Customer Reviews

They Saved Hitler's Brain [VHS]

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"They Saved Hitler's Brain" is a cinematic travesty made over a decade or so by two different sets of people, starring two different sets of actors. What could possibly go wrong? The basis for the film is the very short 1963 feature "The Madmen of Mandoras", which was apparently shot years earlier and shelved for a while. In the late 1960s (1968 seems the most agreed upon date), some television brain trust wanted to broadcast "The Madmen of Mandoras", but it was too short to fit in a traditional movie time slot. They hired some film school students to shoot additional wraparound footage to boost the running time. The result is one of the most jarring viewing experiences in cinema history, and ranks up there with the very best of Ed Wood or Ray Dennis Steckler for enjoyable camp viewing.

The film opens with the newly shot footage of a smarmy male and a voluptuous female CID agent arguing and engaging in possibly the worst banter in film history. The acting and writing will both make you cringe; the good news is you frequently can't hear what's being said over the loud background music. It seems that the CID is investigating the death of a scientist who was working of the G-Gas project. The dead scientist knew of the antidote, and they discover that Dr. John Coleman, another brilliant scientist, has been kidnapped and taken to the South American country of Mandoras.

The G-Gas plot sort of devolves into a "Wild, Wild World of Batwoman" pursuit of evildoers, with the movie going on to feature crazy Nazis planning to take over the world, Hitler's head in a jar (who the cast refers to as "Mr. H") yelling orders in German, a brain dead kidnapping and murder subplot, lots of stock footage, a supremely annoying and pathetic romance subplot, ridiculously inept car chases, doublecrosses, gunplay, explosions, a fire, and Hitler's head melting. Everything is here but the kitchen sink, and that may be here too, just too grainy and out of focus to see.

For someone who adores nonsensical B-movies, "They Saved Hitler's Brain" is a film to marvel at, and I particularly recommend it as a double feature with "The Thing With Two Heads".

I first saw this in the wee hours of the morning, several years before the proliferation of the video tape recorder. I remembered it and watched it again when it turned up a year or two later. I've always thought that watching bad movies in the wee hours when you're half asleep is the only way to go. Watching them on video destroys the ambience! 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 as being from the 1950s. The actors are dancing The Twist in the Dos Palabras club in one 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 filming of the Cortez footage. The added footage was probably filmed in the late 60s. I have the autographs of a number of the cast members of this masterpiece. Nestor Paivia, who plays the police chief, is perhaps best remembered as the skipper of the skiff in Creature from the Black Lagoon. Joe Bob sez check it out.

Saw this one at the Drive in, a long long time ago and now that
i purchased and viewed, its as strange a i remember it.
The first 1/3rd of the film runs like a home made movie that they
appended to the film..once gone the film is more interesting.
Nothing like seeing Hitler's head on that box with lots of dials
on it. One movie that should make your bad movie collection

I've only seen Monsters of Mandoras, but that's enough to recommend against buying this volume:

Hitler horror movies fascinate me, because they say something about where people believe the source of evil lies. In the 1950s and early 60s, it was in the brains of mad evil men like Hitler. To preserve his brain was to preserve the possibility of reliving the horrors of WW2. Now, were this true, it would mean several things--that the brain, freed from thebody, would retain all the evil the person possessed, that Hitler was a special person, more evil than any of the rest of us, that only he could bring about the horror that was the Nazis (sadly, of course, we know this last bit isn't true).

So, if you're curious about this sort of think, then, like me, you may believe that Monsters of Mandoras (AKA They Saved Hitler's Brain) is required viewing. Please, think again.

Monsters of Mandoras is just too awful even for the most curious. The movie has one basic problem that flows throughout--faced with this terrible situation, no one really cares.

The movie opens with Casey and Frank Day, daughter and son-in-law of a famous scientist who has the only antidote for "Formula D," a lethal nerve gas, learning that their father has been kidnapped, along with his other daughter. They follow them and their abductors to Mandoras, a fictional South American town, where they are told that they are under watch and can do as they please, as long as they do not try to interfere. So, they do what they have to do:

They go shopping. For dishes. Dishes? Assault weapons, ok, but housewares? Admittedly, in an early scene Casey uses a vase as a weapon, so maybe she's going to take down the Nazis by smashing dishes on their heads. But no, then it's off to a cafe for tequila. And there they meet the supposedly kidnapped daughter, who has been given the same instructions. And if you want to avoid the wrath of Nazis, the best thing to do is get looped to mariachi music.

Cat-and-mouse maneuvers eventually ensue, ending with a showdown between the family and Hitler himself, his head encased in a glass box attached to a gizmo that must be very special and advanced indeed, even though it looks like a filing cabinet. The family Tequila wins out, saves the professor and the world. Thank goodness.

Not only is Monsters of Mandoras not worth seeing, we're giving it our highest warning: The Truly Bad Award.

This movie is the best in the world - if you want a real bad movie. If you want a good B-Movie - its ....
First third or so filmed nearly a century after the main "story" (not that it has a real story) - the main actors of this part stumble around without much of a connection to the earlier (here later) part, and are all killed. That is, of course, they couldn't join in with the other actors ten years back in time.
The rest of the movie isn't much better - forget about the storyline. You sit around the whole time thinking: "When does the story start - wheres the action, the thrill, the humor, the sense?"
Even my hopes for an evil, entriguing or even power-mad super-villianous Hitler were eradicated. This guy (who by the way dont looks a bit like the old "Gröfaz") just stares out of his jar and, I suppose, wonders, why not one of his plain stupid Nazi henchmen speaks one word German.
The rest is 50s B-Movie standart: Screaming girl, smart hero, dead villains, etc.. The damn brain - which is the whole head in truth - not even gets a cool showdown or death scene. It simply burns to death in its car - still staring around helpless.
The most frightening on this movie is the hair-style of the main charakter in the first part.
Only good thing about this movie is the fact, that people are surprised (or shocked) when they see it in your movie collection. Nobody believes, that somebody ever did a "They saved Hitlers Brain" movie.
Here in Germany, where I live, its double shock.