Surprisingly effective shlock horror with the look & feel of a 1930s B horror film, The Head (Die Nackte und der Satan, 1959) features a group of scientists conducting experimental transplants, using Serum Z to keep organs alive, even a head, separate from the body.

The lead scientist Dr. Abel is played by Michel Simon of Boudu Saved from Drowning (1932) fame. He comes off here as good Boris Karloff type.

He hires an assistant who is not entirely in his right mind, one Dr. Ood, who is hiding a sinister past (probably a Nazi war criminal). He is eager to misuse Dr. Abel's new techniques.

When Dr Abel needs an emergency heart transplant, it doesn't go quite as planned, & Dr. Ood ends up keeping the old physician's head alive on a table.

The FX for the severed head are simple & bizarre, appealingly disgusting & a mite less goofy than the head-in-a-cake-pan from The Brain that wouldn't Die (1962).

Inspector Sturm (Paul Dahlke) knows there's something strange afoot when a headless body is discovered. Dr. Ood has to be more careful about his mad-scientist doings.

There's a hunchbacked nurse, Irene (Karin Kernke), with a beautiful head which Dr. Ood transplants onto the perfect body of a stripper, Lily (Christiane Maybach). He is in love with his perfect creation, but Ilene is horrified to realize she has another woman's body & rejects Ood's love. It's a winningly corny reversal of Victor Frankenstein rejecting his creation.

The nutty story is wonderfully poker-faced & lurid; the b/w cinematography is pleasing; & the art & set design for all its simplicity is very appealing.

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