SoTrumpBelieve Must See Movie...

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Red-Barracuda A neurobiologist who has developed an anti-dote to a deadly virus is kidnapped and taken to a small Latin American nation called Mandoras. It turns out that this is all linked to Nazis who have managed to keep Adolf Hitler's disembodied head alive in a jar, from here the Fuhrer barks out orders as he attempts to resurrect the Third Reich.I realised quite early on as I watched Madmen of Mandoras that this had to be the early prototype for a movie I had previously seen, namely They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968). It turns out that this earlier version had been released briefly in 1963 and was turned into a movie fit for TV five years later. In order to achieve this, additional material was added to pad out the running time to a more acceptable ninety minutes. Unfortunately, this extra footage was filmed by amateurs and looked very much like what it was, i.e. people from 1968 interspersed into a story filmed several years earlier. It was also, of course, re-titled with the more entertaining, yet major plot point revealing, new name.From memory, there is really not a great deal of significant difference between both versions but Madmen of Mandoras is certainly the better. For one thing, it's shorter and for a film as decidedly ropey as this one, that is a clear blessing. It's also purer in the sense that it doesn't contain pointless extra newer footage whose only purpose is to add more minutes to the run-time. In truth Madmen of Mandoras is a semi-passable b-movie in most respects. Although it really should have been far schlockier given its premise, unfortunately in the main it is uninspired adventure type fare that's on offer here. At the end of the day, Hitler's head is the real star of the show in this one. It's not often you really get to say that sentence, in fact I'm pretty sure this must be the only scenario where that specific point can be made. Even the demise of the head is a highlight, where it melts while engulfed by flames in a sequence that really is rather well done all things considered. All-in-all, this one is okay but should have been better given the potential of it's decidedly psychotronic central idea. If you really have to see a Nazis/mad scientists on a tropical locale film, then I would suggest the more entertaining She Demons (1958) as the way to go.

jhailey In 1964, several of us missed the last city bus out of downtown L.A. back to our West-side dorm, so we found an all-night theater and paid 75 cents to sit in an uncomfortable, unpadded wooden seat. "Gypsy" was the first film, in Technicolor. A Jeffrey Hunter vehicle was next; I think it was "Key Witness" in black and white, filmed on the streets of L.A. The three of us were the only people in the theater awake for the first two films because we couldn't figure out how get anywhere near comfortable. Then, onto the screen came "The Madmen of Mandoras." By now -- probably 4 a.m., I'd figured out how to sleep in the seat, but the denizens of downtown L.A., for whom this was the cheapest bed available, woke up and got into the movie. (Spoiler alert.) By the time the flames engulfed Hitler's head, which was in some sort of electrified vat of sustaining clear fluid, there were cheers. I'm sure plenty of World War II vets were in the audience, glad to know that Hitler had finally melted. (Oh, no, I gave away the ending.) The moment that "The End" appeared on screen, the beadles were at the back of the theater, banging on seats with bats to wake any remaining sleepers and to roust us out of the theater. The program was timed to the minute to end just as the first rays of the sun brought another day to L.A. "All night" and not a minute more. It was a perfect triple bill: an almost-first-run Hollywood A film, a forgettable B picture, and "Madmen of Mandoras," too awful to be a camp, cult classic, but memorable nonetheless.

johnc2141 I watched both the madmen of mandoras and they saved Hitlers brain with the 70's edits,and i thought it was quite entertaining.not as bad as they say.but its no masterpiece but it is better made then the other bad films;plan 9 from outer space and robot monster.i never knew this was from crown international pictures,which made quality low budget pictures like American international did in the 50's,60's and 70's.with the morbid plot of Hitlers head in a jar still living.madmen of mandoras is a creepy movie full of red herrings,Nazis and secret agents in mandoras south America.i always wanted to see this and they saved Hitlers brain and finally seen it,and ill have to say i enjoyed it.madmen of mandoras has a longer scene at the end of the movie.not giving away spoilers thank you.but saying madmen of mandoras is a bad film would be an injustice.as a b-movie its pretty enjoyable,make some popcorn throw a party and entertain your guests with madmen of mandoras.look for actor nester paiva as a policeman,nester paiva has been in many monster movies including;creature from the black lagoon,mole people and 20 million miles to earth.madmen of mandoras is available on a DVD set called drive in classics(all from crown international)also included on this DVD is;the creeping terror,they saved Hitlers brain,the devils hand,land of the Minotaur and a few more mini classics,all recently restored.5 out of 10 check it out. and beware of Mr h.

