The Madmen of Mandoras (1963)

Directed by: David Bradley
Run Time: 74 minutes

The Madmen of Mandoras promises intrigue, adventure, exotic locations, and a plot to destroy the world. Instead it delivers boredom, a meandering plot, and dollar store nazis.

The movie opens with a public service film about the dangers of G-gas and is being explained by Professor McGuffin to a dark room with people in military uniforms. G-gas is a chemical weapon that once released is lethal in every possible environment and in sealed buildings. Due the lethal nature of G-gas, every country on the planet is developing an antidote to this gas. In the US, Professor McGuffin is leading the efforts to create an antidote.

The protagonist of the film,  Jack Squarejaw, finally makes an appearance to help the plot stagger in the general direction of that way. Jack is Professor McGuffin's son in law and with the C.I.D. (I'm assuming Criminal Investigation Division of the US army, it's never explained and it's never mentioned again). He shows up to remind Professor McGuffin of his two daughters and that Jake is about to go home to have a mid afternoon martini with his wife.

Suddenly someone remembered that this is supposed to be a form of entertainment and stuff happens.  Professor McGuffin's youngest daughter, Suzzie McGuffin,  has been kidnapped by sinister men. When Professor McGuffin goes to investigate why his daughter has been kidnapped,  he in turn is kidnapped by yet more sinister men. Mr and Mrs Jack Squarejaw finished their mid afternoon martini and are about to go out for the evening when they are kidnapped by Juan Exposition. However, the sinister men show up and kill Juan before fulfill his family tradition of explaining the plot.  Also the sinister men have a union and they really hate scabs.

Jack Squarejaw leaps into action and searches Juan's body for any clues that will help advance the plot. Discovering that Juan is from the cough cough American country of Mandoras. So Jack leaves Juan's body for anyone to find and Jack and the wife fly off to Mandoras. In Mandoras, Jack and his wife meet the rather odd chief of police of Mandoras. Apparently Mandoras is a city state in cough cough America. The couple meet the Carlos Exposition after he breaks into their hotel room and he goes about discharging his family's sacred duty of explaining important plot points.

Juan had been a lab tech for Hitler's inner circle and assisted in removing removing Hitler's head from his body and keeping it alive. Also, Carlos warns the couple that Mandoras is crawling with unsavory types that will have next to nothing to do with the plot. Not heading Carlos' warning, the couple go to the only bar in Mandoras and meet up with Suzzie McGuffin. While hitting on Jack, Suzzie explains that the sinister men let have free reign of Mandoras as long as she didn't leave. This leads to a belly dancing slash shoot out were Suzzie and Mrs. Squarejaw are kidnapped. The chief of police cleans up after the sinister men and takes Jack Squarejaw to the next scene.

Everyone gets taken to the governor's mansion and find that Professor McGuffin is being subjected to an annoying  art installation or torture in the basement. In the basement it is revealed that the bloody nazis are behind all of the sinister behavior and are going to use G-gas on Mandoras and this will allow them to rule the world some how. The Squarejaws, Suzzie, Professor McGuffin, Carlos, the chief of police, and the governor of Mandoras all escape the mansion and the nazis and Hitler's head follow them. Jack Squarejaw has had enough of these nazis and Hitler's head, so him and Carlos ambush the nazis and kill them all. The End.

Underneath the D grade sci-fi cheese there was a decent noir thriller that for whatever reason never made it on to the screen. The only evidence I have that this movie did not start out as a weird sci-fi movie is that in 1968 Crown International Pictures, the distributors of this movie, got some film students to shoot an additional twenty minutes of film so it be sold as a TV movie. Repackaged as They Saved Hitler's Brain, the tone of the new footage is much darker than The Madmen of Madoras and leads me to believe that the original premises was more inline with a noir nazi hunt in South America.

As for is this movie watchable, the answer is a sold not really. It's a mess of a film that I fell asleep through on the first two viewings and the third time I watch the whole thing discovered that I didn't really miss a lot it just poorly explained. There is very little one can do to make this movie more entertaining other than to use it to torture people who are easily offended. As of this review being published it is available for free on Youtube and there are two or three Mill Creek DVD collections that include this movie if you are really hellbent on seeing this thing.

MVT: The most valuable thing goes to the mixture of bourbon, lemonade, and iced tea. It saved what little sanity I have left and made the stupidity on screen just fly by.

Make or Break: This movie goes through the effort of presenting all kinds of threats and reasons to be invested in the well being of the protagonists. Then minutes later forgets about the threats and hopes that the cardboard cut outs they passed off as characters will be enough to keep you interested.

