SunnyHello
Nice effects though.
Mandeep Tyson
The acting in this movie is really good.
Justina
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
begob
A bright young scientist accepts an invitation from a genius, only to resist his effort at domination of ... life!A little gem. Just 66 mins, but with a perfectly symmetrical plot, good performances, and moral outcome. Karloff is good, but the Oscar goes to the character who starts as a cripple and ends as an overbearing boss - played by two actors - with some great lines and whiplash irony.Photography is good, with plenty of close ups. Editing is so fast, like kung fu on speed - maybe it's too much, truncating scenes so that they lose their mood. Honestly, this mystifies me - it made the film seem so much more professional than contemporary Hollywood horrors, and yet the pace lagged a bit. It could have been twenty minutes longer, and still felt shorter.As usual there's a sweet female influence, but it comes through with a punch at the end. Better than, say, The Imitation Game.Overall: smart telling of a good story.
JohnHowardReid
"The Man Who…" takes a long time to get going. Until the climax, in fact, the best thing about the movie are Boris Karloff's studiously mannered, theatrically nervous performance (director Robert Stevenson indulges him with lots and lots of close-ups) and Donald Calthrop's unnerving study of a twisted, wheel-chaired patient. The climactic switch, however, provides Frank Cellier a golden opportunity to show us what he can really do in the acting department. In fact, he seizes it with such charismatic vitality, he even manages to steal scenes from Karloff. And would you believe it? – I know this is really hard to credit – even John Loder comes good momentarily (though Jack Cox's superb cinematography deserves a great deal of the credit).Aside from Loder, who is actually a bit more animated here than usual, the one dampener on the movie's success is Anna Lee. Usually, she's good, but this time her role is underwritten. And unfortunately, Stevenson has compounded the error by emphasizing both the paucity of her material and her inadequacies as a star personality by exposing her to revealing close-up after close-up? Like all post-Frankenstein variations on the horror film, a surprising amount of emphasis is placed on laboratory machinery. Personally, all these flashing tubes, palpitating dials and lightning rod conductors, bore the pants off me! But Stevenson gives them all a great run. Personally, I thought the other sets much more effective: the creepy old house, the institute steps and especially the science lecture theater.Personally, I'm rather surprised that neither Stevenson nor his editor seem the least inclined o pep up the pace a bit. It does tend to drag, particularly in the Lee-Loder scenes. Fortunately, the movie does finally come around to an effectively written and acted climax.
ferbs54
What a delightful surprise this little movie turned out to be! I had read in Michael Weldon's "Psychotronic Encyclopedia" that "The Man Who Changed His Mind" was a seldom-seen Karloff film that was considered to be quite excellent, but until last night had never seen it before. The film turns out to be a beautifully done piece on the by-now-overdone theme of mind/body transfer. It is impeccably acted by the entire cast, features gorgeous black-and-white photography and great use of shadow, stylish direction, more-than-adequate effects and a witty script. The picture really does MOVE; there are no wasted scenes or sluggish passages to speak of whatsoever. Anna Lee, who would costar with Karloff again 10 years later in the 1946 picture "Bedlam," is excellent (and beautiful) here as Karloff's assistant, and the actor Frank Cellier almost steals the film as the lord and publisher who receives the mind of Karloff's wheelchair-bound helper. But the film belongs to Karloff, and he runs with it. This may very well be his best film of the 1930s, with the exception of the Franky films and "The Black Cat," of course, and that's really saying something. Fans of classic horror should all rejoice that this terrific and relatively unknown example of British '30s horror is now widely available in a pristine-looking DVD. To be succinct...loved it.
Doghouse-6
This is one of the earliest examples of the "mad scientist" characterization that would become so much a part of Boris' stock in trade over the following decade. What's most interesting about THE MAN WHO CHANGED HIS MIND is that it is not as much science fiction as it is an observation of what we might today call the "PR machine," and it takes some lacerating swipes at journalism, publicity and self-promotion.Karloff is Dr. Laurience, a reclusive scientist who believes he can transfer the consciousness (or soul?) from one brain to another. Ably assisted by Dr. Clare Wyatt, Laurience draws the interest of newspaper publisher Lord Haslewood (whose son, Dick, is Clare's fiancé). Eager to promote his foundation, Haslewood offers to sponsor Laurience's work - without knowing exactly what it is. Before the dust settles, Haslewood feels swindled, Clare feels suspicious and Laurience feels used, vowing to employ his work to his own ends rather than for the benefit of mankind.Boris' performance is exuberant, and supporting players Anna Lee, John Loder and Donald Calthrop are effective, but Frank Cellier, as Lord Haslewood, walks away with the picture whenever he is on screen. Without giving too much away, let's just say that Cellier is called upon to portray more than one personality, and provides the film with its most enjoyable scenes.THE MAN WHO CHANGED HIS MIND definitely has its moments, along with a little something to say. With its takes on the press and the pitfalls of corporate control, it not only conveys messages to which we can relate today, but illustrates how little some things have changed in 70 years.
