a.k.a. They Saved Hitler’s Brain
rating: 
company: San-S and Crown
International Pictures
year: 1963
runtime: 74′
country: United States
director: David Bradley
cast: Walter Stocker, Audrey Caire,
Carlos Rivas, John Holland,
Marshall Reed, Scott Peters,
Dani Lynn, Nestor Paiva,
Pediro Regas, Bill Freed
writers: Steve Bennett
and Peter Miles
cinematographer: Stanley Cortez
music: Peter Zinner (supervisor)
order this film from Amazon.com
(includes both the original and They
Saved Hitler’s Brain cuts of the film)
The plots of film Nazis over the decades have rarely been anything other than insidious, and that of the titular Madmen of the fictional Mandoras is as certifiable as the rest of them – perhaps more so. The picture begins with the abduction of one Professor John Coleman (John Holland), a government scientist who has devised a new and powerful antidote for the G-gas nerve agent, his hip young daughter Suzanne (Dani Lynn, Black Zoo) and her studly boyfriend David (Scott Peters, The Cape Canaveral Monsters). Hot on their trail are CID agent Phil Day (Walter Stocker) and his wife Kathy (Audrey Caire), eldest daughter of the Professor, who follow the tips of mysterious South American Teo (Carlos Rivas, The Black Scorpion) right into the fantasy Nazi stronghold of Mandoras.
Upon arriving, Phil and Kathy discover the positively minute country (comprised of a small town, a presidential palace, and lots of familiar California scenery) to be under Nazi control. Worse still, the police force (led by B-regular Nestor Paiva) and Presidential office seem complicit in their scheme to surround the Earth in deadly G-gas! Overseeing the effort to resurrect the Third Reich is the still-living head of Hitler himself, granted ever-lasting life by the latest in Nazi jar technology. But wherever there are Nazis there is an organized resistance, and the loyalties of the officials of Mandoras may not be so twisted as they seem . . .
The first thing I noticed about this film, better known in its longer-running television syndication variant They Saved Hitler’s Brain, was the quality of its photographic direction, which is far more proficient than small-time director David 12 to the Moon Bradley could ever have mustered. The bargain basement sets of The Madmen of Mandoras are positively alive with oblique shadows and back-lighting – it’s as fine an example of Chiaroscuro styling as can be seen in any film noir. A quick glance at the credits was revelatory. The director of photography was none other than Stanley Cortez, a hard working cinematographer who had fashioned minor miracles on such no-budget programmers as The Navy Vs. The Night Monsters and Dinosaurus! Beloved as those pictures are to the likes of me, history will rightly remember Cortez for his work on real classics like Night of the Hunter, The Magnificent Ambersons and The Three Faces of Eve. That such an accomplished individual could find himself working in the B-picture trenches was just one of the facts of postwar Hollywood life, though I’m certainly happy he was on board here.
Photography aside, The Madmen of Mandoras is a patently ludicrous affair that fails entirely as an offbeat sci-fi political thriller, though a cut here or there and a few livelier music cues could have made it more than passable as a comedy. The script. written by actor Peter Miles from an original story by one-off producer Steve Bennett, is silly stuff indeed. The Nazi menace is laughable, made up of a handful of soldiers and brass and a host of unseen cells worldwide, as is its twitchy leader, who comes with his own conveniently removable handle! Then there are the un-Nazis who are allied with them, like an over-the-top Texas tycoon and his beloved Aryan son.
The good guys fair about as well. CID agent Phil Day is something of a bumbling moron who more or less stumbles in and out of the film’s (purportedly) thrilling circumstances. The two women of the story come across as little more than human baggage, there to observe and snuggle with the guys once those detestable Nazis are dispensed with. The scripted dialogue never allows the characters to come across very seriously, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing in this case. At least some of the humor is seems intentional – Hitler (Bill Freed in his only screen performance) is a shrew of a man, easily dwarfed by his body doubles in a flashback sequence, and the inherent hilarity of seeing his bodiless noggin propped up in the backseat of car could not have escaped the creators.
Performance are surprisingly reasonable, particularly for a film with such a limited retake budget. The underrated Carlos Rivas pulls double duty as brothers Teo and Camino, while Nestor Paiva (Tarantula!, The Mole People, Creature From the Black Lagoon) adds another dubious ethnic role to his resume. Lead Walter Stocker combines the good looks of Robert Culp and newsman Brian Williams with the talent of neither, though perhaps credit is due for a straight face alone. Bill Freed provides the most memorable performance by circumstance alone. Who could possibly forget the screen’s only Hitler-in-a-can?
Crown International made a huge misstep in their advertising for this one, as no mention is made of Nazis or their disembodied Fuhrer in the ad art. The oversight was corrected come time to sell the picture to television, the title altered to reflect the film’s most outlandish selling point. The Madmen of Mandoras isn’t nearly so bad as its 2.1 rating at the IMDB suggests, and I enjoyed all three of my screenings. The climactic Hitler flambé is itself worth the price of admission and the sight of the Fuhrer’s head perched atop its tiered pedestal with a giant glowing swastika hovering overhead is pure schlock gold. Far more entertaining than it has any right to be, Madmen gets my recommendation.
order this film from Amazon.com
(includes both the original and They Saved Hitler’s Brain cuts of the film)
