They Saved Hitler's Brain

They Saved Hitler's Brain is a 1968 science fiction film directed by David Bradley. It was adapted for television from a shorter 1963 theatrical feature film, Madmen of Mandoras, produced by Carl Edwards and directed by David Bradley. The film was lengthened by about 20 minutes with additional footage shot by UCLA students at the request of the distributor. It is often cited as being one of the worst films ever made.

They Saved Hitler's Brain
Directed byDavid Bradley
Produced byCarl Edwards
Written bySteve Bennett
Peter Miles
StarringWalter Stocker
Audrey Caire
Carlos Rivas
John Holland
Marshall Reed
Music byDon Hulette
CinematographyStanley Cortez
Edited byAlan Marks
Distributed byCrown International Films
Paragon Films Inc.
Sans-S
Release date
1963 (theatrical)
1968 (television)
Running time
91 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

World War II is over, and Nazi officials remove Adolf Hitler's living head and hide it in the fictional South American country of Mandoras, so that they can resurrect the Third Reich for the future. Fast forwarding into the 1960s, the surviving officials kidnap a scientist with expertise in nerve gas in an attempt to conquer the world. The scientist's son in law a security operative and the scientists daughter travel to Mandoras to rescue the scientist and foil the evil plot.

Cast
  • Walter Stocker as Phil Day
  • Audrey Caire as Kathy Coleman "K.C." Day
  • Carlos Rivas as Camino Padua / Teo Padua
  • John Holland as Prof. John Coleman
  • Marshall Reed as Frank Dvorak
  • Scott Peters as David Garrick
  • Keith Dahle as Tom Sharon
  • Dani Lynn as Suzanne Coleman
  • Nestor Paiva as Police Chief Alaniz
  • Pedro Regas as Presidente Juan Padua
  • Bill Freed as Adolf Hitler

In The Simpsons

In other media
VHS release cover
  • In 1986, the film was featured in an episode of the Canned Film Festival.[1]
  • Upon learning he was dying of radiation poisoning due to the constant exposure from his kryptonite ring, Lex Luthor stages his own death and has his brain preserved in a jar while wired to a computer, while a new body is cloned for him. He then re-emerges as his alleged illegitimate son Alexander Luthor, Jr. The story arc was titled "They Saved Luthor's Brain".
  • In Futurama, Professor Farnsworth proclaims "Everyone's always in favor of saving Hitler's brain, but when you put it in the body of a great white shark, oooh, suddenly you've gone too far."
  • In Flaming Carrot Comics, the Flaming Carrot is menaced by an army of disembodied clones of Hitler's jackbooted feet.
  • Hitler's brain is a character in the Irregular Webcomic! series of comic strips.[2]
  • The Dead Kennedys song "We Have a Bigger Problem Now" references Hitler's brain in a jar. The supposed formaldehyde used to preserve Hitler's brain is an ingredient of the Tricky Dicky Screwdriver, a fictional cocktail drink, along with Jack Daniel's and purple Kool-Aid.
  • Los Angeles punk band Angry Samoans included the song "They Saved Hitler's Cock" on their 1982 album Back from Samoa.
  • In the comic book series Savage Dragon, Hitler's brain was attached to a gorilla body to become the villain Brainape. After being separated from the gorilla, the brain forms legs and runs away.
  • An episode of the U.S. cartoon Duckman was entitled "They Craved Duckman's Brain", based on the premise that Duckman, after falling asleep in an active CAT scanner, developed an isotope in his brain that could cure cancer, but getting to it would kill Duckman.
  • In honor of the film, the area of the now defunct PointlessWasteofTime.com forum set aside for serious discussion was titled "We Saved Hitler's Brain". It, along with the rest of the PWOT forums, was migrated to Cracked.com when editor David Wong was employed by Cracked.com as Senior Editor.
  • Unnatural Axe's 1978 song "They Saved Hitler's Brain" was singer and guitarist Richie Parsons' homage to the film. He says in an interview with Boston Groupie News, " I saw the last 5 minutes of this B movie that was funny as hell. I had no idea what it was about. All I saw was Hitler's Brain in a glass jar in the back of a staff car and the rest I made up."[3]
  • Local H's album Hallelujah! I'm a Bum includes a song titled "They Saved Reagan's Brain".
  • Hitler's Brain is a resource card in the game Illuminati: New World Order.
  • The film "won" the First World's Worst Film Festival in Ottawa, Canada in 1979. Bradley was reportedly delighted when he learned his film was crowned the worst ever made.[4]

Reception

The film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives They Saved Hitler's Brain a rare rating of 0%, based on 5 reviews from critics, with an average rating of 1.3/10.[5] TV Guide described it as "One of the all-time worst".[5] Film critic Danny Peary said it was "A legitimate candidate for Worst Film Ever Made title." It was also one of the selections for The Golden Turkey Awards.[6] Leonard Maltin gave the film the lowest possible rating (BOMB). Maltin said it was "unbelievably muddled" after the addition footage, but he praised Cortez's cinematography.[7]

See also

References
  1. Margulies, Lee (June 10, 1986). "'Canned Film Festival' on TV, Worst of the Big Screen On Its Way". Los Angeles Times. p. 10. Retrieved December 6, 2010.
  2. "http://irregularwebcomic.net/cast/cliffhangers.html"
  3. http://www.bostongroupienews.com/UnnaturalAxeInterview.htm
  4. Slide, Anthony (2018). Magnificent Obsession: The Outrageous History of Film Buffs, Collectors, Scholars, and Fanatics. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-1496810533.
  5. "They Saved Hitler's Brain". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 2014-07-05.
  6. Peary, Danny (1986). Guide for the Film Fanatic. Simon & Schuster. p. 430. ISBN 0671610813.
  7. Maltin, Leonard (2003). Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide 2004. Penguin Group. p. 1404. ISBN 0452284783.
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