kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** Greedy and unscrupulous financial investment/banker Karl Brussard, George Coulouris, learns from his doctor Phil Merritt, Robert Hutton, that he has a terminal brain tumor that will end up killing him within a year. Refusing to accept the enviable Brussard seeing that he's experimenting with the brains of dead monkeys and bringing them, the live monkeys that he's experimenting with, back to life Brussard convinces Dr. Merritt to do the same for him. The rub in all this is that in Dr. Merritt's mind is that doing the same experiments with a human being is unethical and even worse, for Brussard, who's brain does he want to replace that of his his own? Thinking big in the brain he wants to have Brussard goes to France to check out the mausoleum when the great seer and philosopher Nostradamus, Michael Gordon, is in-terned in. Brussard plans to have his head surgically removed and have it brought back to life by the very reluctant, in not knowing who's head it is, Dr. Merritt. It's the sneaky Brussard who's planing to use Nostradamus' brain to predict future stock markets moves and thus profit from them. But the great Nostradamus knowing what a creep that Brussard is has plans of his own that in the end , by Brussard flowing his bad advice, will end up bankrupting him!You don't quite understand, unless he's insane, Brussard's plans to become the richest man in the world by using Nostradamus' future stock predictions to do it since he hasn't long to live anyway to enjoy it? As Brussard is losing his money in the fake stock predictions that Nostradamus is giving him he's slowly losing his life from the terminal brain tumor that's killing him. With both his money and life on the verge of expiring Brussard really loses it and in an attempt to get back at Nostradamus tries to kidnap his head and destroy it!***SPOILERS*** This total insane action on Brussard's part has the head, that's Nostradamus, re-unite with the body, that of someone else, and keep the by now completely out of it Karl Brussard from his attempt to destroy it! By the time the movie is finally over Nostradamus loses his head for the second time but unlike the first this time it really counted. That by him putting and end to Brussard's crazy plans to rule the world of finance by using his head to do it!

drmality-1 I defy anyone to find a 1950's film more off the wall and unpredictable than this. Even Nostradamus himself wouldn't be able to do it! Calling this campy trash is taking the easy way out. The film has more original ideas than a dozen big budget Hollywood films from the same period that cost a hundred times as much. If you have never seen "Man Without A Body" before, find it on Youtube, where it is presented in complete and pristine form. Then sit back and get ready to be amazed by the entertaining absurdity of it all.To cover the basics of the plot, an egomaniacal millionaire in the vein of Charles Foster Kane and Howard Hughes is diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor after he has head pains and starts answering phantom phone calls. Veteran actor George Coulouris plays Karl Brussard with lots of vigor. Of course Brussard cannot contemplate his own end, so he hooks up with renegade scientist Dr. Merritt, who has found a method of keeping long dead monkey heads alive and in perfect condition.The crazed Brussard has the idea to imprint his mind and personality upon the head of the greatest man who ever lived...the French prophet Nostradamus! After a grave-robbing expedition, the dessicated head of Nostradamus is brought back to life and asks Dr. Merritt and company: "Have they burned all my books?" Despite the cheesy effects, there is something quite eerie about the ease with which Nostradamus adapts to his new situation, saying "I have always lived in the future". Soon Brussard tries to brainwash Nostradamus into thinking he's Brussard, leading to one of the craziest scenes ever filmed.Meanwhile, there's a lot more going on. Brussard's sexy nymphomaniac mistress Odette, whom he treats like an annoying pet, has hatched a plot to murder the old man with the help of Merritt's assistant Lou. At the same time, Merritt's female assistant Jean tries to get this frosty egghead to thaw out and return her advances. Finally, in an amazing scene, Nostradamus is transformed into a Frankenstein-like monster with a giant paper mache blob encasing his head. This crazy creature goes on the rampage in search of the now-fugitive Brussard, whose company has been ruined due to false stock market advice given by the prophet.The ending is very abrupt, yet quite appropriate. It seems Nostradamus had foreseen everything all along, resulting in a satisfactory resolution where everybody gets their due.Despite the cheapness of the production, "The Man Without A Body" holds you in a spell from the get go, with better direction than you would think. This film is begging to be discovered! I wonder if the real Nostradamus could have ever foreseen his participation in a movie like this?

BILLYBOY-10 Karl is an egotistical wealthy rich guy who's got a terminal brain tumor so he goes to London to see Dr. Phil who's been doing some stuff with monkey heads so Karl figures he can do a brain transplant on him but he's gotta find a real brainy brain to train into his brain when it's transplanted into his noggin. Got that? Good. One day he's in Madame Toussad's wax museum, sees and hears about Nostradamus and decides thats whose brain he wants. He pops off to France, hires a boozy Dr. And has him cut off Nostra's head and brings it back to London, hidden in a plaster bust of his no-good, two-timing girl friend who the customs inspector refers to as " your daughter". She's a tad younger than Karl and is playing footsie with Dr. Phil's assistant.Cut to Nostradamus' head on a table in Dr. Phil's laboratory filled with dials and gages, tubes, wires, a pumpy thing and other assorted mad but likable scientist pseudo Dr. Frank N. Stein. Naturally, Nostra comes alive and begins talking. Karl is excited, he has a stroke, but hestill wants Nostra's brain, Then he kills his cheatin' girlfriend and her lover, Dr. Phil's assistant, too. So then Dr. Phil cuts off his killed assistant's head, sews Nostra's head on his body. Nostra head wakes up confused, is violent, escapes and the townsfolk chase him with torches into a building with stairs that lead up an up and up to a belfry. Karl chases him and takes a dive, splat, onto the floor below; the Nostra body sails to the floor too, only Nostra's head is attached to the rope of the bell 'cause he wrapped it around the rope so it was torn from the body. Then the movie is over.

mlraymond I have only seen this movie once, in the early Seventies. It was on a Friday night horror show program, and I have never seen it since. All I really remember are a few scenes, including one of obnoxious millionaire George Couloris being told his mistress is threatening to kill herself, and he basically says he's too busy to be bothered with it. I remember the grave robbing scenes, but the one image that really sticks with me is a couple of scientists conversing with the head of Nostradamus, and the head nodding and expressing interest in all the new developments of the Twentieth Century. It seemed to me at the time a terrible movie, which has, perhaps not surprisingly, disappeared from circulation.