Man Who Reclaimed His Head, The (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Edward LudwigRelease Date(s)
1934 (April 28, 2026)Studio(s)
Universal Pictures (Kino Lorber Studio Classics)- Film/Program Grade: B-
- Video Grade: A-
- Audio Grade: A-
- Extras Grade: B-
Review
Not a horror film despite its lurid title, headliners Claude Rains and Lionel Atwill, and advertising suggesting such; horror fans may also be confusing The Man Who Reclaimed His Head (1934) with the horror-science fiction film made two years later with Boris Karloff, the ingeniously and similarly titled The Man Who Changed His Mind. Regardless, ...Reclaimed His Head is a clumsy, simplistic drama about political integrity and the meaning of happiness, whose crudities are considerably offset by Claude Rains’s excellent performance, which comes close to redeeming it.
At the height of World War I, pacifist writer and infantry corporal Paul Verin (Rains) wanders the snow-covered streets of Paris carrying his toddler daughter, Linette (Juanita Quigley), under one arm, while holding a large black satchel in the other. The picture’s title cues the movie audience to wonder just what might be inside that mysterious bag. He begs entry into the home of childhood friend, Fernand De Marnay (Henry O’Neill), France’s greatest lawyer, whose services Verin desperately needs.
In flashbacks Verin explains he and his wife, Adele (Joan Bennett) had lived in Clichy five years before, living happily if meagerly off Paul’s pacifist writings. To satisfy his loving yet upwardly-mobile wife, Verin reluctantly agrees to work as a ghostwriter for publisher and aspiring politician Henri Dumont (Lionel Atwill), with “Dumont’s” anti-war editorials becoming hugely influential throughout France, while Verin, uncredited and anonymous, is nonetheless able to move his family into more luxurious digs in Paris.
However, Dumont falls in with wealthy arms dealers who persuade him to completely reverse his pacifist stance. Further, he uses his growing influence to have Verin sent to front and even intercepts his letters from and to Adele, whom Dumont lusts after.
The film was based on a 1932 play that closed after just 23 performances, and the film, rewritten slightly by Jean Bart and Samuel Ornitz, wasn’t much of a success, either. Part of a vogue of pacifist, antiwar films made between the World Wars, The Man Who Reclaimed His Head is almost absurdly simplistic. For instance, while Dumont is clearly taking advantage of Verin’s persuasive editorials, a single brief meeting with the arms dealers not only convinces him that a complete political turnabout would be best for his political ambitions, he immediately parrots their talking points word-for-word. The viewer never gets a sense of Verin’s writing skill or political views much beyond arming nations inevitably leads to war and, after all, war is bad.
However, the opening sequence is very effectively done, and Rains’s halting, stammering, low-key and meek performance for most of the story, and unleashed fury when he learns of Dumont’s salacious intentions with Adele, is rather mesmerizing. He rises above—way above—the material. Though superficially similar to his later Phantom of the Opera, where Rains was rather whiny and pathetic, here he brings all kinds of interesting complexities to Verin, a man utterly disinterested in material gain, who is perfectly content living with his wife and daughter with just enough to be happy.
(One side note: No Phantom but the Phantom of the Opera soundstage does appear, when Dumont and Adele see a production of the opera Tristan and Isolde.)
Lionel Atwill in later years tended to overact—his affectations hilariously spoofed in Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be—but he’s impressively subtle here, though let down by the screenplay. Joan Bennett is also good, though unlike Rains and Atwill never seems French, and too emphatically American throughout. Her character is interesting, however; despite wanting a little luxury in her life, Adele remains totally devoted to her husband. She wants a better material life for herself and her family, while Verin is content with the way things are before Dumont entered their lives. To its credit, the screenplay is basically nonjudgmental toward both characters.
Kino’s new Region “A” encoded Blu-ray of The Man Who Reclaimed His Head has been remastered in 2K from scans of the 35mm fine grain. The 1.37:1 standard, black-and-white image looks excellent, perhaps half-a-notch below Universal’s remastered classic monster titles of the 1930s, but still impressive. The DTS-HD Master Audio (2.0 mono) is also excellent, supported by optional English subtitles.
Supplements consist of two new audio commentary tracks, one by David Del Valle, the other by Troy Howarth. I’m not sure who’d want to sit through The Man Who Reclaimed His Head three times, but some will, apparently.
The handsome production values and especially the performance by Claude Rains in the lead offset a screenplay to simple-minded to be believed, and a high-def release of this genuinely obscure title is, nevertheless, most welcome.
- Stuart Galbraith IV