Review of The Brain from Planet Arous

For Pittsburgh viewers, 1957's "The Brain from Planet Arous" has become known as the very first movie broadcast on Chiller Theater on a Saturday afternoon, Sept. 14, 1963, kicking off 20 years of Chilly Billy until its inevitable end on New Years Day 1984. It was a production of Howco International Pictures, serving theaters throughout the South from Arkansas to North Carolina, an obviously Poverty Row outfit below even American International or Allied Artists, on par with Lippert ("King Dinosaur") or Astor ("Frankenstein's Daughter"). The same filmmakers went on to greater cult glory with Allied Artists' 1958 "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman," director Nathan Juran, using the pseudonym Hertz, and producer/cinematographer Jacques R. Marquette, the star a game John Agar, just one year removed from the Universal days of "Revenge of the Creature," "Tarantula," and "The Mole People," still stuck in the science fiction rut he'd hoped to escape. As nuclear scientist Steve March, Agar and his assistant (Robert Fuller) are based in the Mojave Desert to examine odd bursts of radiation at desolate Mystery Mountain, represented by Bronson Caverns, the ubiquitous outdoor location not just for Westerns but all low budget genre producers since 1933's "The Vampire Bat." His assistant ends up dead and poor Steve is then possessed by disembodied criminal alien brain Gor, from the distant planet Arous (air-us), which causes consternation for Steve's pretty fiancée Sally (Joyce Meadows), not expecting her intended to return a crazed sex fiend with mad desires. Fortunately, she soon learns everything from benign lawman brain Vol, keeping close tabs on Gor/Steve from inside the family dog, one victim after another becoming a burnt corpse behind Steve's glare, the thick contact lenses quite painful for the actor, who nevertheless relishes the rare opportunity to go against type as a villain. On a reported budget of $58,000 the acting could have been a lot worse, the outlandish premise and outsized props featuring in a climax that leaves poor Steve literally brainless (a more sober treatment of the same plot was done in 1966's small scale British entry "Invasion").