The Madmen of Mandoras
The Madmen of Mandoras
NR | 13 November 1963 (USA)
The Madmen of Mandoras Trailers

A group of Nazi survivors save Hitler's brain keeping it alive in a huge jar hooked up to a machine. The Nazis plan to release a deadly gas destroying all life on the planet. To ensure their success they kidnap Professor Coleman the only man on the planet with the antidote to the poison gas.

Reviews
PlatinumRead Just so...so bad
Inadvands Boring, over-political, tech fuzed mess
Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.
Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
trashgang I do have the Starlite mega box containing a few grindhouse classics. By opening the DVD box containing this flick I saw that there were 2 versions available. One from 1963 called The Madmen Of Mandoras clocking in at 74 minutes and another one called They Saved Hitler's Brain made in 1968 and clocking in at 91 minutes.But what's the difference? being a hit at the drive-ins and grindhouses somebody decided to make a TV worthy. 74 minutes can't be seen on television as a full feature so they added some new shots. But it went even further. They used amateurs to make the new footage and did it on a zero budget. it shows in so many ways. Clothes and hair didn't fit in into the older version and everybody added in the new footage had to die or disappear because they didn't fit into the original one. I saw that the first 13 minutes was new and had nothing to do with the original flick. Then they picked in with the older version and recut it still in the next minutes with new shots. It just didn't work at all. Because as I said earlier, nothing looks the same, everything was wrongly done. Still, it's really a turkey with a goofy head in a jar from Hitler. I only saw one effect worth seeing and that's the burning of Hitler's head. Overall there's much talking going on and nothing really happens. They also used news footage from WOII when they are narrating what and who Hitler was. Also strange is the use of a real footage of an elephant dying on so called nerve gas. I can only say that it looks like an Ed Wood flick but still it do has a few moments you will never forget due being a turkey.Gore 0/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 0,5/5 Story 2/5 Comedy 0/5
JoeB131 About half the reviewers here make mention of the 1970's footage added into the film when it was re-released under the title "They Saved Hitler's Brain." This just added to the cheesiness of the whole exercise.To recap, the plot of this film is that a few surviving Nazis have managed to save Hitler's head in a big jar, while keeping it alive with a machine. Now, it's not really clear why they do this, the only words Hitler in a Jar says is "Mach Schnell". (Roughly translated, "Hurry Up!" My father, a German immigrant, was very fond of that one.) One has to wonder if Hitler in a Jar ever got a date from Jan in the Pan from "The Brain that wouldn't die". They'd have made a cute couple.The film is C movie quality, and the scenes with Hitler in a jar are just ludicrous. The actor who played Hitler just mugs for the camera ridiculously in a way that would embarrass even Mel Brooks. (It appears he never worked again.) Also, the Nazi plot makes little or no sense. They are going to release this "G-Gas" stuff into the air that will kill everyone, probably most of the animals as well. And they kidnap the professor who has the antidote. So, uh, why? Why not just kill him? Were they going to release this gas and they didn't have the antidote?
Athanatos The version of this film usually seen had some additional footage, shot about 5 years after the original, added to it. And, in addition, it seems to have earlier had some wrapping of this sort. It looks, in other words, like a film within a film within a film. Each wrapping made things worse, and the original was remarkably bad. But I must say that some of the lighting effects in the original are quite cool.
Scott Andrew Hutchins As much as people (especially video distributors) may want to call this film "so bad it's good," the simple truth is that it's incredibly boring. It opens with gassing an elephant to death, then it moves into a plot with some typical old-movie types going to Mexico. The youngest gets married during the vacation. This film is said to be two movies cobbled together, and it certainly appears that way. Until Hitler's wax head appears in a jar, it's pretty dull, with nothing interesting do do with its stock characters. When the head finally does appear, it's hardly ever shown, and when it melts in a jar is pretty messy. The moments of Hitler's head are the only things, save an occasional joke, that are funny, and the film contains nothing to recommend it, unless one is in media studies and interested in the portrayal of the archetypal young girl that gets married, because it is so stock, and not only that, the relationship is never really shown!