I wanted to but couldn't!

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Well-crafted sci-fi with minimal special effects. Of course, the premise of a disembodied brain taking thought control of its master has kicked around more than a few times. However, this is arguably the best version, thanks to a tight screenplay and a fine central performance. Ayers must go from nice guy doctor to tyrannical business tycoon whenever the evil brain takes control. And he does both in highly convincing fashion—sure a long way from young Dr. Kildare. Nancy Davis (Reagan) also delivers as the loyal wife. Her films may never have been very distinguished, but she was always a credible low-key performer. Note also that usual tough guy Gene Evans gets the thankless "Igor" role as the lab assistant.I guess I could have done with fewer close-ups of the pulsating brain. Unfortunately, the effect comes across in fairly hokey 50's fashion. Then too, that all-out thunder and lightning sequence amounts to more than just a storm. Instead , it looks more like a rage in heaven, like someone above is really angry at what's going on below. The heavy-handed theatrics is really out of sync with what's gone before. Despite the two drawbacks, the overall result is better than expected, thanks to the A-grade performances in a B-grade movie.

This movie is a classic case of a good idea badly executed. Scientist illegally preserves dying man's brain and keeps it alive using electricity. Slowly the brain starts to take over the mind of said scientist,and.....makes him kill off his rivals? Start a series of shocking events that stun the nation? Plan for world domination? Chase girls? No. He makes him visit banks and write checks. Real sweaty palm stuff! How evil can a man possibly get? No, don't disinherit your children, you devilish fiend, have you not a shred of humanity left in you? True, in the end the brain proves to be an ungrateful guest by trying to kill off the doctor's wife, but since it's Nancy Reagan, sorry Davis who actually cares? Good thing for her she hooked up with Ronnie cause i've seen doormats giving more riveting performances than Miss Davis. Lew Ayres is the only good thing about this movie, but even he can't make smoking cigars and making phone calls seem sinister. What a great set up and what a huge letdown.

Second official film version of the "classic" of a brain in a tank.(First was the Lady and the Monster and The Brain followed) The basic story has influenced probably hundreds of films and stories over the years that proves that there is life in the story despite it now being clichéd and almost laughable in premise.For those that don't know this is the story of the doctors who save a wealthy industrialist after a car accident, or rather they save his brain since his body is badly banged up. The problem is that the industrialist was a real SOB and he somehow manages to use psychic mind control to control those around his tank.Yes it sounds silly, but for what ever reason it still kind of works. The trick is of course you have to go with the basic premise, and assuming that you've picked up the tape or DVD odds are you're at least going to make that effort. Well made and containing its share of tension this is one of the better versions of the story that has come down the pike. Well acted by Lew Ayres as the doctor who probably shouldn't have made the effort and Davis Nancy (soon to be Regan) as his love interest, this is the sort of movie that works because the actors sell it. Ayres in particular manages to make the shifting personalities, his own and Donovan's, believable especially since in this tale we have nothing to go on of what Donovan was like before other than what we are told.If you are in the mood for a good, though slightly silly, thriller for a dark and stormy night this should be right up your alley.Between 6 and 7 out of 10

In the original Frankenstein film, the good doctor's experiment is flawed from the start when Dwight Frye takes the brain of a criminal from the medical school to give to Colin Clive for the final touch to his research. That was what Lew Ayres overlooked.Imagine if Dr. Albert Schweitzer had been in a plane crash and his brain had been harvested by Lew Ayres and Gene Evans? Would Ayres's experiment have turned out differently? We'll never know because on the day that research scientist Ayres was called away from his work to do actual doctoring it was for Warren H. Donovan, misanthropic millionaire. Ayres and Evans have devised away to keep Donovan's Brain alive in a saline solution with electrodes. Unfortunately the brain's really thriving in it, the brain and the ego inside. As it grows it takes over the personalities around it, though at this early stage it can only dominate one person at a time and it does need sleep like the normal human brain.Donovan's Brain has some big ambitions, nothing less than world domination of the global marketplace. The suspense that the film has involves whether this thing can develop before they're capable of destroying it. Stars Lew Ayres, future first lady Nancy Davis, and Gene Evans all do good work here. The performance I like the best is that of blackmailing reporter/paparazzi Steve Brodie. Donovan's Brain deals quite nicely with him.For modern audiences who think it can't happen, imagine in the age of the internet Donald Trump's disembodied brain in saline solution like Donovan's Brain near a laptop.