Brain of Blood (Al Adamson, 1971)

I had pretty low hopes for Brain of Blood since the previous Al Adamson film I'd seen was a bit of a slog. That movie, Blood of Ghastly Horror, proved that it was possible to be insane and dull at the same time. I admired Adamson's bizarre determination in Blood of Ghastly Horror to create a third movie with a brand-new plot out of two of his previous films, a crime thriller from the early '60s and a mad scientist horror movie from the late '60s, with new footage shot in the early '70s awkwardly tying them together. It was weird, but it was also mostly boring.

Fortunately, Brain of Blood is far more entertaining and rarely drags. It's silly, goofy, and full of plot holes and odd character motivations, but it's really fun. It's also the only film distributed and financed by Eddie Romero's Filipino production company to be shot in the United States (Topanga Canyon, to be specific).

Brain of Blood begins with a dying man in a hospital bed. That man is Amir (Reed Hadley, in his last film role), the leader of fictional Middle Eastern country Kalid. Amir is apparently universally beloved by his country's citizens, but his terminal cancer must be kept a secret because his death would damage the country's morale to such an extent that Kalid would descend into chaos. Seems plausible. Fortunately, Amir's half-Kalid, half-American physician Bob (Grant Williams), his loyal Kalid aide Mohammed (Zandor Vorkov), and his impossibly tall-haired, chain-smoking American fiancee Tracy (Regina Carrol, director Adamson's wife) have an arrangement with disgraced but brilliant American surgeon Dr. Trenton (Kent Taylor).

Shortly before Amir's body dies, Bob gives him a serum that will perfectly preserve his brain for hours after death. His body is then secretly flown to the U.S., where Dr. Trenton will put Amir's brain in a healthy, younger body and give him some plastic surgery so he looks like his old self. Brain swap and facelift complete, Amir will return to Kalid and keep everything smooth and dandy. Sounds easy, right? Wrong, sucker. Many complications, double-crosses, and intrigues occur, some involving Dr. Trenton's two assistants, an evil dwarf named Dorro (Angelo Rossitto) and an extremely large, simple-minded man with an acid-scarred face named Gor (John Bloom), a mysterious basement with two chained-up women, a hired killer, a car chase, a rooftop fistfight, an explosion, an implanted brain chip activated by a brain-ray, and lots of chain-smoking.

An aside about Angelo Rossitto: His acting career spanned from the silent era to the Hollywood blockbusters of the late '80s. Born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1908, Rossitto moved from the circus and vaudeville to the big screen, appearing in over 70 roles while simultaneously owning a newsstand in Hollywood for a steady income. He was the mascot of roller derby team the Los Angeles Thunderbirds, and he co-founded the Little People of America organization. His roles include Seven Footprints to Satan, Freaks, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Hellzapoppin', Requiem for a Heavyweight, The Trip, Dr. Dolittle, Alex in Wonderland, Can't Stop the Music, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and Orson Welles' The Other Side of the Wind and episodes of The Fugitive, Gunsmoke, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., H.R. Pufnstuf, Kung Fu, Baretta, The Rockford Files, The Incredible Hulk, Simon & Simon, and Amazing Stories. He died in 1991.

Back to Brain of Blood: Adamson keeps everything relatively coherent and moving along, a minor miracle if you've seen Blood of Ghastly Horror, and the action sequences are surprisingly gripping. Something new and weird seems to happen every five minutes, and the moments of inexplicable dialogue and human behavior are pretty funny. No one is ever going to mistake Brain of Blood for a good movie, but it's got a whole lot of weirdness and charm. I enjoyed it.

Director Al Adamson's life came to a bizarre and untimely end in 1995. By many accounts, Adamson was a fun-loving guy who knew exactly what kind of movies he was making and was an unlikely candidate for a violent death. Adamson hired a general contractor named Fred Fulford to oversee an extensive remodeling of his home in 1994, and Fulford had been living on the property while doing the work. Adamson eventually suspected Fulford of stealing from him and confronted him about it. The argument became heated and Fulford lost his temper, striking Adamson with a large object and killing him. Panicking, Fulford had two of his employees remove Adamson's Jacuzzi. He then dumped the body in the hole, covered it with cement, and fled. He was captured a few weeks later. Fulford was found guilty in 1999.