The Man Who Changed His Mind

Black and white, 35 mm
United Kingdom, 1936, 66 min
Section: Midnight Screenings

Synopsis

A brilliant brain specialist discovers how to move the mind of one person into the body of another and decides to use the invention for his own sinister ends. After some excellent American horrors, Boris Karloff returned to England to make The Man Who Changed His Mind. Directed with panache by Robert Stevenson, the film blends dramatic horror and playful character comedy. In what became the blueprint for many ‘mad scientist’ roles, Karloff flits effortlessly between warmth and menace. So adept was he at playing gifted, unstable scientists, touched by genius, but tinged with madness, that he was still doing variations on the theme thirty years later. Anna Lee commands a strong role – highly unusual for a leading lady in 1930s horror cinema – as a feisty scientist who doesn’t need a man to tell her how to do an experiment. Beautifully finished off with impressive sets and moody, expressionistic lighting, The Man Who Changed His Mind easily ranks alongside Karloff’s better-known American horror classics.

About the director

Robert Stevenson (b.1905, Buxton, Derbyshire; d. 1986) was once hailed by Variety as “the most commercially successful director in the history of films.” Employed by a newsreel agency before becoming a scriptwriter for Gaumont-British and Gainsborough Studios, he also worked abroad on UFA co-productions, achieving a directorial credit on Happy Ever After (1932). Acclaim for his Tudor Rose (1936) led him on to direct a variety of costume dramas and thrillers, the effectiveness of which often belied their low budgets. In America he had the opportunity to work on larger scale productions such as Jane Eyre (1943), before moving into television, directing episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Lured back to film by Walt Disney in the 1950s, he helmed numerous highly successful Disney productions including Mary Poppins (1964) and The Love Bug (1968).