User reviews

This film is one of my favorite 1950's horror/science fiction movies. I first saw this film on T.V. when I was about four and five years old, and it thrilled me then and I still enjoy it today. The story based on Curt Siodmak's novel was previously filmed in 1942 as LADY AND THE MONSTER. While that version has some virtues, the overall result was mediocre. It was filmed again 1962 as THE BRAIN with several character name changes and different plot elements. I last saw that version in 1970's. While I recall it being not bad, I don't remember it being as good as this version.

DONOVAN'S BRAIN is the best version primarily due the good performance of Lew Ayers as the possessed Dr. Cory with good support from Gene Evans. When I first saw this film again after many years I was impressed by Lew Ayers. When the evil brain of Donovan possesses Dr. Cory and he becomes Donovan, I had to remind myself that it was Ayers playing both "minds". This was done entirely by Ayers; the film employs no make-up or lighting tricks (as the 1942 version does) to create the different minds in the same body. Gene Evans lends good support as Cory's alcoholic but sympathetic doctor assistant. Steve Brodie is also good as the blackmailing reporter, but his role is somewhat shoehorned into the plot. He appears merely as someone for Cory as Donovan to knock off, and once he is gone, his blackmail threats are forgotten. However the scene's with Brodie are good. Note that when he confronts Cory/Donovan for a blackmail payment, he is wearing a worn out suit. When he returns for another payment, he shows up in a very expensive looking suit! The film is loaded with subtle touches like that.

In the original Frankenstein film, the good doctor's experiment is flawed from the start when Dwight Frye takes the brain of a criminal from the medical school to give to Colin Clive for the final touch to his research. That was what Lew Ayres overlooked.

Imagine if Dr. Albert Schweitzer had been in a plane crash and his brain had been harvested by Lew Ayres and Gene Evans? Would Ayres's experiment have turned out differently? We'll never know because on the day that research scientist Ayres was called away from his work to do actual doctoring it was for Warren H. Donovan, misanthropic millionaire.

Ayres and Evans have devised away to keep Donovan's Brain alive in a saline solution with electrodes. Unfortunately the brain's really thriving in it, the brain and the ego inside. As it grows it takes over the personalities around it, though at this early stage it can only dominate one person at a time and it does need sleep like the normal human brain.

Donovan's Brain has some big ambitions, nothing less than world domination of the global marketplace. The suspense that the film has involves whether this thing can develop before they're capable of destroying it.

Stars Lew Ayres, future first lady Nancy Davis, and Gene Evans all do good work here. The performance I like the best is that of blackmailing reporter/paparazzi Steve Brodie. Donovan's Brain deals quite nicely with him.

For modern audiences who think it can't happen, imagine in the age of the internet Donald Trump's disembodied brain in saline solution like Donovan's Brain near a laptop.

This movie has everything that you always like in your 50s sci-fi. Except for the grisly demise of a small monkey to bring the point of the story home the rest of the film is fun and by today's standards a tad hokey.

As much fun as it is to watch the movie, it is also fun to recognize some of your favorite old-timy actors such as Nancy Reagan, Gene Evans, and Lew Ayres.

Dr. Patrick J. Cory, being unethical, gets an opportunity to put Tom Donovan's brain in a fish tank with electrodes. But as we all know a man is not supposed to be dallying in God's realm. He even dabbles in telepathy. So too did the 50s genre Donovan's brain have an expanding experience from which nothing good can come. So, can Donovan be stopped, or will he build a monument to his perpetuity?

Yes, this has been done better and it may have a striking similarity to Frankenstein. At one point even feel like Dr. Patrick is going to say, "it is alive!" Yet you will end up being absorbed in the story and sorry to see it end.

But wait, you do not have to. You can read Curt Siodmak's novel of the same name.

Donovan's Brain is a solid science fiction film containing elements of horror in the tradition of Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It is a refreshing departure from the typical 1950s-era mutant monsters and alien invaders style of film.

Donovan's Brain is still a very relevant film as it reminds people of any era that there is a cost to any aspect of human progress. The question is; is it a cost we would wish to bear even if we go into it with our eyes open?