Tuesday Terrors - The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962) starring Jason Evers

Whatever you do, DON'T open the closet. I mean it. Forget the head over there on the table. Ignore its babbling. Forget the beakers and other instruments that are there to engage in experiments meant to prolong life or give it back to the dead. The dead bodies upstairs? Don't worry about them. Just don't open that closet door!

Ok, reminiscing time again. A few years back, yer ol' Professor was spending Thanksgiving evening with his two then-younger-teen children, watching some retro-TV. Apparently one of the local stations had given up on trying to compete with the parades and football and decided to run a day of programming from the 50's and 60's that would have been seen on the channel. Surprisingly, to close out the day, they pulled out what is apparently one of the very few existing clips of local horror host Dr. Lucifer who presented shock Theater from 1958 to 1967. (For more info on Dr. Lucifer please see this site.)

Y'know, there's just something different about watching a film like this late at night, with the lights off, having been invited into the film by the sometimes sonorous, sometimes dissonant (depending on the temperament and character of the particular host) tones of a local host who would often give you some background on the film, who would sometimes give you some critique of the actors and the movie itself, who would sometimes simply ridicule the advertisers. There was a connection that would be made, and even though quite often everyone, from the host to the people behind the cameras to the viewing audience knew that the show wasn't really that good, we were still drawn in, co-conspirators with the host, and we would watch until the bitter end, if only to see how he (or she) would wrap up the evening's proceedings. There was many a Saturday night when I was a child that simply couldn't end until I was bid by MY host, Sir Cecil Creape, "Goodnight. Sleep Tight. And don't let the beddy-bugs bite".

Anyway, there was a little bit of that same magic in the air that particular thanksgiving night. Starting about 10:30, the dulcet tones of Dr. Lucifer emanated from the television as he invited us to share with him a film called The Brain that Wouldn't Die! With a title like that, how could we be for anything but an hour and a half of cheesy fun?

And cheesy fun is exactly what we got from this flick. It wasn't long at all before my son and I were completely wrapped up in the plight of Jason Evers' Dr Bill Cortner. Dr. Bill, you see, is frustrated, because he knows that he has developed new techniques and serums that can save and extend lives. But he's being held down by the medical establishment, represented specifically by his father, also a surgeon, who thinks that Dr. Bill is irresponsible and too far ahead of his time. Soon, however, he is going to have a chance to prove just how well his techniques work.

On their way to the remote cabin in the woods where Dr. Bill does his research, he and his fiancee, Jan Compton, are caught in a fiery car accident. Dr. Bill walks away mostly unscathed, but Jan is nowhere near so lucky. Snatching up her disembodied head from the fiery wreck, Dr. Bill carries it to his lab where he injects it with various fluids, hooks it up to electrodes, and sets it upright in a pan full of chemicals on his workbench that somehow restore life and thought to the bodiless head.

Now all Dr. Bill has to do is find a body to reattach the head to. Of course, not any body will do. Janet was quite the looker when she had something more than a pair of eyes and a smile to look at, and Dr. Bill decides that only the perfect body will do. This is where the movie truly begins to show its seamy exploitation roots, as the good doctor decides the best place to find a suitable candidate is a "dance" club. Apparently he is quite a charmer, for he soon finds himself backstage, where instead of kicking him out, the dancers are soon catfighting over him. When that doesn't work out, he decides to go visit a former patient of his who is now working as a nude photography model. Of course, this being the early sixties, these scenes are handled with a kind of edgy discreteness, more tease than true titillation.

From there the film just seems to slide more and more into a kind of delirious insanity. I haven't even discussed Jan's seeming new psychic abilities. Nor Dr. Bill's vengeful deformed assistant. Nor the thing in the closet. Ah, yes, now we come back to the thing in the closet. You see, Jan is not the first person upon whom Dr. Bill has tried his new techniques, and locked in a closet in the laboratory basement, fed only scraps and aching to kill, is a creature that is apparently an amalgam of all of those failed experiments. And once Jan starts using her newly expanded mind powers to convince the creature to escape, well, you know it can't be a good thing.

Ok, enough of me talking, let's take a look at the trailer, shall we?


