The Man Who Reclaimed His Head

The year after his breakout role in The Invisible Man, Claude Rains powerfully portrayed the tragic pacifist Paul Verin in The Man Who Reclaimed His Head. Verin writes anti-war editorials and allows politician Henry Dumont (Lionel Atwill, The Secret of the Blue Room) to take credit for his words in the broadsheet he publishes. When Dumont’s political aspirations bring him closer to the very people condemned in Verin’s writings, he urges the scribe to soften his rhetoric. After Verin refuses, Dumont decides to betray his employee by sending him to the warfront and seducing his wife (a blonde Joan Bennett, Scarlet Street). Directed by Edward Ludwig (Wake of the Red Witch, Sangaree), The Man Who Reclaimed His Head is renowned today as a dark and stylish anti-war masterpiece.