Search - Madmen of Mandoras/The Devil's Hand on DVD

Russ B. (lostoasis13) from RED BANK, NJ
Reviewed on 8/9/2009...

Madmen & Devil's Hand are both the best prints available,
same exact version from Drive-in Classics Vol. 2 released by same company,
Devil's Hand is a goulish little Delight, and They Saved Hitler's Brain/ Madman of Mandoras (both versions included) is just... well... in its own way.... stunning!

2 of 2 member(s) found this review helpful.

Save your own brain then

Philipp Dahlmanns | Munich, Bavarya, Germany | 01/20/2003

(2 out of 5 stars)

"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."

My all-time favorite bad movie

William E. Ridgeway | Fort Worth, TX USA | 01/11/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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."

So Three Aging Nazis And The Head Of Hitler In A Bell Jar Ar

Robert I. Hedges | 03/11/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

""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"."