CURT SIODMAK

My Forgotten Book today has reminded me of that brain-in-the-jar classic, Donovan's Brain, a 1942 novel by Curt Siodmak, and the basis of three films.  I wondered if Richard Searight's story had influenced Siodmak.  Perhaps not, because brains in jars seem to have been a common motif in fantastic literature;  for example, Edmond Hamilton's popular Captain Future stories featured the brilliant scientist Simon Wright, whose brain was preserved after his body had failed him.  The Captain Future stories begain in 1940, two years before Donovan's Brain; Siodmak -- as a writer of science fiction and fantasy -- may well have been familiar with the character.  But let's go back a little further with some what-if wondering.

Curt Siodmak was born in Dresden in 1902.  Royalties from his early books allowed him to invest in a film that was co-directed by his older brother, Robert Siodmak, who would become a noted director of noir films (White Cargo, Phantom Lady, The Killers, and many others). (The co-director of that film was Edgar G. Ulmer, and the script was by Billy Wilder; Germany at that time was a hotbed of creative talent.)  Curt Siodmak soon began adding screenplays to his regular writing repertoire of novels and short stories. (Siodmak's uncle was also a noted German film producer, so it was in his blood.)  Then came the Nazis, who provided an obvious threat to Siodmak and any other Jew in Germany.  Siodmak left Germany and travelled to England where he made his living writing screenplays.  In 1937, he emigrated to America.  Given the timing, is it possible that Siodmak, with his love for science fiction, fantasy, and horror, have come across the June 1936 issue of Weird Tales which reprinted Searight's "The Brain in the Jar"?  Who knows?  But it's fun for me to think it coulod have happened.

Siodmak, by the way, had a long career in American films, most notably with Universal's The Wolf Man (1943), in which he created much of the "traditional" werewolf trappings that have carried on throughout the decades, including being marked by a pentagram, being practically immortal and only being able to be killed by a silver bullet (or implment), and turning into a wolf "when the wolfsbane blooms, and the Autumn moon is bright."  As a screenwriter, he will never get the critical attention his brother has received as a director, but his legacy of films is a solid part of the fabric of American culture as Saturday matinee staples:  The Invisible Man Returns (1940), Black Friday (1940), The Ape (1940), The Invisible Woman (1940), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), I Walked with a Zombie (1943), Son of Dracula (1943). House of Frankenstein (1945), The Beast with Five Fngers (1946), Tarzan's Magic Fountain (1949), Bride of the Gorilla (1951), The Magnetic Monster (1953), Creature with the Atom Brain (1955), Curucu, Beast of the Amazon (1956), and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956), 

Late in life, Siodmak was fond of thanking Adolf Hitler, because if it wasn't for that son of a bitch he would never have left German and eventually come to America.