cookieman108 Why am I drawn to bad movies like a fly to a steaming pile of excrement (this metaphor is exceptionally appropriate given the film being reviewed)? I've never really given it much thought, but I suppose it's a similar reaction people display when driving by a particularly bad car wreck…you don't want to look, but morbid curiosity is a compelling, often intrinsic, trait among humans. As far as car wrecks go, cinematic ally speaking, They Saved Hitler's Brain (1963) is a real doozy…the film is actually two movies (the original made in the late 50's to early 60's but never released for some unknown reason, and new footage filmed in the mid to late 60's) spliced together, like some twisted Frankenstein experiment. Apparently the company that owned the original film, Crown International (purveyors of schlock), got some UCLA film students to produce the new footage, and then, in an extremely futile attempt, married the two in the unholy union that is this film (director Al Adamson made a career on doing this, most notably with his 1971 monster mash Dracula Vs. Frankenstein).The film, originally titled Madmen of Mandoras aka Amazing Mr. H aka The Return of Mr. H (before the celluloid mating) was directed by David Bradley, whose earlier films include a juvenile delinquent picture titled Dragstrip Riot (1958) and the epic sci-fi craptacular 12 to the Moon (1960). The film stars Walter Stocker (Lassie's Great Adventure) and Audrey Caire, who seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't place her until I looked up her credits as saw she also appeared in Joe (1970), one of my more favorite films of the early 70's. Also appearing is John Holland (The Naked Brigade), Carlos Rivas (True Grit), Marshall Reed (Ghost of Zorro), Scott Peters (Panic in Year Zero!), Nestor Paiva (The Three Stooges in Orbit, Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter), and Bill Freed (who later adapted Dean R. Koontz's novel Watchers into the 1988 film of the same name) as Adolf Hitler, or, at least his head.The film starts out with the newer footage (which actually looks worse than the older footage), relating some kind of story regarding secret agents, nerve gas, and various murders. The main character, named Vic (who looks a lot like Chuck Negron, the original lead singer from the 70's band Three Dog Night) is a secret agent assigned to investigate the death of a scientist, but he himself eventually dies in a fiery car crash (actually his death is represented by footage taken from the 1958 feature Thunder Road, starring Robert Mitchum). All of this takes about 27 minutes, and then we cut into another film, already in progress, featuring the actors I listed above (the actors in the newer footage are not listed in any credits). From here we follow the exploits of Phil Day (Stocker) and his wife Kathy (Caire) as they travel to the tiny Caribbean Island nation of Mandoras to locate Kathy's recently kidnapped father, a scientist who developed an antidote to a deadly nerve gas. Phil and Kathy soon learn a handful of Nazis, lead by Hitler's head, and their nefarious plans to take control of the world. Will Phil and Kathy be able to stop the madness, or will the Third Reich finally achieve the goals it set for itself some 20 years ago? Their plan seems pretty rock solid, so things don't look good… I'm unsure why the newer footage was added, especially since it matched up so poorly (it looked like a bunch of laid-back hippies running around, compared to the more conservatively attired characters in the original footage). The original film is actually not a bad little B film (at least, compared to the newer footage), but I suspect some of the original footage may have been lost (or never filmed), hence the addition of the newer material, as to try and provide a setting for the older material. Thing is, the newer stuff was shot so very poorly, lacking any sense of direction (hey, it's daytime…no wait, it's night…oops, it's daytime again), and I was able to piece together much of the intended story from the original footage I didn't need the newer material. And that music for the newer material…27 minutes of really crummy free form jazz…the horror, the horror…the concept of saving Hitler's head seemed kinda cool, but what was probably meant to be a shocking surprise (the whole plot of Hitler's head plotting a conspiracy) was effectively ruined by the newer title. The special effects are pretty much what you might expect, with Hitler's head, when not being carried around in a jar, sitting atop an older model videotape machine. Freed's head did look a little creepy, sort of bug-eyed and slightly emaciated, with his only dialog, as a disembodied head, being 'Mach Schnell! Mach Schnell!' (I guess one would probably get pretty cranky and impatient surviving in a jar, relying on the charity of others…I wonder which lackey got the job of trimming his little moustache?) My favorite scene has to be when Phil and Kathy get kidnapped by a mysterious Hispanic man, and as they come to a stop light, another car pulls up, shoots the Hispanic man dead, but the couple, who are in the car with the now dead man, don't realize he's dead until much later, eventually stuffing his corpse into a phone booth, the intent being someone will find him (and someone does, in the form of an impatient, rotund lady wanting to use said phone…oh the comedy!) Cookieman108