“Head of Professor Dowell” Belyaev in brief summary


Marie Laurent, a young doctor, receives an offer to go to work in the laboratory of Professor Kern. The office in which Kern takes it, produces a very gloomy impression. But much more gloomy is the visit to the laboratory: where Marie sees a human head separated from the trunk. The head is fixed on a square glass board, from which tubes come to various cylinders and cylinders. The head is strikingly reminiscent of Marie of the recently deceased Professor Dowell, a well-known scientist-surgeon. This is really his head. According to Kern, he managed to “resurrect” only the head of Dowell, who suffered an incurable disease.

Mari goes to work in the laboratory of Kern. Her duties include monitoring the condition of the head, which “hears, understands and can respond with facial expressions.” In addition, Marie brings a heap of medical journals daily, and they “look through” them together. Between the head and Marie is set some kind of communication,

and one day the head of Professor Dowell looks ask the girl to turn off the tap on the tube, brought to his throat. The head manages to explain to Marie: this will not happen. The girl hesitates, but eventually executes the request and hears a hiss and a weak cracked voice – the head can talk! In secret conversations with Marie Laurent and the professor’s head, the monstrous details of the revival are being clarified.

Kern was the assistant professor. He is a talented surgeon. During their joint work with Professor Dowell, an asthma attack occurred, and, waking up, he saw that he had lost his body. Kern needed to keep the acting professor’s brain in order to continue research. Dowell refused to cooperate with him, although Kern made him the most rude methods. But when Kern, making experiments in front of his head, made several mistakes that could ruin the results of their efforts, Professor Dowell could not stand it and agreed to continue working.

With the help of Dowell, Kern revives two more heads, male and female. The operation is successful, but Tom and Briquet’s heads, unlike

Dowell, are not used to intellectual activity, languish without a body. Marie Laurent adds work. She not only monitors the state of all three goals, but also shows Tom and Briquet films, includes music to them. But everything reminds them of their old life and only upsets them. Persistent Briquet manages to persuade Kern to try to sew her a new body. Meanwhile, Kern learns about the conversations of Marie and the head of Professor Dowell. The girl is ready to expose him, telling the whole world his terrible secret, and Kern forbids Marie to return home. Marie tries to protest. Kern, in her eyes, turns off one of the taps, depriving Douel’s head of air. Marie agrees to his terms, and the laboratory becomes her prison.

At the site of the railway accident Kern finds a suitable body for Brigke and abducts him. The healing is successful. Soon Briquet is allowed to talk. She tries to sing, at the same time some strangeness is revealed: in the upper register, the voice of Bricke is rather squeaky and not very pleasant, and in the lower one she has an excellent chest contralto. Marie looks through the newspapers to see who owned this young, elegant body that Brieke now has. She gets a glimpse of the fact that the corpse of the famous Italian actress Angelica Guy, who was following the train, crashed, disappeared without a trace. Briquet is allowed to get up, she starts walking, sometimes a surprising grace is visible in her gestures. Bricke is fighting with Kern: she wants to return home and appear before her friends in a new guise, but the surgeon’s intention is not to let her out of the laboratory. Realizing this, Brieke runs, coming down from the second floor over the bound sheets. She does not reveal to her friends the secrets of her return. Briquet, along with his girlfriend Red Martha and her husband, Jean, leave together to hide from the possible persecution of the police. Jean is interested in this no less than Brieke.

They find themselves on one of the beaches of the Mediterranean, where they meet with Arman Lara, the artist, and Arthur Dowell, the son of a professor. Arman Lore can not forget Angelica Guy, he was “not only a fan of the singer’s talent, but also her friend, her knight.” Lara with a sharp look of the artist catches the similarity of an unfamiliar young woman with a missing singer: her figure “looks like two drops of water on the figure of Angelica Guy.” She has the same birthmark on her shoulder that Angelica, the same gestures, Arman Lara and Arthur Dowell decide to find out the secret. Lara invites the stranger and her friends to take a walk on the yacht and there, left alone with Brigitte, forces her to tell her story. She answered questions without interrogation first Lara, then Arthur Dowell. When Brigitte mentions the third head in the laboratory, Arthur guesses who he is talking about. He shows Briquet the photograph of his father, and she confirms his guess. Friends take Brigitte to Paris to find the head of Professor Dowell with her help. Arman Lare is in some confusion: he feels sympathy – and maybe something more – to Bricke, but he can not understand what exactly attracts him, Angelique’s body or the personality of Brigitte herself. Brigitte feels that in her life the singers from the bar entered something completely new.

A miracle of “reincarnation” is performed – Angelica’s clean body Guy not only rejuvenates Brigitte’s head, it changes the course of her thoughts. But the little wound that was on Angelica’s feet suddenly makes itself felt: Brigitte begins to ache, her leg flushes and swells. Lara and Dowell want to show Briquet to the doctors, but she objects to this, fearing that her whole story will be made public. Trusting only Kern, Brike secretly goes to his lab. In the meantime, Dowell, searching for Marie Laurent, finds out that the girl was imprisoned in a hospital for the mentally ill.

While friends struggle to free Marie, Kern unsuccessfully tries to save Brieke’s leg. In the end, he is forced again to separate Brigitte’s head from the trunk. Kern, realizing that it is impossible to conceal his experiments from now on, demonstrates to the public the living head of Briquet. During this demonstration, Marie Laurent, blazing with anger and hatred, denounces Kern as a murderer and thief, appropriating other people’s labors. To hide the traces of the crime, Kern with paraffin injections changes the look of Professor Dowell’s head. Arthur Dowell, after appearing to the police chief, asks for a search from Kern. He himself, along with Marie Laurent and Arman Lara, is present at the same time. They see the last minutes of Professor Dowell’s head. The police are going to question Kern. Kern goes to his office, and soon there comes a shot from there.


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“Head of Professor Dowell” Belyaev in brief summary