BMW no.2: The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake

"The evil that men do lives on after them", and that evil involves head shrinking, decapitation, and cheap sets in this gruesome horror offering. OK, gruesome for 1959.

Never say that the Drake men were a lucky bunch. On the contrary, when the age of 60 comes rapping at the door, so does death. Not some average-guy death either, the Drake men get a full head loppery. These unfortunate setbacks stem from an ancient curse put upon them by a crazed Amazonian witch doctor.

Enter Jonathan Drake. He is having some vividly imagined hallucinations involving floating skulls. He knows what time it is. That's right, he's 60, as is his brother, Kenneth Drake. Old Johnny senses what is about to take place so he makes tracks for his brother's house, but arrives too late. His personal physician, Dr. Bradford, assures Jonathan that Kenneth died a natural death, but upon opening the casket it wouldn't take the brilliant medical examining mind of Quincy long to figure out that a guy with no head probably didn't die of natural causes.

The perpetrator of the mafia haircut is Zutai, a dead ringer for James Cromwell, but a gangly savage with his mouth tied shut who sports a Sonny Bono hairdo and who also wears human skin shoes can hardly be a kingpin. The man pulling all the strings is Dr. Emil Zurich (Henry Daniell). It's ol' Doc Zurich that has it in for the Drake man-clan as he is partly the crazed Amazonian witch doctor who cursed them those many years ago and partly Emil Zurich, who died in the 1800's. Now brace yourselves, this is where it gets kooky. The head of sawbones Zurich has been sewn on to the body of a "brown man". Both men are dead, but remember, "The evil that men do lives on after them." And you thought I was pulling that outta my ass.

Dr. Zurich's nemesis throughout is Lt. Jeff Rowan (Grant Richards). He's busy the whole film looking important and putting bullets into suspects. The first credo of horror movie flatfoots, err, flatfeets, err, flatfeet, uhhh, gumshoes is, "If it's running away, shoot it." Not to go against this sacred tradition, Lt. Rowan fires a slug at Zutai for merely frolicking through the woods like a happy wood nymph, with a Sonny Bono hairdo. He may have had a point, though. It would be hard getting information out of a guy whose mouth has been sewn shut. Never second guess a horror movie cop is the lesson, friends.

What Lt. Rowan lacks in the foot pursuit of criminals he more than doesn't make up for it in his assesment of clues. I'm afraid Lt. Rowan wouldn't know a clue if it defiled him up the tuckus. Surreal moment where Lt. Rowan thinks aloud to himself as perfromed by the Theatre Obscura(my old website) players--"Let's see, we've got a shrunken head hanging on a door. We've also got a strangely accented mad doctor who never takes off his gloves and is an expert on shrunken heads. Barring any unforeseen red herrings, take two carry the four divide by the coefficient of the inverse of the sum of a hypotenuse triangle..."

Detective Rowan does finally figure Dr. Zurich is a suspect and with the second credo of all horror movie cops backing him up, which states, "Who needs a search warrant" promptly breaks into the Zurich estate and finds the Doctor's secret lair complete with heads, a bubbling cauldron, and a James Cromewell look-a-like with a Sonny Bono hairdo. Hard-nosed Rowan gets pugilistic and cleans house, excuse me, he cleans mad doctor basement. Dr. Zurich escapes but is met with a final showdown at the well lit cemetary.

Detective Rowan, though a rigid, no nonsense copper, does have a soft side. The police lab's technician, Lee Coulter (Frank Gerstle) seems to have a hardon for Lt. Rowan. In their shared scenes, Lee tells the detective to, "be carefull, Jeff" and "Don't be brave, Jeff". Lt. Rowan would look back at him and give him one of those patented tough guy smiles. I swear if the guy had boobs, they would have had made love right there next to the bunson burner.

This film, though rudimentary in most aspects, does have two saving graces. One is the incredibly wild story line. The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake was a forefather of the great Rosie Grier and Ray Milland thriller, The Thing With Two Heads, another pairing of a white man's head onto that of a black man's body. Dr. Zurich, getting the races together one limb at a time.

Another robust plus would be the performance by Henry Daniell as Dr. Zurich. In a Battle of the Hams, I'd stack this guy up against Vincent Price any day. He combines dreaded evil with a Thurston Howell III ambiance to create a character of high camp.

The film is not without it's faults. The budget was threadbare as evidenced by the sparse sets. Some of the acting, most notably by Grant Richards, becomes too melodramatic. He would have done well by taking a cue from Henry Daniell and camp it up a bit. Another distraction is the music. If you closed your eyes and lost yourself for a moment, you'd swear you were listening to stock soap opera strains.

The special effects are standard for the day. A few superimposed skulls floating about, but the decapitated heads and shrunken noggins look impressive. Maybe that's where all the set budget was siphoned off to.

The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake is a fun picture with an imaginative storyline that doesn't trip over itself too much with it's kooky late 50's sensibilities. It's just gruesome enough for horror fans and just wild enough for those with peculiar tastes.

Runtime 75 minutes, b/w, 1959

CREDITS
Eduard Franz .... Jonathan Drake
Grant Richards .... Lt. Jeff Rowan
Henry Daniell .... Dr. Emil Zurich
Paul Wexler .... Zutai

Directed by:
Edward L. Cahn

FACT SHEET
# The set was cursed! The major players in the film, Grant Richards, Henry Daniell and director Edward L. Cahn all died in 1963. FOUR years after making the film and all died within a span of FOUR months.