This low key drama is about medical experiments in the American military where a form of mind control is being developed which involves brain washing of violent individuals to make them 'good'. An unruly young soldier is sent to the facility where these techniques are being developed for conditioning.The most significant thing about The Mind Snatchers is that it features a young Christopher Walken in an early starring role. He is certainly the best thing about the film. His intensity is evident at this early stage and he carries the movie really. While the plot-line has some definite similarities to A Clockwork Orange, whose success I am sure led to this stage play being filmed, it is much less cinematic and pretty under-stated. It's a little too stage-bound for its own good to be honest and a little bit bland overall. It's a shame because there is certainly the basis of something quite good here but the uninspired direction means that it is not entirely successful. Its low budget probably restricts it in some ways but I have seen other similarly cheap sci-fi films from the 70's that engage the viewer more. Still, it's interesting enough for a watch and Walken is very good. It also features Ronny Cox from Deliverance as a sex offending inmate in line for corrective surgery.

**SPOILERS** A bit ahead of it's time in how the government uses it's people, like the GI's in the 1950's atomic bomb test in Utah & Nevada, in experimental tests to farther its both military and scientific knowledge. The bad thing about all this is that these tests are done without those people used in them knowing about them.Pvt. James H. Reese has been having disciplinary and behavioral problems both on and off the army base that he's stationed at in Frankfurt Germany. Accused of assault by a woman at a party he attended Reese is taken into custody while staying at his girlfriends, Lisa, apartment by the army MP's. Ending up with his left arm broken Reese is, instead of being taken to the local military base's medical facility, taken to this out of the way German castle run by Army Intelligence.It turned out to Pvt. Reese's surprise that beside himself there's only two other patients at the castle, now subbing for a mental institution, Sgt. Miles and Let. Rhodes. Depressed at being locked up Reese soon realized that he and his fellow GI's, Miles & Rhodes, are being used by the US military as guinea pigs in mind control experiments.A cross between "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest" and "The Ninth Configuration" the movie "The Happiness Cage" brings out things about how were used by our own government that at the time of its release, 1972, was a bit hard to take by the movie going public. Reese who at first was anything but interested in how the government operates becomes very in-tuned in it's methods in how it's trying to steal his as well as his fellow GI's minds.These experiments are the brainchild of the kindly and understanding Dr. Fredrick, Joss Akland, who despite what he's doing in destroying peoples minds thinks that he's actually curing mental illness. It's not long that Reese, broken arm and all, makes a escape attempt from the castle grounds only to find out that's it's secured, by guards police dogs and barb wire, as tight as a minute man nuclear missile base!Put under around the clock guard Reese soon sees that his fellow patient, Sgt. Miles, at the castle is going off his rocker in his not having had a woman in more then a year. Miles taking advantage of the Red Cross lady Anna Kraus who comes over to play checkers with him, a service provided by the US Military,attacks and rapes her while Reese is being examined by Dr. Fredrick and his assistant orderly Shannon .Finding out what Miles did Reese despite his broken arm has it out with him only to find, after socking Miles, that he's slowly dying from terminal cancer. With Let. Rhodes, who seemed to be lobotomized, dying of a brain tumor Miles is then sent to Dr. Fredrick's laboratory in Rhodes' place for a mind control experiment. Ashamed and feeling very guilty for what he did, raped Anna Kraus, a Zombie-like Miles lets himself be hooked up with electrodes by Dr. Fredrick. Pushing the button himself, Dr. Fredrick insisted on that, Miles shocks himself to the point where he ends up brain dead. With only Reese left to experiment with he , despite being wired, refuses to push the button and end up together with both Rhodes and Miles; Dead or lobotomized. ****SPOILER ALERT****Just about having enough of Dr. Fredrick's, who refuses to push the button himself, concern for Reese the Major, who really runs the place, finally takes control of things. The Major sends a jolt of electricity through Reese's gray matter turning him into a docile and mindless slave who'll do or say anything that he's superiors, like the Major, tells him too. And so ends the movie with Reese, looking like he's here on earth in body with his brain is on another planet, answering questions from the news media with the Major and Dr. Fredrick looking on.An almost teen-age looking, he was 29 at the time, Christopher Walken as Pvt. Reese is extremely effective as the mentally disturbed sociopath who, because of his stay at Dr. Fredrick's castle, becomes a feeling and sensitive human being. Joss Ackland as Dr. Fredrick put the usual mad scientist, in the part he played in the film, to rest with a sympathetic interpretation of the tortured doctor. Ronny Cox as the deranged Sgt. Miles was both funny and tragic in that he was losing control of his ability to remain normal. It was without a doubt Ralph Meeker as the spic & span, as well as blood & guts, Major who in spite of his short time on the screen dominated every scene he was in. Meeker, as the Major, knew what his bosses, the army brass, wanted from him and did it, like a robot, without a second thought. It was the Major who in the end did what Dr. Fredrick & Co. failed to do. Turned the wild and uncontrollable pit bull-like Pvt. James H. Reese into a harmless and obedient laboratory rat. But the Major had to destroy and wipe clean Reese's mind in order to do it!

I had a "What the hell did I just watch?!" experience with this movie, and I mean that in a good way - a real buried treasure. This one is based on a play and as a result the early dialogue scenes make it seem like the previous 25 years of screen writing technique had not occurred - lots of snappy one-on-one character dialogue and hearty expositions. It's not as bad as it sounds though; it's actually pretty cool, and soon enough it goes over the edge, with subtext run amuck. This is an allegory about the colluding interests of the military and psychiatric establishments - a hardcore, polemical one. Christopher Walken, young like crazy, is the Angry Young Man in the Wild One/Jailhouse Rock tradition, except he gets sent to a military hospital where they f*ck around with monkeys and put electrodes in GIs heads to test fancy shock machines. The twist is that the psychiatrist refuses to operate without consent - so he goads consent out of the patients by the most devious, predatory means - and then gets THEM to push the button. At the end Walken is paraded before the media in a military uniform, standing on a stage with the doctor and the general, and he offers completely vacuous, completely familiar answers to the usual questions - but before each answer, they have to push the button. The TV was off for ten minutes before I realized - IT DOESN'T TELL US WHO'S PUSHING THE BUTTON. That about sums it up, doesn't it? Another coup: when the old-maid nurse is about to be raped by the hyperactive Ronny Cox, she startlingly yells, "You don't love me because I'm fat!!!" There's a lot of detail here. The soundtrack - by Phil Ramone, Billy Joel's producer and the guy the Ramones ripped their name off from - is completely insane, at times it sounds like a cross between Philip Glass and Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. My only question is, were any animals harmed during the making of this picture? Those are some stressed-out monkeys. Finally: be advised that Cox's self-buttoning scene is f*cking disturbing, even if it is justified rhetorically.

A bit talky, but certainly well acted and thought provoking.Walken, looking all of 19, does his usual standout performance in this ethical drama. While not without it's drawbacks - the pace is a bit slow at times and the score is annoying, the questions raised about the ethics used by both the well-meaning Doctor and the frightening military will certainly cause future reflection.