The Horror!? 32: The Head (1959)

Wonderfully mad scientist Dr. Ood (Horst Frank), who -as he will tell you while foaming at the mouth- is a genius. Not only does he preserve the mind of famous Scientist Prof. Dr. Abel by keeping his disembodied head alive (and really, why does the old fart Abel not like it?), he even exchanges the heads of a hunchbacked nurse and a striptease dancer to create a much more pleasing nurse-head/striptease dancer-body combination. I certainly can't say why he's called a mad scientist. One or two murders in the name of science aren't really that bad.
Die Nackte und der Satan (the original title means "The Naked Woman and the Demon") is something very special. In Germany after World War II up until the 80s the horror genre (apart from Edgar Wallace Krimis) wasn't really a part of local film production, so a horror movie like this that today seems like an obvious forerunner of the peculiar European horror style I love so much is something I treasure. Especially when the film is not just obscure but excellent.
Visually it is obviously heavily influenced by the expressionist German horror movies of the silent era - architecture, nature and shadows seem to lead a life of their own and lend a surprising measure of style to the pulpy plot. Heavy (for 1959) overtones of sleaze and equally heavy undertones of psychosexual intricacies are also part of the fun. Add to this well known German character actor Horst Frank's delirious performance and you will find one of the weirdest (in every sense of the word) movies of the 50s.

As an aside: There is no German DVD of The Head, so this dubbed English version is the best way to see one of the few German movies of the 50s worth watching.