The movie begins with an odd little framing device, wherein a crime reporter questions a morgue attendant and we learn that one Jefferson Monk has been...well, decapitated in a car crash. The entry is actually entitled "The Decapitation of Jefferson Monk", so the film really begins with the ending. The film answers the "How?". So in flashback detectives Jack Packard (Jim Bannon) and Doc Long (Barton Yarborough) talk about how they tried to help wealthy Jefferson Monk (George Macready) just days before when they met in the very restaurant in which they are sitting.
Monk tells Doc and Jack that his death has been prophesied to occur in three days. However, the prediction was made a year earlier, shortly after returning from a vacation to the orient with his wife where he felt he had been followed about. Back in San Francisco, Monk's wife was kidnapped by a mysterious oriental cult and the cult leader only agreed to free them both if Jefferson agreed to sell the cult his head upon his death for 10000 dollars. It turns out that the cult worships the one thousand year old preserved body of their deceased leader, who was a dead ringer for Jefferson, and the corpse needs a fresh head as the embalmers' skill had reached their limit. However, this does not mean that the cult will kill Jefferson. Instead, they merely prophesy when he is going to die and will collect the head at that time. To bring home that they might be right, the month before the cult sent Jefferson a prophesy saying his wife would become paralyzed. Three days later she was unable to move her legs and has been wheelchair bound since.
Now at first Packard and Long think they are dealing with a nervous rich guy with too active an imagination, but then they witness a freak accident in the restaurant that would have killed Monk had he been sitting at his original table, and there is a one legged man who follows Jefferson home every night with a small satchel - just the size for a man's head, or so Jefferson Monk claims. But then Packard and Long actually see the guy, so maybe there is something to all of this.
Now this film is worth watching just for the atmosphere, acting - especially Macready, and the plot twists alone. As for the mystery, the film itself reveals what is going on too early in my opinion. Plus, if you listen to Jefferson Monk recount his story to Packard and Long you are going to see the common thread in the tale long before the mystery is unwound. Why this elaborate ruse? That is for Packard to reveal later in the film.
Henry Levin directed all three films in the series and he gives this one some nice noirish touches and a general air of fatalistic doom. It's a good start to the series, and things only get better from there. Nobody in the 40s could make a cheap B mystery film that didn't seem like a cheap B mystery film like Columbia. Recommended.
Monk tells Doc and Jack that his death has been prophesied to occur in three days. However, the prediction was made a year earlier, shortly after returning from a vacation to the orient with his wife where he felt he had been followed about. Back in San Francisco, Monk's wife was kidnapped by a mysterious oriental cult and the cult leader only agreed to free them both if Jefferson agreed to sell the cult his head upon his death for 10000 dollars. It turns out that the cult worships the one thousand year old preserved body of their deceased leader, who was a dead ringer for Jefferson, and the corpse needs a fresh head as the embalmers' skill had reached their limit. However, this does not mean that the cult will kill Jefferson. Instead, they merely prophesy when he is going to die and will collect the head at that time. To bring home that they might be right, the month before the cult sent Jefferson a prophesy saying his wife would become paralyzed. Three days later she was unable to move her legs and has been wheelchair bound since.
Now at first Packard and Long think they are dealing with a nervous rich guy with too active an imagination, but then they witness a freak accident in the restaurant that would have killed Monk had he been sitting at his original table, and there is a one legged man who follows Jefferson home every night with a small satchel - just the size for a man's head, or so Jefferson Monk claims. But then Packard and Long actually see the guy, so maybe there is something to all of this.
Now this film is worth watching just for the atmosphere, acting - especially Macready, and the plot twists alone. As for the mystery, the film itself reveals what is going on too early in my opinion. Plus, if you listen to Jefferson Monk recount his story to Packard and Long you are going to see the common thread in the tale long before the mystery is unwound. Why this elaborate ruse? That is for Packard to reveal later in the film.
Henry Levin directed all three films in the series and he gives this one some nice noirish touches and a general air of fatalistic doom. It's a good start to the series, and things only get better from there. Nobody in the 40s could make a cheap B mystery film that didn't seem like a cheap B mystery film like Columbia. Recommended.