The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

While driving this afternoon, for whatever reason this movie came to mind. I remember seeing this back in the day when it made it to the rerun circuit. Here is a synopsis of this film along with the actual trailer. Talk about cheese??

Yes, I will be pulling from this analogy in future postings .

“Dr. Max Kirshner (Ray Milland) is a bigoted doctor, confined to a wheelchair and dying of terminal cancer. Despite this, Kirshner conducts secret experiments in his basement (where else?) laboratory and has succeeded in transplanting the head of a gorilla onto the body of another gorilla. The two-headed ape escapes and causes havoc in a local grocery, but the creature is sedated after if finds solace in a banana. Kirshner is able to remove the gorilla’s original head, allowing the other head to fully function with the new body, and he now wants to put his head onto a healthy human. Since his crippled, cancer-ridden body is expiring quickly, the operation must be done at once.

Kirshner talks his colleague, Dr. Philip Desmond (Roger Perry from the “Count Yorga” films) into conducting the operation, and now a donor must be found. A call is made to death row, and Jack Moss (Rosey Grier), a beefy black man sentenced to the chair for a crime he didn’t commit, volunteers in order to buy him time to prove his innocence. After the transplant is completed, Kirshner wakes up to the surprise of his life (“Is this some kind of a joke?”), but is able to except it, knowing his head can later be transplanted onto a more fitting body (white). Moss on the other hand freaks out and escapes.

Now on the run with the loud-mouthed whitey affixed to his shoulder, he forces another doctor, Fred Williams (Don Marshall of “Land of the Giants” fame) to drive them away from the police who are in high pursuit of them. Williams had earlier been turned down for a position at Kirshner’s hospital since he is black, so he’s perfectly content to help Moss. After running on foot for a while, Moss takes a motorcyclist’s bike with Dr. Williams straddling behind him as they ride recklessly. What ensues is an action-packed but much too lengthy car chase involving inept policemen–like something you’d see in a Hal Needham film.

Though played pretty straight, much of what makes the film so amusing is the lively banter between Milland and Grier. Milland often shouts lines that would make Archie Bunker blush, and by the time they get to Grier’s girlfriend’s house for refuge, he says thing like, “What are we having for dessert, watermelon?” when subjected to soul food, and “Is that all you people ever think about?” when they consider making love in the presence of his flustered head. You do have to wonder what was going through Milland’s head as he was reciting dialog while resting his chin on the shoulder of a 300 pound ex-football player?” (source)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWHNA_j7h5A]