The Man with Nine Lives - 1940

Next up on the weird list I found is The Man with Nine Lives. It stars one of my favorites, The Grinch.

A doctor has been experimenting with "frozen therapy" aka piling ice on people for five days and curing them of cancer (we won't talk about the coffee enemas to wake them up). He's heard of a scientist who performed amazing experiments 10 years ago, but no one has seen him since. When the doctor gets somewhat reprimanded for not stopping other people from saying he cured cancer, he heads off with his nurse fiancé to locate the scientist. 

A local fisherman warns them not to poke around on the island, but of course, they don't listen. The nurse falls through the floor, and they're on the trail of the scientist's secret lair. When they locate the icy room, they locate the scientist and thaw him out. Then, they thaw out the other four guys that were accusing him of murder 10 years ago. One of them freaks out and burns up his formula for safely freezing people, so now The Grinch is going to use these "already dead" people as guinea pigs to recreate his formula. It's really because he can't remember three numbers.

Parts of this thing were too weird, and other parts were amazing. The Grinch had great facial hair. He was also sorry about one of the people he killed, so that was nice. The woman in this thing was so worthless. She wore HEELS to ramble on the island and explore. Then when everything is going sideways, her contribution is to make tea, cook soup and scream. The real hero of the movie was the fisherman. Hands down.

The #1 most surprising thing I learned about this movie?! It's based in part on the experiments of a real life biologist named Robert E. Cornish. He was a child prodigy who got himself a doctorate at 22. He experimented with resuscitation and claimed to resurrect 20 dogs. They were named Lazarus I-XX. He wanted to try and resuscitate an inmate on death row, but was denied, because if it worked, there was a concern the reanimated murderer would have to be released due to double jeopardy.

I think my standards are lowering, because I didn't think this movie was that bad. It's probably because The Grinch makes everything better. I also liked his deathbed medical directives. They went on forever. And celebrating the madman who was willing to kill random people? Why not?! I also liked how the ice walls changed thickness all the time. And let's just tell the scientist we're not on his side anymore instead of just bopping him on the head and taking his gun. Anyway, this one is getting a Good Movie! review from me, but whether it would have gotten one six months ago is a mystery...