Nuts! (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Sep 19, 2024
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Penny LaneRelease Date(s)
2016 (August 27, 2024)Studio(s)
Cartuna/Gland Power Films (Cartuna/Vinegar Syndrome)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: B+
- Audio Grade: B+
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
Documentaries can range from esoteric and dull to intriguing. Nuts! falls into the latter category. It’s a clever combination of historical fact, animation, home movies, court testimony, and the subject’s own words. The subject is a self-styled doctor who amassed millions of dollars by convincing thousands of people that he had the cure for all their ills.
For 25 years during the first half of the 1900s, John R. Brinkley, an itinerant patent medicine hawker with a flair for self-publicity, parlayed his cure for impotence into a multimillion-dollar chain of businesses. Brinkley had set himself up as a doctor in Milford, Kansas, when he hit upon the idea of grafting goat testicles into men to cure impotence or increase virility. He soon expanded his business with an assortment of “medical” treatments for men and women that included exotically named topical creams to improve vision and potions to cure a multitude of ailments. Brinkley’s most persuasive argument for his unorthodox surgery is that acceptance by the medical establishment takes too long for his patients to benefit, and they believed it.
The film begins with a farmer visiting Brinkley’s pharmacy and asking for help because he was a “flat tire” sexually. That’s when Brinkley got the idea to remove testicles from billy goats and graft them onto the testicles of impotent men. Brinkley amassed testimonials and trumpeted the efficacy of his operation. No one contradicted his claim. Thus began the unusual career of “Doctor” Brinkley.
In 1918, Brinkley founded a clinic in Milford whose main purpose was to rejuvenate men by surgically implanting goat testicles. A master of guile, marketing and downright audacity, Brinkley achieved fame quickly. His treatments were ineffective and often dangerous. Over forty of his patients died during surgery and others suffered serious after-effects, but Brinkley explained away whatever he couldn’t cover up by claiming that those patients had waited too long to seek his ministrations. The people of Milford had plenty of reason not to question Brinkley. His clinics and other businesses employed hundreds of people, enriching and expanding the town, and his philanthropy helped make him the proverbial pillar of the community.
His career included running for governor of Kansas (he lost) and establishing a radio station, the first to broadcast country music. He used his station to attract listeners with nearly nonstop entertainment broken only to promote his pseudoscientific nonsense through his Medical Question Box feature. A patient would write in describing his symptoms and Brinkley would advise one of his numerous snake oil concoctions, persuading thousands to pay him handsomely. Though his medical degree was as phony as the “medicines” he hawked, he knew how to manipulate his image and sound authoritative. He advertised that various treatments of his could yield impressive results for multiple ailments from emphysema to flatulence. With his accumulation of wealth came power, and that burnished his carefully constructed facade.
What finally led to Brinkley’s downfall was in large part his own doing. In 1939 he filed a libel suit against Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association, who had been publishing articles decrying Brinkley’s bogus treatments. Brinkley lost the suit when his theories were debunked by facts presented by actual medical professionals, and his authoritative veneer was shattered. Among these facts was that one of Brinkley’s costly medicines, Formula 1020, was nothing but colored water.
Much of the film is animated footage reconstructing Brinkley’s life in six chapters, with voiceover from an upbeat narrator. Travelogue-type footage of a summer vacation with his wife and son aboard his private yacht reflects the spoils of his charlatanism. This was during the Depression, when many were out of work and Brinkley was raking in bundles of cash from people who believed in him.
Much of documentary filmmaking consists of research, and director Penny Lane has done a solid job shedding light on one of America’s most infamous phonies. Without editorializing, she chronicles Brinkley’s rise and fall using his own self-promotional films, actual testimony from the Fishbein trial, newsreel footage, and still photos. This objective approach allows viewers to form their own opinion of Brinkley.
Nuts! was captured digitally by cinematographers Hallie Kohler, Penny Lane, Joe Victorian, Angela Walley, and Mark Walley. There’s no specific information available as to cameras used. The mixture of animation, photographs, and archival footage makes for an interesting presentation. Home movie footage isn’t in the best shape, with scratches and dirt specks visible. The animation style is somewhere between simple TV-style and the richness of Walt Disney’s classic feature films. Characters and objects are recognizable but not overly detailed. Mostly in color, including Brinkley’s home movies, Nuts! contains some black & white footage and some of Brinkley’s simple anatomical diagrams that he used as aids in explaining and selling his procedures.
The main soundtrack is English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. Other soundtrack options are French, French (Canadian), German, Polish, Portuguese (Brazilian), Spanish, Chinese (traditional), Japanese, and Korean. English SDH subtitles are available. Narration is clear and precise. Voices on Brinkley’s home-made promotional films are thin and lack resonance, likely due to their age. Examples of the country music played on Brinkley’s radio station provide background in one sequence. Music accompanies some of Brinkley’s home movies and Brinkley himself provides a running commentary on another.
Bonus materials on the Region A Blu-ray from Cartuna Video include the following:
- Address to Patients (9:03)
- Making a World’s Record (72:47)
- Rejuvenation Through Gland Transplanting (13:34)
- Brinkley Family Home Movies (21:14)
- Trailer (1:43)
Address to Patients – John R. Brinkley speaks from his new home in Del Rio, Texas. He asks patients to keep their loved ones out of the hospital so doctors and nurses can do their jobs and says recuperation from his surgeries will take a long time, especially with chronic diseases.
Making a World’s Record – An on-screen card identifies this film as “A camera portrayal of the three months vacation of Dr. & Mrs. J.R. Brinkley and Johnnie Boy, June – July – August, 1936.” The black & white footage is silent but Brinkley has added a narration. Scenes include Dr. and Mrs. Brinkley walking around the gardens of their estate, being driven in their Cadillac to their private plane, boarding their private yacht, deep-sea fishing, and navigating through the Panama Canal. There are also scenes shot in Nova Scotia and North Carolina.
Rejuvenation Through Gland Transplanting – This instructional film prepared by Brinkley deals with the function of glands as a cure-all for impotence, insanity, old age, locomotor ataxia, paralysis, sterility, and nervous, digestive and urinary diseases. Charts depict the major glands of men and women, including the pineal, thyroid, and prostate. He notes the benefits of goat glands and describes what the goat gland surgery entails.
Brinkley Family Home Movies – Extensive views, in color, are shown of the flowered gardens and sculptures of Brinkley’s Del Rio, Texas estate. Dr. and Mrs. Brinkley walk the gardens, show off different flowers, and enjoy time with their son, Johnnie Boy. There are also views of the swimming pool and an imposing shot of Brinkley Hospital.
Booklet – The 16-page, full-color booklet contains vintage ads for various “medicines” and procedures including Dr. J.R. Brinkley’s Formula 1020, Incan vision improving cream, cancer-fighting toothpaste, toenail adjuster, and hemorrhoid cream.
Nuts! is the kind of documentary that zips by. I never knew about Brinkley and the empire he built by foisting pseudoscience on unsuspecting, desperate men and women who sought cures for various ailments. What makes his scam so astounding is its scope. Where less greedy men might have stopped at selling fake medicine, Brinkley pulled out all the stops and was the first to use radio to advertise to a mass audience. My major criticism is that director Lane doesn’t emphasize enough the people whose lives ended when subjected to his lunatic surgeries. We can marvel at Brinkley’s chutzpah, even smile at his ingenuity, but underlying this tale is the multitude of deaths and painful injuries caused by ruthless quackery.
- Dennis Seuling