And here's the skinny:
Title: The Brain That Wouldn't Die
Release Date: 1962
Running Time: 82 min
Black and White
Starring: Jason Evers, Virginia Leath
Directed by: Joseph Green
Produced by: Rex Carlton, Mort Landberg
Distribution Company: American International Pictures

The Brain That Wouldn't Die is available for free to watch or download here.
For DVD lovers, it's available from Amazon: The Brain That Wouldn't Die, and the MST3K treatment is also available: Mystery Science Theater 3000 - The Brain That Wouldn't Die.
Right now, it appears Netflix only has the regular version available to "Save" until they get more copies: The Brain That Wouldn't Die, but they do have the MST3K version available for rental now: Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Brain That Wouldn't Die


Until next time, Happy Treasure Hunting,
-Professor Damian

Mixed Genre Thursday - The Phantom Empire (1935) starring Gene Autry

Roy Rogers. Tex Ritter. Gene Autry. Singing cowboys. No, today's mixed genre exploration is not about the intersection of musicals and westerns, though we could certainly do that. Instead we're going to take it a level deeper, shoving one of these cowhands into an underground world, take away his six-guns and replace them with ray guns, and pit him against robots and a long-lost race of people. In other words, we're going western/science fiction with Gene Autry in the serial The Phantom Empire

For those of you unfamiliar with the concept of serials, for now let's just say that there was a time when going to a movie involved much more than just seeing a feature film. Instead, an afternoon or evening at the movies might involve seeing a cartoon, a short subject (often some kind of exotic travelogue), a chapter of the latest serial, and then either one feature or perhaps even two (thus giving rise to the term B-movie, as they were designed to play the second half of a double-bill). The serial would be usually anywhere from 12-15 parts, normally about 20 minutes long (though the first part, which had to introduce the characters and set-up was often longer), and a new "chapter" would be shown each week. Basically you can think of them as something like today's TV shows 24 or Lost, where a complete story would be told over a series of weeks. The main differences being that since televisions were not the household fixtures they are now, the serials would be shown in theaters, and each chapter would generally end with a cliffhanger in order to draw the audience back the next week in order to find out how the hero (or his sidekick or companions) managed to survive the predicament they found themselves in.

Ok, so that brings us to The Phantom Enpire. In it we find Gene Autry as the owner and head of the Radio Ranch, a dude ranch from which he makes a daily radio broadcast. Along with the usual assortment of ranch hands (who also double as radio personalities, Autry also has as friends two teenagers, Frankie and Betsy Baxter (Frankie Darro and Betsy King Ross) who, with their friends like to pretend to be the Junior Thunder Riders, the knights of an unknown city whose horses sound like thunder when they ride.

The only problem with all of this is that unfortunately neither Gene nor the kids know that there really are Thunder Riders. You see, 100,000 years ago, the lost city of Mu sank 25,000 feet below the surface of the earth, and its inhabitants, known as the Muritanians, now live in a fantastic underground city, full of towering skyscrapers, elevators that can take them to the surface, and robots to do their bidding. The city is ruled over by the evil Queen Tika, though there are forces within her empire that are plotting to overthrow her. When it's discovered that Autry's Radio Ranch is situated on the land where the Muritanians passage to the surface opens, Tika plots to kidnap Autry so that he will lose his radio contract and the ranch will be deserted so the Muritanians can continue their ongoing raids on the surface world without fear of discovery.

Yet another twist in the story is that someone on the surface world already knows about the Muritanians and the Thunder riders. That someone is Professor Beetson, an evil mastermind who has built a criminal empire and plots to invade Muritania to seize the radium they are using as a power source. Of course, the evil professor also wants to run Autry away from his ranch so that he can have unimpeded access to the entrance to the Muritanian underground.

Autry finally comes into conflict with the secret race when Tika sends the Thunder Riders to kidnap Betsy and Frankie in order to draw Autry into her lair. From there it's a cavalcade of wonder and excitement as the cowboy and his companions must learn how to deal with this futuristic land and find a way to escape. There are plenty of ray gun fights, explosions, cheesy robots and other thrills in each chapter as the kids and their hero must attempt not only to survive, but to topple the evil queen's empire and ensure that the Muritanians and surface people can live in peace.

Here's a trailer:


All right, I guess it's time for the skinny:

Title: The Phantom Empire
Release Date: 1935
Running Time: 12 chapters, 245 min total
Black and White
Starring: Gene Autry
Directed by: Otto Brower and B. Reeves Eason
Produced by: Nat Levine
Distributed by: Mascot Pictures

All twelve chapters of The Phantom Empire are available to watch or download for free here.
If your preference is DVD, it's available in that format from Amazon: Phantom Empire.
Or, if ya just want to rent it, it's also available from Netflix: The Phantom Empire

And if you've seen this serial (or have any other recommendations for serials you'd like to see tackled in my upcoming serials week), whether you agree or disagree with my take, be sure to let me know by clicking on the "comments" link below. Feedback (about the film or any other aspect of the site) is not only welcomed but encouraged.

Until next time, Happy Treasure Hunting,
-Professor Damian