Thanks for the memories!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The first must-see film of the year.

Blistering performances.

Boris Karloff, three years after making The Ghoul, returned to England to make this intelligent and interesting horror/sci-fi chiller. The sci-fi is very much to the fore (probably to placate the notoriously sensitve British Film Censor), as Karloff's Dr. Laurience experiments with mind-exchange.Karloff chain-smokes throughout, which actually leads to a clever plot reveal towards the end. Ridiculed by his peers, he seeks revenge in spectacular fashion. In a way the movie is a precursor to Karloff's mad doctor parts of the late thirties and early forties. Anna Lee also features, and was to later star with Karloff in Val Lewton's Bedlam (1946).A stylish piece, suprisingly glamorous-looking for a British studio from this era, and well worth a watch.

"The Man Who…" takes a long time to get going. Until the climax, in fact, the best thing about the movie are Boris Karloff's studiously mannered, theatrically nervous performance (director Robert Stevenson indulges him with lots and lots of close-ups) and Donald Calthrop's unnerving study of a twisted, wheel-chaired patient. The climactic switch, however, provides Frank Cellier a golden opportunity to show us what he can really do in the acting department. In fact, he seizes it with such charismatic vitality, he even manages to steal scenes from Karloff. And would you believe it? – I know this is really hard to credit – even John Loder comes good momentarily (though Jack Cox's superb cinematography deserves a great deal of the credit).Aside from Loder, who is actually a bit more animated here than usual, the one dampener on the movie's success is Anna Lee. Usually, she's good, but this time her role is underwritten. And unfortunately, Stevenson has compounded the error by emphasizing both the paucity of her material and her inadequacies as a star personality by exposing her to revealing close-up after close-up? Like all post-Frankenstein variations on the horror film, a surprising amount of emphasis is placed on laboratory machinery. Personally, all these flashing tubes, palpitating dials and lightning rod conductors, bore the pants off me! But Stevenson gives them all a great run. Personally, I thought the other sets much more effective: the creepy old house, the institute steps and especially the science lecture theater.Personally, I'm rather surprised that neither Stevenson nor his editor seem the least inclined o pep up the pace a bit. It does tend to drag, particularly in the Lee-Loder scenes. Fortunately, the movie does finally come around to an effectively written and acted climax.

The machine that transfers brains is a staple of science fiction to the point of being camp or cliché, but this is probably the first time the idea was used on film. Karloff plays a mad scientist who invents the device, demonstrating it on a pair of chimps. A British newspaper mogul bankrolls his research, only to find his mind exchanged for the mad doctor's crippled lab assistant.Karloff's performance is what makes this movie. He returned to the United Kingdom after his initial success in Hollywood and made a series of low-budget horror films, of this was probably one of the best of the lot. Nowhere near the quality of Universal.

The incomparable Boris Karloff was doubtlessly not only one of the greatest Horror icons in the History of Motion pictures, but one of the greatest actors the world of cinema will ever see, and the 1930s were both a golden age in Horror cinema and the most memorable decade in the genre-deity's career. Take this wonderful film, for example. While "The Man Who Changed His Mind" of 1936 may not be as brilliant as the most essential masterpieces starring Karloff (such as "Frankenstein", "Bride Of Frankenstein", "The Mummy" or "The Black Cat"), it is doubtlessly a terrific example for both Karloff's genius, and for the variety of innovative ideas that dominated the Horror industry in the 30s.Karloff plays the eccentric Dr. Laurience, who is dedicated to the idea of separating the mind from the body, and transferring it to other bodies. After successful experiments with animals, Laurience is eager to 'change minds' in men... The chain-smoking Dr. Laurience alone is a character as eccentric and interesting as only the good old days in Horror, and Karloff is, as always, brilliant in the role. The film includes a bunch of other eccentric characters, such as a cigar-smoking newspaper mogul or Laurience's wheel-chair bound colleague. Anna Lee plays Clare, a young female scientist, and aspiring assistant to Laurience. The only character I found slightly annoying is that of her boyfriend, Newspaper mogul's son. The film is only 63 minutes long, and does not drag for a minute. The fact that the film did not have the production values of contemporary Universal Horror classics does not lessen it in the least. It may not be as rich of impressive cinematography as are some other Karloff classics, but it has a delightful atmosphere of climatic insanity, and a sophisticated tension from the first minute. Overall, "The Man Who Changed His Mind" is a wonderful film for everyone who appreciates Classic Horror that comes with my highest recommendations!