Headscratchers / The Abominable Dr. Phibes

• It's never explained exactly WHY a six-minute surgical procedure required (well, nine doctors at all, but especially) Dr. Hargreaves, who is a psychiatrist.
  • The procedure was probably expected to take much longer, she just died very early in the process. The exact surgical procedure isn't specified - "radical resection" just means that something was being removed - but it's possible that it involved a brain tumor which Hargreaves initially deduced existed from Mrs. Phibes' mental state. He attended the surgery as an observer following up on his patient, and Phibes held him culpable because of his role in the diagnosis.
  • It's been four years. Could be that Hargreaves exaggerated, and he was a psychiatry student who'd only completed his MMBS and the foundation training for his specialty. In which case he could've still been in med school when Victoria Phibes' operation took place, and attended the surgery as part of his clinical experience.
• Just why is it that Dr. Phibes is supposed to be a sympathetic character at all? Yes, his wife died and he was disfigured, but let's be honest: there was never any suggestion of malice or incompetence on the part of Phibes' victims, his wife was just so badly ill or injured that a nine-man surgical team couldn't save her. And if that was the case, a 10th doctor wouldn't have helped at all - never mind that Phibes himself is not a surgeon, but a theologian, a musician and a clockwork engineer, and so he had no relevant skills to offer. The death of Mrs. Phibes was a tragedy, yes, but her doctors did no wrong in being unable to save her, and Dr. Phibes caused the accident that disfigured him himself: his motives and goals are nothing short than those of a madman.
  • 'Rule of Vincent Price'.
  • Well he is a Villain Protagonist, after all.
  • Presumably Phibes is a surgeon, as he planted the key in the chest in a relatively short time span.
• Why, when preparing the green goo as locust bait, does Phibes keep inspecting the Brussels sprouts and discarding some of them? Does he think his killer locusts are picky eaters and won't like the wilted ones?
  • The man has standards. Also a bit of an Actor Allusion.
  • While we're on the subject, shouldn't having her entire head buried in green goo have suffocated the sedated nurse, long before the locusts could do any damage? Which would make her cause of death more a Plague Of Vegetable Soup than anything, with the grasshoppers playing not even a symbolic part in it.
• Seriously, what was IN that sleeping pill Nurse Allen took? It put her down HARD, so hard that she didn't wake up while her head and hand were covered with vegetable goo, or when the locusts were eating the flesh off her face (never mind that locusts are not carnivores).

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