I do not usually say this, even of films with actors that I love, but I am very happy that I saw this film. I also do not usually review films on IMDb, this may be either my first or second review in well over a decade, but I feel that it is deserved. Although the first twenty minutes of this film are very, very slow, as soon as you see Dirk Bogarde, in person, the whole screen lights up. He probably looks better in this film than in any post-Victim performance. The cinematography for this film is amazing and dark and although not exactly a scary film, (there is no "monster" in the "Creature of the Black Lagoon" sense) it is nevertheless both terrifying and soul purging. The very best work is to be found in the film's final quarter hour or so with a remarkably realistic (for the 1960s) birthing scene in which you sort of get why Dirk's siblings claim he felt cheated in life for not being a heterosexual, you can see the paternal desire in his eyes in the way he handles the children and the birthing. The scenario is very intriguing, the idea that sensory isolation could cause the mind to be broken down and subjected to any indoctrination is fascinating. Although what the scientists and the Major do is utterly unethical, (Dirk's distant husband of the second half is heartbreaking), Oonagh knows she will eventually get her man back. After all, the brainwashing programmed him to be even more protective of his children, and she is like eight and a half months pregnant....

This is not among Dirk Bogarde's more famous films. Still, it's very enjoyable and worth a look...and would make a great double-feature with "The Manchurian Candidate".The film begins with a seemingly loyal British professor killing himself...and he was suspected of being an enemy spy. However, Professor Longman (Bogarde) cannot believe that his dear friend would be a spy and suspects that their sensory deprivation research COULD have warped the poor man's mind. A subsequent experiment proves, the hard way, that this could indeed be the case.Unless you are watching the pilot episode of the original "Hawaii Five-O", you won't get a better look at sensory deprivation tanks and their ability to warp a person's mind. A fascinating, cerebral sort of film that is well worth seeing and Bogarde, as usual, is excellent!

***SPOILERS*** After being put through by the British I5 a number of mind altering as well as brain washing experiments Prof. John Sharpey, Harold Goldblatt, starts to believe that he's betrayed his country to the Soviet Union by unconsciously giving it top secret information on it's nuclear and, in compliance with the USA, space programs. Guilt ridden and suicidal Sharpey on a train ride to London jumps out of the moving train thus killing himself. With Major Hall,John Clements, feeling that the late Professor Sharpley was a Soviet Spy and depriving his next of kin or family of a government pension it's Sharpley's good friend Dr. Henry Laidlaw Longman's, Dirk Bogarde, job to go out and prove Sharpley innocence. That's by him going through the very same mind altering experiments that Sharply went through that eventually drove him to kill himself.Put in a water filled tank for hours at at time Longman's mind starts to slip into never-never land losing all his feeling not only toward his country, the UK, but his soon to give birth pregnant wife Oonagh, Mary Ure, as well. The experiments left Longman like it did Prof. Sharpley into becoming a mind numb and unfeeling zombie who had no loyalty towards anyone not even himself. It's only when his terribly and mentally abused wife Oonagh after slipping and falling while running from him went into labor that Longman snapped back to his old self and became a normal and feeling human being again. Something he forgot to be after his brain was experimented on and picked apart while suspended for hours in the warm water tank.Brain washing at its best film that shows how a person's brain can be completely washed and dried and left hanging-on a clothe line-for those working on it to pick it clean of everything it had in it. In the case of Longman as well as professor Sharpley it didn't cause them to betray their country but through the power of suggestion as and loss of memory as well as human emotions make them feel that they did. And in the case of poor and guilt ridden professor Sharpley drive him to suicide.

Have you ever actually stopped and seriously tried to imagine what it would be like to experience complete sensory deprivation?Would you think that being in such a state as this you would make a perfect candidate for some major brainwashing?Well, (keeping this in mind) - Unfortunately, this 1963, British, Sci-Fi/Thriller certainly missed its golden opportunity to deliver a real humdinger of a story where sensory deprivation and brainwashing were, indeed, the very name of the game.Considering that "The Mind Benders" story held so much promise & potential, I found myself totally disappointed that, not only was this picture a very dry & bland bit of storytelling, but it actually took an unfortunate nosedive, deteriorating into nothing but a sappy, second-rate, soap opera in the end.Ho-hum!*Note* - A more up-dated, over-the-top, psychedelic version of The Mind Benders was made in 1980 called Altered States, directed by Ken Russell.