They Saved Hitler's Brain
Connoisseurs of bad movies rank this execration as an all-time  favorite, rivaling Ed Wood's infamousPlan 9 from Outer Spaceas the  worst film of all time. The trouble began in the early 1950s when a film  calledMadmen of Mandoraswas shot and shelved for no mysterious  reason at all. The film boasted the great cinematographer, Stanley Cortez  (The Magnificent Ambersons), whose gorgeously evocative photography  makes a startling contrast to the inexplicable plot with which it seems to  coexist. But that wasn't bad enough, so in the early 1960s some UCLA film  students shot additional footage, somewhat differently styled (think Mod  Squad meets cinéma vérité porno), and intercut it with  the original film as if the two were meant for each other. The resultant  jumble concerns a pair of modish CID agents on the trail of a kidnapped  scientist, Nerve Gas-G, an antidote, the resurgence of the Fourth Reich on  the Caribbean island of Mandoras, and Hitler's severed head barking orders  from a jar. Here are but a few of the absurdities awaiting you: The swastika  is backward, one obtuse character has to pull the car over to discover that  her partner was shot even though she was present at the event, and when  Hitler's head bites the big one, it melts. Critic J. Hoberman, in his seminal  article,Bad Movies, observed that this film fairly makes the brain  explode with ideas. Not only that, but aneurysms. You'll be screaming, "Mein  Kopf! Mein Kopf!" just as Hitler's head should have, if only there had been  the budget for that.--Jim Gay