Take Your Pick: Live Again or Change Your Mind

A Karloff Serving of UK Mad Science

If only Boris Karloff's American mad science thrillers had been half so good as this! The Man Who Changed His Mind was a title cleverly spun off the movie's theme, maybe too clever for marquees here, as US-distributors re-named it The Man Who Lived Again, this more compatible with Karloff expectation. After all, who'd care about a man who merely changes his mind, no further data on the plot being available? Movies then as now had to put over sale on titles first, star/situation second. The Man Who Lived Again was one of six tendered by Gaumont-British during fourth-quarter 1936. The company had a US distribution arm and were serious about cracking the domestic marketplace. A Broadway booking was had via Arthur Mayer's Rialto Theatre, known venue for shock stuff and a Main Stem address where Karloff was King ("Karloff is perfect for that house!", said The Independent Film Bulletin). Trades reported a best-in-months playoff there, but Lived Again wouldn't do so in subsequents, where report indicated below-average biz.

40's reissuing saw The Man Who Changed His Mind/Lived Again bearing cruder labels still: Doctor Maniac and The Brain Snatcher for two (the latter shown in an early 50's combo ad with The Evil Mind, which was re-titled The Clairvoyant from 1935), and who knows but from others more exploitative. It was for years the rarest of Karloffs, outside of The Ghoul. I came across a banged-up 16mm print in 1977 and thought I'd hung the moon: Just think, a major Karloff never-before-seen! For years, that continued to be case for much of fandom, until Shanachie Records released a really nice DVD from original elements. Both Lived Again and The Ghoul were done in home port of Britain by BK, site of not a little work he'd return to throughout, and up to a near-end (The Sorcerers and Crimson Cult), of a long career. The Man Who Changed His Mind was inventive and funny as in dialogue (Sydney Gilliat one of the writers). Transference of souls wasn't the worst idea a Karloff scientist ever had, and might have come to good, barring scoffer interference. I'd like to have seen just one of his experiments work out, with a Dr. or Prof. Boris basking at a finish in world accolades, but that would defeat a successful formula's purpose, and chillers weren't made, after all, to satisfy BK fans born a generation later.