Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 41 — page 115: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AUTHENTIC SCIENCE FICTION body and is installed in culture apparatus and connected to an oscillograph affair that makes the brainwaves visible. We get to hear that the man is Donovan, a millionaire. So the doctor keeps the brain alive and tries to communicate with it telepathically. This he does. So much so that the dead man’s mentality takes over completely and turns the doctor into a kind of schizophrenic, who parades around carrying out Donovan’s will—which is rather involved but concerns great financial affairs, including tax evasion. The “‘dis- embodied”? Donovan realises that he must kil] anyone who stands in his way—and this means his wife, among others. Just as he is about to do so, lightning strikes the house and destroys the brain in its antiseptic tank. The doctor is taken away by Internal Revenue agents to answer charges connected with the obscure finan- cial dealings, but we are left with the impression that it’s all going to be all right. Of course, with old stuff like that it is very easy to create a melodrama. This is not what happens in the film. Given that the producer cannot entirely avoid the limitation of the plot. he has made a good job of presenting this rather fantastic story with credibility and dignity. He, or someone, slipped up in the matter of laboratory equipment—which is of the usual childishly stupid kind—but he managed to get the actors to play their parts naturally; indeed there is a kind of European understatement to the presentation which is all to the good. I would have liked the various financial machinations to have been made a little clearer, but this may be a fault of the English economic system and be quite obvious to Americans. I think I would recommend you to see this film, though it is by no means a first feature and cannot compare in dramatic incident with such classics as When Worlds Collide, The Day the Earth Stood Stilland War of the Worlds. It hasn’t the colour, the glamour or the action of these films. But it may do more to spread the gospel about science fiction than they will. Anyway, go see it and tell us what you think about it. 114 connicloooks.Ccomn)