Score: 0.5 out of 10

The Yesterday Machine (1963)

I usually applaud filmmakers for what they’re able to achieve on screen unless their product is so incoherent, so incompetent, that I want to do physical harm to the movie in some metatextual bloodsport.  It takes a hell of a lot to actually produce a film from soup to nuts and even more to get it distributed in any fashion.  This has arguably changed some with the rise in technology and its effects on the business.  Does this lessen my admiration?  If I’m being totally honest, yes, to some degree it does, but we’re not here to discuss that today.  We’re here to discuss Russ Marker’s The Yesterday Machine, a film about a Nazi scientist hiding out in the American Southland with a machine that can twist time.  Sounds at least mildly interesting, right?  Well, it isn’t.  Despite the low-fi charm of the production (including lots of post-dubbing, which is partly distracting, but when you hear the actors’ actual voices, it makes a bit more sense), and despite some of the more intriguing aspects inherent in the film’s basic idea, this is one deadly dull affair.  While it isn’t completely irredeemable (this is a very debatable statement, admittedly), it is most definitely something I would never recommend as a watch for anyone (unless that person were a masochist).  

It was keeping this in mind, combined with my general dislike for simply bashing on a film in my writing that lead to my approach to this particular review.  Here’s the lowdown: I asked my seven-year-old nephew (whom we will refer to as “Charles” hereafter, partly to keep his identity private and partly so I can claim authorship if anyone ever wants to pay money for this crap) to reinterpret the plot of The Yesterday Machine by drawing scenes he would rather see and stringing them together with a flimsy narrative.  To add some excitement (a la an episode of Family Feud), I gave him a time limit of three minutes per picture.  I’m a jerk, I know.  What follows is his pictures and a combination of his and my words, some concerning the plot, some concerning our conversation about clarifying said plot.  Enjoy.

Howie (Jay Ramsey) and Margie (Linda Jenkins) are out in the woods dancing one night, when Howie is suddenly attacked by a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  Howie screams as he is ripped apart by the dinosaur, while Margie screams.  But then she dances some more.

Dr. Von Hauser (Jack Herman) teleports the evil Hitler to the present, but a dinosaur gets in the way while the time machine is working.  Hitler and the dinosaur are put together into a monster with two heads.  To keep his master alive, Von Hauser builds a deadly robotic armor (might even be cybernetic) and puts Hitler and the dinosaur (which can be any except a Diplodocus) in the armor.

“How did Von Hauser put together armor fast enough to keep these guys alive?” I asked.

“He already had an armor built, just in case.”

Two-Headed Hitler uses Von Hauser’s Yesterday Machine to bring a giant ape (who is TOTALLY NOT King Kong - Todd) from the past.  But aliens from the future intercept the machine’s signal and send a giant monster to fight the ape.  The monsters destroy the city with their fighting, and the alien kills the ape with his chest lasers.  But with his dying breath, the ape chokes the giant alien monster to death.

“You know there were no such things as giant apes in the past.”

Blank stare.  

“Yeah.”

“Where’s Margie and Jim at this point?”

“Who’s Jim?”

“The reporter.  Remember?”

“Yeah.  They’re not here now.  They’re boring.”

Jim (James Britton [I guess he’s needed after all now – Todd]) gets control of the time machine and brings planes from World War Two to fight the Nazis.  But the aliens from the future send back spaceships too, and a giant battle takes place.  Everything blows up, but the good guys win it.

“But what about Two-Headed Hitler?”

“Jim threw him off the cliff.”

“A classic maneuver.”

Charles nodded.

“Where are the Nazis’ planes?  Don’t they have any?”

“They didn’t bring any with them.”

Jim sends all the planes back to World War Two, but Dr. Von Hauser is hiding in the lab.  They have a fight, but Jim kills him, and then he blows up the lab.  The End.

“That picture’s a little bloodthirsty.  I mean, bloodthirsty-er.  Don’t you think?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s the bad guy.”

Fair enough.  

Please direct any option inquiries courtesy of this post.  Until next time.  Good day.  

MVT:  The concept behind the film, while old hat, is still one from which a lot of compelling stories can be wrung.  It just isn’t the case here.

Make Or Break:  The first scene of the film (nay, the first shot) is of Margie’s hips gyrating to the “hip” rock ‘n roll music blaring from her tiny transistor radio.  Had the rest of the film been as entertainingly offbeat as this setup, I would have been in, at least on some level.  Unfortunately, these first few minutes are as much fun as you will have in this entire movie.

Score:  2/10