Themes: Race Relations, Mad Scientists, Renegade Body Parts
Main Cast: Jane Kellem, Rod Steele, Ray Milland, Roosevelt Grier, Don Marshall
Release Year: 1972
Country: US
Run Time: 90 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
The good campy fun in this sci-fi horror movie really begins when the head of a racist mad scientist (Ray Milland) is sewn onto the shoulders of a large black convict (Rosie Grier) and the two heads begin fighting--literally trying to punch each other out--to control their shared body. The whole mess begins because the brain surgeon suffers from terminal cancer. He reasons that he will survive if he can transplant his head onto the shoulders of another. He and his team begin experimenting. First he has his head sewn to a gorilla (featuring a simian created by fledgling make-up artist Rick Baker). Something goes terribly wrong, he goes into a coma and when he wakes up, he finds himself having a permanent tete-a-tete with the wrongfully convicted Grier. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Richard James Baker - Gorilla; Kathy Baumann - Nurse Patricia; John Bliss - Donald; Chelsea Brown - Lila; Jerry Butler; George E. Carey; Tommy Cook - Chaplain; John Dullaghan - Thomas; Roger Gentry - Police Sergeant; Phil Hoover - Policeman; Roger Perry - Dr. Philip Desmond; William Smith - Hysterical Condemned Man; Dick Whittington - TV Newscaster; Wes Bishop - Dr. Smith; Lee Frost - Sgt. Hacker; Albert Zugsmith - Guest Performer; Bruce Kimball - Police Lieutenant; Michael Viner - Prison Guard; Britt Nilsson - Nurse; Jane Kellem - Miss Mullen; Rod Steele - Medical Salesman
Credit
Lee Frost - Director, Edward J. Forsyth - Editor, Robert O. Ragland - Composer (Music Score), David Angel - Songwriter, Porter Jordan - Songwriter, Thomas R. Burman - Makeup, Charles Schram - Makeup, Dan Striepeke - Makeup, James Gordon White - Makeup, Rick Baker - Makeup Special Effects, Jack Steely - Cinematographer, Wes Bishop - Producer, Jonathan Lawrence - Producer, Clark Will - Sound/Sound Designer, Paul Nuckles - Stunts, Wes Bishop - Screen Story, Wes Bishop - Screenwriter, Lee Frost - Screenwriter, James Gordon White - Screenwriter
The Thing with Two Heads is a 1972 film, starring Rosey Grier, Ray Milland and Don Marshall directed by Lee Frost, and written by Wes Bishop. Frost and Bishop also had parts in the movie.
In the movie, Milland plays Dr. Maxwell Kirshner, a dying, wealthy racist who demands that his head be transplanted onto a healthy body. As his health rapidly deteriorates, there remains only one alternative: graft Kirshner's head onto the body of a black death row inmate, Jack Moss, played by Grier. Things will never be the same for Kirshner...
