Once upon a time, there was a doctor who cured impotence by shoving cross-sections of goat testicle inside human scrotums. I’m not kidding. A man [read: an impotent man] would come to the offices of Dr. John R. Brinkley, complain of his inability to produce a child, and the next step would be for the poor sap to go check out the goat pen behind the office and pick out an especially virile specimen, much as one might pick out a pumpkin for Halloween or a Christmas Tree. And while I feel for the goat, I cannot deny the awesome spectacle of performing a cross-species glandsplant. (Yes, I did make up “glandsplant,” but I doubt it will take.)
Nuts! is the bizarre story of “goat gland doctor” John R. Brinkley. I have no doubt this will one day his biography will make a feature length Hollywood comedrama starring, I dunno, Bryan Cranston or Paul Giamatti or someone alone those lines, but whatever direction the future takes, it will fall short of the standard set by this strange animated documentary. “How strange?” You might ask. Well, as if the tale of goat gland doc ain’t enough, when’s the last time you saw a documentary with twist ending?
Brinkley’s story hardly ends at his local medical practice. In 1923 he built KFKB, which gave “one horse” (and presumably several dozen goat) town Milford, KS the fourth most powerful radio station in the United States. In between comedy shows and singing cowboys, Brinkley realized the full potential of his treatments by selling them to a national crowd.
Stylistically, Nuts! makes some unusual –but understandable- choices. The documentarians had little actual footage of Brinkley himself, so chose to animate any scene for which there wasn’t dated footage. The animation is crude; it’s sort-of like if you’d
asked the Yellow Submarine gang to take on the project, but gave them a strict deadline and only b&w felt tips to do their magic. Next, barring actual transcripts, the film essentially used The Life of a Man: A Biography of John R. Brinkley as gospel. The book’s author, Clement Wood, sees Brinkley as miracle worker, entrepreneur and righteous visionary, often painting his detractors, the Federal Radio Commission and American Medial Association as clumsy and irresponsible villains. Morris Fishbein (does that not sound like the name of a comic nemesis?) represents both as the man constantly trying to bring Brinkley down. Many people do loathe the AMA (anti-vaxxers come to mind), but I can’t say I’ve ever seen this entity in the form of movie antagonist.
J.R. Brinkley was one of the most colorful figures in modern history. There is a 19th C. notable and a 21st C. newsmaker whose stories are similar in their own way to this 20th C. doctor/salesman/radio pioneer. The problem is if I name either men, I give away the ending here, and I don’t wish to do that. Suffice to say, this life is worth study and this film has a great slant on it.
♪I saw them there
This mounting pair
And I thought, “this it what I’m feeling, yeah”
That Billy club
Aye, there’s the rub
You said, “hey man, I can do that for you, too”
Work on me
Down where I pee
And maybe get some motion in erectile streams
Doctor! Doctor!
Can’t you see I’m blanking blanking
Doctor! Doctor!
On this goat I’m banking♫
Not Rated, 79 Minutes
D: Penny Lane (This has to a joke, right? You named yourself after a character in almost Almost Famous – who named herself after a Beatles’ song)
W: Thom Stylinski
Genre: ♪Come on and take a ride with a helluva guy♫
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Documentary enthusiasts
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Jim “Goat Boy” Breuer
♪ Parody inspired by “Doctor! Doctor!”
