The Mind Benders (1963)

Simply Perfect

How sad is this?

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This is not among Dirk Bogarde's more famous films. Still, it's very enjoyable and worth a look...and would make a great double-feature with "The Manchurian Candidate".The film begins with a seemingly loyal British professor killing himself...and he was suspected of being an enemy spy. However, Professor Longman (Bogarde) cannot believe that his dear friend would be a spy and suspects that their sensory deprivation research COULD have warped the poor man's mind. A subsequent experiment proves, the hard way, that this could indeed be the case.Unless you are watching the pilot episode of the original "Hawaii Five-O", you won't get a better look at sensory deprivation tanks and their ability to warp a person's mind. A fascinating, cerebral sort of film that is well worth seeing and Bogarde, as usual, is excellent!

***SPOILERS*** After being put through by the British I5 a number of mind altering as well as brain washing experiments Prof. John Sharpey, Harold Goldblatt, starts to believe that he's betrayed his country to the Soviet Union by unconsciously giving it top secret information on it's nuclear and, in compliance with the USA, space programs. Guilt ridden and suicidal Sharpey on a train ride to London jumps out of the moving train thus killing himself. With Major Hall,John Clements, feeling that the late Professor Sharpley was a Soviet Spy and depriving his next of kin or family of a government pension it's Sharpley's good friend Dr. Henry Laidlaw Longman's, Dirk Bogarde, job to go out and prove Sharpley innocence. That's by him going through the very same mind altering experiments that Sharply went through that eventually drove him to kill himself.Put in a water filled tank for hours at at time Longman's mind starts to slip into never-never land losing all his feeling not only toward his country, the UK, but his soon to give birth pregnant wife Oonagh, Mary Ure, as well. The experiments left Longman like it did Prof. Sharpley into becoming a mind numb and unfeeling zombie who had no loyalty towards anyone not even himself. It's only when his terribly and mentally abused wife Oonagh after slipping and falling while running from him went into labor that Longman snapped back to his old self and became a normal and feeling human being again. Something he forgot to be after his brain was experimented on and picked apart while suspended for hours in the warm water tank.Brain washing at its best film that shows how a person's brain can be completely washed and dried and left hanging-on a clothe line-for those working on it to pick it clean of everything it had in it. In the case of Longman as well as professor Sharpley it didn't cause them to betray their country but through the power of suggestion as and loss of memory as well as human emotions make them feel that they did. And in the case of poor and guilt ridden professor Sharpley drive him to suicide.

Have you ever actually stopped and seriously tried to imagine what it would be like to experience complete sensory deprivation?Would you think that being in such a state as this you would make a perfect candidate for some major brainwashing?Well, (keeping this in mind) - Unfortunately, this 1963, British, Sci-Fi/Thriller certainly missed its golden opportunity to deliver a real humdinger of a story where sensory deprivation and brainwashing were, indeed, the very name of the game.Considering that "The Mind Benders" story held so much promise & potential, I found myself totally disappointed that, not only was this picture a very dry & bland bit of storytelling, but it actually took an unfortunate nosedive, deteriorating into nothing but a sappy, second-rate, soap opera in the end.Ho-hum!*Note* - A more up-dated, over-the-top, psychedelic version of The Mind Benders was made in 1980 called Altered States, directed by Ken Russell.

Good acting, photography, and ideas are not used to their full advantage by the script, particularly when it fell apart in the last few minutes. The opening of the film was quite intriguing. This film may have introduced the idea (familiar today) of an isolation tank. The hero spends some time in the tank and the experience changes him. The basic story line is the same as Altered States, but without the fantasy dimension. The supporting characters in Mind Benders are generally quite bland too. The transfer of the B&W source is quite good. The photography is technically quite good, but flat. Much more could have been done with the photography to enhance the drama. If you are thinking of renting this movie, you would probably find Altered States a better choice.