The Madmen of Mandoras

I'm not sure what this picture was meant to be, but I'm going to give the director/writer/etc credit and say they meant it as a good time political action thriller comedy on a drive-thru budget. It is sort of those things, if you are willing to accept a very loose definition of the individual terms.

Clever Plot? Not at all (actually confusing if you stop to think about it) Believable characters? Nope ... but just as I don't kick puppies I won't beat up too much on the merits of this lovable loser. It's goofy fun and doesn't take itself that seriously. Coming in just barely over an hour, it's not too much time out of your life, and I would say probably is worth it on the 'I"m just curious' dilemma surrounding all of these campy drive thru films.

Rating: 16/40

This is the original 'Hitler's head-in-a-jar' movie (the more strikingly titled "They Saved Hitler's Brain" (1968) is simply a padded version of this film with some homemade-looking footage added in the late '60s/early '70s to increase running time). Briefly, a group of Nazi survivors (including der Führer's animate head) are lurking in the fictional Latin-American country of Mandoras where they are planning to use a deadly nerve gas to revisit their dreams of world conquest. The film's plot, such as it is, revolves around kidnappings and murders as the conspirators attempt to eliminate all knowledge of the gas' antidote. Their boss "Mr. H." rants occasionally but usually just rolls his eyes menacingly or leers when some nasty business is underway. Better (if only because it's shorter and has a more gruesome finale) than "TSHB" but lacking the awesome brand. Would make a great double feature with the thematically similar and equally delirious "The Frozen Dead" (1966).

Madmen of Mandoras, The (1963)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

They Saved Hitler's Brain (1972)

* (out of 4)

A deadly nerve gas is causing fear in the states but thankfully a Professor knows how to make the gas useless. The only problem is that crazy guys kidnap him and take him to a secret location where they are keeping Hitler's head alive. Hitler, being the nut he is, wants to use the gas to take over the world. Making a horror movie with Hitler's head coming back to life seems like it would make for some great fun but that's not the case with this turkey as it's pretty dry from start to finish without any redeeming factors. The biggest problem is that the screenplay is so poorly written that it really doesn't know how to exploit the subject matter. Instead of fun things happening we get a tiresome adventure story as our heroes must save the Professor and eventually destroy Hitler once and for all. The performances are all rather bland and that includes the man playing Hitler. Hitler's "screaming" and ranting are rather silly and comes off very stupid. What really doesn't make sense is that we've got a very silly story yet the director treats everything so serious as if we were watching some sort of documentary on actual events.

Nine or ten years later Crown International were starting to release their films to television but this one didn't run long enough so they went back and took out ten minutes worth of footage only to add twenty-five more minutes and the end result was They Saved Hitler's Brain. This features the same story as the previous film with the exception of the "new scenes", which involve two government agents trying to find out if the Professor is safe or not. Needless to say, with an original movie as bad as Madmen was, you really don't need to add extra running time. This movie here is just as worse due to the longer running time and all the added scenes do nothing to improve the film. The only good thing about this film is its outrageous title but then again that really doesn't make the movie any better.

About half the reviewers here make mention of the 1970's footage added into the film when it was re-released under the title "They Saved Hitler's Brain." This just added to the cheesiness of the whole exercise.

To recap, the plot of this film is that a few surviving Nazis have managed to save Hitler's head in a big jar, while keeping it alive with a machine. Now, it's not really clear why they do this, the only words Hitler in a Jar says is "Mach Schnell". (Roughly translated, "Hurry Up!" My father, a German immigrant, was very fond of that one.) One has to wonder if Hitler in a Jar ever got a date from Jan in the Pan from "The Brain that wouldn't die". They'd have made a cute couple.

The film is C movie quality, and the scenes with Hitler in a jar are just ludicrous. The actor who played Hitler just mugs for the camera ridiculously in a way that would embarrass even Mel Brooks. (It appears he never worked again.)

Also, the Nazi plot makes little or no sense. They are going to release this "G-Gas" stuff into the air that will kill everyone, probably most of the animals as well. And they kidnap the professor who has the antidote. So, uh, why? Why not just kill him? Were they going to release this gas and they didn't have the antidote?

The version of this film usually seen had some additional footage, shot about 5 years after the original, added to it. And, in addition, it seems to have earlier had some wrapping of this sort. It looks, in other words, like a film within a film within a film. Each wrapping made things worse, and the original was remarkably bad. But I must say that some of the lighting effects in the original are quite cool.