“DOCTOR FRANKEN” (1980) Review
DOCTOR FRANKEN (Marvin J. Chomsky/ Jeff Lieberman, c.90 min, color, 1980)
What’s Happening: Transplant recipient gains memories of the organs’ donors
Famous For: Modern-day Frankenstein story made for TV
Took me years to find this obscure TV production starring Robert Vaughn. A “william powell” posted it on YouTube in late 2024. As of late 2025, it still has no Wikipedia entry and a mere 72 votes on the IMDb.
It’s a medical drama with a serious tone. It has light thriller, science fiction, and horror elements.
Co-scripted by Lieberman (Squirm), the story updates Frankenstein by giving us a driven, rule-breaking, yet sympathetic doctor determined to make breakthroughs with transplantation. When a brain-dead “John Doe” arrives at the hospital, Dr. Franken transplants whatever he can obtain, step by step, until he has a healthy body.
Realistically, Franken can’t do a brain transplant… but perhaps by injecting brain material from a research lab, and perhaps by augmenting “cellular memory” and “memory stimulus inherent in each organ,” Franken can give John Doe (also known as “841” which is the room where he resides) a semblance of consciousness.
Though John Doe doesn’t awaken until the second half, and though he hurts people more than once, he and Franken are among the most sympathetic pair of protagonists in any Frankenstein film.
Vaughn is good as always, and the otherwise unknown Robert Perault is very good, and very sad, as John Doe who appears as a normal 35-year-old man with just a scar or two.
A plot complication that comes into play mostly at the beginning and ending gives us a sneaky supervising surgeon who is jealous of Franken’s fame but also jealous of a rival for the lovely Teri Garr (Young Frankenstein). How far will this jealous misanthrope go to thwart those in his way?
Though mostly a drama, the story is engaging and thought-provoking, if just a little long, and well worth the time for fans of Vaughn or of Frankenstein films set in the present day. See also The Mind of Mr. Soames.
There’s no intentional humor, but I chuckled once or twice at lines such as “I want Jim Parker’s legs!”
As of 2025, eye transplants are impossible, but corneal transplants (which go back to the early 1900s) are common. The first hand transplants date to the early 2000s, so the movie is forward-looking in this respect. Hand and arm transplants are difficult but now possible.
Action: 5. Gore: 6. Sex: 3. Quality: 6. Camp: 2.
Don’t miss: Belvedere Castle
Notable line: “We’ll see if we can dig up a little brain matter for you.”
Article text copyright 2026 David Elroy Goldweber. Date of post October 2026.
Leave a comment