Two Heads is the best two-headed monster/exploitation film of 1972–and possibly ever. If the above hasn’t convinced you of that, then you might be out of one of your two minds. Sci-Fi Saturdays will be returning to its weekly schedule this month with more horror infused science-fiction films as 31 Days of Horror continues all October.

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