A doctor who has spent his career working on ways to revive the dead sees his chance to prove his theory by performing his procedures on a recently deceased dog.A doctor who has spent his career working on ways to revive the dead sees his chance to prove his theory by performing his procedures on a recently deceased dog.A doctor who has spent his career working on ways to revive the dead sees his chance to prove his theory by performing his procedures on a recently deceased dog.
Photos
- Danny Kendrick
- (as George Breakston)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaUses footage from actual University of Southern California experiment in which scientists claimed they brought a dead dog back to life. Robert E. Cornish, playing himself in the film, was one of the scientists involved.
- Quotes
A.K. Arnold: We feel it's time to become practical.
Dr. John Kendrick: Practical? Nothing more practical has been thought of since the beginning of time - to bring the dead back to life. And you tell me I'm not practical.
A.K. Arnold: Well, maybe so. Maybe so. But we want this foundation to help the living to live better. To give them better facial creams, better nail polish, better dandruff cures - all for a nominal sum.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Hagan Reviews: Life Returns (2018)
The main selling point is supposedly this guy Robert Cornish, who appears in the movie but hardly speaks and rarely has the camera focused on his face when he does. Apparently for about 5 minutes back in the day he made headlines for bringing a dog back to life. The actual footage of that is crammed into this movie and it's about as cheap and bland as you might expect. Although seeing the guy give the dog mouth-to-mouth is worth a gander. However, despite this movie basically only being made because of Mr. Cornish, he's not the real star of it. The star is Onslow Stevens, turning in a dreary performance as Dr. John Kendrick. He staggers around in a daze for most of the picture (when he's not acting crazy, that is). But it's not entirely his fault. The character is written so unlikeable that you can't root for him even though the movie's objective is to make you do just that. After suffering ONE setback, Dr. Kendrick turns into a total loser wandering around like he's lost and looking disheveled. The guy lets his practice go to ruin, lets his wife die and kid live on the street, all the while whining and moping. He's a mess. Speaking of the kid, he's very annoying and the actor playing him is awful ("Scoota! Scoota!").
Anyway, the best part of this whole movie to me was a minor tidbit. When they show the newspaper article announcing Kendrick's engagement, the headline below that reads "Dog Saves Lad From Wasps." That would have made for a much more interesting film, I think. I was pretty disappointed in this movie and I wouldn't recommend it to anybody but Universal completists and people who like movies they can make fun of.
Details
- Runtime1 hour 3 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.37 : 1