The Thing with Two Heads (1972)

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Remember in that 1945 Oscar Winning Best Picture when alcoholic Ray Milland snags a handbag in a nightclub, is caught & escorted out as the piano player breaks into a newly created song, singing "Somebody Stole Her Purse!"? Well now, Milland 27 years after taking home the gold for that classic can be escorted out with the "Boobie Prize" with the audience singing "Somebody Stole His Head!" And it ends up on the body of football legend Rosey Grier! The only difference is that between the 1945 alcoholic screenwriter and this 1972 bigoted doctor is that I'd rather hang out with the alcoholic! Just because an educated doctor can do miracles with an ape with two heads (a sight that has to be seen to be believed!) doesn't mean that he's a good guy, and in this case, Milland is despicable. Grier is an innocent black man on death row who agrees to donate his body to science rather than be electrocuted, and wakes up after the operation to find him snuggling cheek to cheek next to this racist jerk. Grier manages to gain control, escapes from the clinic (which is actually St John's Health Center on Santa Monica Blvd.!) and leads the police on a merry chase all over the valley with Milland's head and the noble black doctor (Don Marshall) who has already been a victim of hate from Milland. They end up at the home of Grier's confused girlfriend (Chelsea Brown, "Laugh-In") who is baffled to say the least. Her reaction is one of the priceless bad lines of all times. This leads to an off-the-wall conclusion that will leave you baffled.There is no way that you can view this with any cynicism. You simply have to toss your brain away for 90 minutes to enjoy the ridiculousness of it. While Milland is not the only Oscar Winning Actor to have stepped into the world of hideously bad cinema (Bette Davis, "Bunny O'Hare", Joan Crawford, "Trog", anyone?), he did pick the strangest vehicle. This film on DVD has one benefit over its co-feature, "The Incredible Two Headed Transplant", is that this one is watchable, the other simply offensive.

A rich but racist man is dying and hatches an elaborate scheme for transplanting his head onto another man's body.His health deteriorates rapidly, and doctors are forced to transplant his head onto the only available candidate: a black man from death row....Total garbage from beginning to end, but one cannot help but love a good car crash movie. Especially when it features two actors who are out of their comfort zone for more or less the whole duration of the movie.This is blaxploitation/Grindhouse at it's finest, and to top the whole thing off, we get the most hilarious police chase ever seen, a man riding a scrambler with a plastic head on his shoulders, a joy to behold.It's a wonder that any of these actors managed to keep a straight face when making this. Pure trash, but ever so endearing.

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.

Must been seen by all! Should be required viewing along with Airplane, Buffalo 66, Anchorman, Napoleon Dynamite, Team America World Police, Sideways, Bad Santa, Windy City Heat, Zoolander, Kingpin, Best In Show, Meet The Parents, Office Space, Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me, This Is Spinal Tap, Raising Arizona, Dr. Strangelove, Kentucy Fried Movie, Monty Python and The Holy Grail, Life Of Brian, Meaning Of Life, Vacation, Used Cars, After Hours, Caddyshack, Ed Wood, The Rutles All You Need Is Cash, The Jerk, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, There's Something About Mary, And Now for Something Completely Different, Fletch, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Hot Shots, Hot Shots Part Deux, Scary Movie 3, Heaven Can Wait, American Psycho, Sixteen Candles, Pee Wees Big Adventure, Top Secret, A Fish Called Wanda, The Naked Gun, Naked Gun 33 1/3, The King Of Comedy, Crumb, The Man With Two Brains, Real Life, High Anxiety, Pink Panther, A Shot In The Dark, Pink Panther Strikes Again, Return Of The Pink Panther, Revenge of the Pink Panther, Bad News Bears, Young Frankenstein, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Blazing Saddles, The Producers, Tommy Boy, The World According To Garp, The Survivors, The Big Lebowski, Dirty Work, Beavis And Butt-Head Do America, Better Off Dead, Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation, Accidental Tourist, Young Doctors In Love, Bottle Rocket, Johnny Dangerously, Wallace & Gromit in The Wrong Trousers, Wallace & Gromit in A Close Shave, & Kung Pow: Enter the Fist.