On a vole le cerveau d'Hitler

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!

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.

I assume everyone knows that They Saved Hitler's Brain is basically two bad movies crushed together as one. The first 20-30 minutes were produced in the mid-sixties, and the rest was produced in the late fifties...a fact that really comes through in the production values.

I actually prefer the first half of the movie, and do have at least one good thing to say about this film...the editing in in the first half is excellent. The chase and crash footage from Thunder Road is edited in rather seemlessly...if I hadn't seen Thunder Road first, I would have never recognized it or realized it was stock footage.

Of course, all the characters introduced in the first ten minutes are dead by the halfway point, and the fifties-half of the movie begins, which actually takes you down to South America (or at least San Diego) to meet Mr. H, his goons, and his inane plan for immortality. We go from bad but moderately interesting sixties film to bad and boring fifties sci-fi/nazi movie.

"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.

I don't think this movie is as bad as a lot of people seem to think. It actually has a little bit of charm all its own. Of course,you see that I said "a little bit". But it was enough to keep me interested to watch the entire film. It was a blast from the past. The clothes,the cars,the gun play,the black and white grainy film,and the bad acting! It is a genre that is long since gone with the wind. And the extra footage was a real riot!! Night scenes shot(I mean filmed)in broad daylight reminded me of another flick in this genre,"Plan 9 From Outer Space". You might say that "...Hitler's Brain" is so bad that it's good. Then again,you might not. I plan on watching this movie several more times and savor all the crazy antics again and again. It is no "Indiana Jones" but it may just provide a laugh or two on a dark winters night with the wind howling outside your door. Turn the lights down low,lock your doors and windows,and pop the movie in your DVD. You'll laugh,you'll cry,and you'll kiss 92 minutes good-by!!!