They Saved Hitler's Brain

The movie is indeed a pastiche of two separate films with separate casts, shot years apart. However, I take issue with Leonard Maltin and the others who refer to the Stanley Cortez footage (the latter part of the film) as being from the 1950s. The actors are dancing The Twist in the Dos Palabras club in one Cortez scene. The Twist became a craze in the Fall of 1960, and remained all the rage for the next couple of years. The original Madmen of Mandoras was released in 1963 (I have a 22X28 poster, complete set of lobby cards, and some stills from this flick). All this is consistent with an early '60s (probably '62 or '63) filming of the Cortez footage.

The el cheapo additional footage (the first part of the film) was probably shot sometime between 1972-1976. The "liner notes" to the Drive-In Cult Classics 2 DVD says the modification of the old Crown International Pictures for TV release began in 1972, and the first mention of "They Saved Hitler's Brain" in a TV listing was in December, 1976.

BTW, StanleyCortez was a distinguished cinematographer who was nominated for an academy award - Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons; he also photographed Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter. The professionally photographed latter part of the film compared with the totally amateurish photography in the first part of the film makes the hodgepodge all the more evident.

Got around to finally watching this film the other night. Let me just say that I love bad films. I just get a kick out of them and while I am fully aware that they are bad, for the most part, they are still fun to watch. Not this one!!! I'm sure we all know the story behind this movie. It's actually two films spliced into one and combines a 1950's Nazi/Exploitation/Sci-Fi movie with some sort of espionage 1960's outing. The result is a mess and an incredibly tough experience to get through. Again, if there was a fun factor to it, I probably would have been entertained but the thing was so boring and seemed to drag on forever that I had a tough time staying awake. A lot of rambling dialogue that can be laugh inducing with a few beers I suppose but other then that, forget it. What was so weird is how the characters from the first half of the film were either disposed of or never to be seen or heard from again as the second half got going. They just disappeared as the action shifted to Mandoras. The best thing about the movie and what was really hilarious were the images of Bill Freed as the head of Adolph Hitler. The only thing he ever utters is "mach schnell! mach schnell!" and he only does that one time. Still, Freed's silent facial expressions and gyrations did have me laughing. If you want a "so bad, it's good" kind of experience, stick with Ed Wood because this one is really a total bore.

Getting that awful joke out of the way, let me explain.

This film exists in two forms. THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN is the much worse of the two. Avoid at all costs.

But, MADMEN OF MANDORAS is a hilarious little sci-fi/exploitation B-movie, well worth your time. Please see my more extensive review under that title.

The film was released as MADMEN OF MANDORAS in 1963 and did play in theaters. Posters and lobby cards were made. It probably played in drive-in theaters and ratty city grindhouses on the bottom of double bills.

Around 1972, additional footage was added and the movie released again (probably to television) as THEY SAVED HITLER'S BRAIN. I guess to sell it to TV the movie needed to be a little longer. What a mess. The two different groups of footage do NOT mesh together at all.

But MADMEN OF MANDORAS, recently released by BCI in their Starlite Drive-In Theater series of DVDs, (from the original negative!) is worth getting for fans of schlocky 60's grade-Z trash. Sure, the plot is insane, the film is loaded with every cliché about Latin America that ever came out of Poverty Row Hollywood, and the Hitler head in a jar (not just brain, entire head; it actually even speaks and yells a little) isn't even remotely scary, it's just hilarious.

Fans of Ed Wood films and similar low budget trash will be in heaven here with the stilted dialog, mind-boggling plot machinations and perfunctory grade-B acting, with plenty of phony Spanish accents. MADMEN OF MANDORAS sits on my shelf with pride, right alongside Plan Nine, Robot Monster and Mesa of Lost Women. Quaff a few adult beverages, and enjoy.

They Saved Hitler's Brain: One Star

Madmen of Mandoras: Nine Stars! Get it!

I am a B Movie Whore. I get perverse pleasure out of really bad movies. Plus, you can learn a lot about movie making by observing other people's mistakes. Some of my favorite Bad movies include "Teenage Zombies", "Plan 9", "The Beast of Yucca Flats" and "Shriek of the Mutilated".

But nothing prepared me for "They Saved Hitler's Brain". This is a disjointed mess, with mismatching scenes (which were filmed over 10 years apart) laughable special effects and abysmal acting.

This movie was originally made in the 1950s and then some acting students purchased it and added some new scenes. But the students forget to dress as if they were in the fifties. Consequently, there are sixites hairstyles and cars in one scene, and then fifties styles and cars in another. Totally bizarre.

The special effects look as if they were created by 8 year olds for a 3rd grade school play. The scenes with Hitler's head in a glass tube are unforgettably absurd. The plot lacks any sort of coherence.

Now, some bad movies are fun to watch because you can laugh at them. But this movie just makes you stare at it with your mouth open, in stunned confusion and utter disbelief.

The scenes with Hitlers Head in the jar, especially when he is riding in the front seat of his henchman's car, are so wacky and silly, that they alone are worth suffering through this mess.

But be forewarned. This one is tough to watch. So far, it is the worst movie I have ever seen.

"Is this a bad joke?!" utters a character when the plot is explained. In all fairness, I can't see how anyone would elevate this to ANY list, good or bad; mediocre but not Ed Woodian or as as bad as "Mesa of Lost Women." The oddity of the film is that some 1970's people added some footage at the beginning, which doesn't advance the plot but does highlight that the ORIGINAL, in contrast, had higher production values which viewers dismiss. Why they added more is a mystery: to finish the film? to change its politics (women's lib)? Given the fact that it was probably too expensive to replicate the "look" of the original footage, it was probably a money-making scheme. The original was on a par with other low-budget films like "Beatniks," "Teenagers from outer space", etc., with a few recognizable actors. Add to that it's intentionally funny moments (husband-wife banter, a beatnik sister, an improbable marriage at the climax) makes this NOT a topper for movie Baddom. What would have been interesting was if the amateur 1970's filmmakers had disassembled the film, like Steve Martin's "Dead men don't wear plaid" or Woody Allen's dubbed spy movie "What's up tigerlily"(surely the granddaddy of MST3K). As for the misnamed title, 2 other 'head' films also avoid using "head": "Brain that wouldn't die"(though they change the movie title at the end from brain to head) and "Thing that couldn't die." I guess "head" just doesn't sound scary. And the other complaint that 'Mr. H'(aka Hitler) doesn't say anything, well, it's not the Biography Channel; besides, what else would he say?: "Will someone PLEASE scratch my nose?!" For this invasion he's literally just a figurehead/paperweight (one of the characters alludes to this), and his head without a body aptly metaphors the Nazi totalitarian society where noone must feel anything (what would Nazis do on a Saturday night?). As Mr. H's plans backfire again, you'd think he'd learn from history: two wrongs don't make a Reich.