Can death be outwitted? Is the secret of eternal life just around that corner?
Mrs. Hetty March (Marjorie Eaton) is an ancient rich bitch. She keeps on hand her aging gigolo boyfriend Victor (Frank Fowler) and a mad scientist, Dr. Otto Frank (Frank Gerstle). Mrs. March pays for his experiments. Dr. Frank uses dead bodies in his experiments. He transplants animal brains into them. And human brains into animals.
He reanimates the bodies back to life by the use of Atomic Energy. His process has something to do with surgery and immersion in a special cyclotron machine. But they are nearly brain dead. His fondest wish is to do his experiments on fresher kills. His latest experiments are allowed to wander around the grounds. One is a dog-brain man who growls and another is a zombie woman who just strolls around.
On the other hand, Mrs. March’s fondest wish is to have her brain put into the body of a beautiful young woman. To that end she brings in three foreign domestics. Each one is examined to see if they are proper specimens for Dr. Frank’s big experiment. They are a Mexican named Anita (Lisa Lang), a British woman named Bea (Judy Bamber) and an Austrian named Nina (Erika Peters). Three young women with no relatives.
Anita is determined to be unsuitable for Mrs. March so she gives her to Dr. Frank to experiment with. He puts a cat’s brain into her. She eats live mice and climbs on top of things. Anita then literally scratches out Bea’s eye. Bea was supposed to be Mrs. March’s new body but now Dr. Frank will have to use Nina’s.
Mrs. March’s basic plan is to change her will to make Nina her beneficiary. Then have her brain put into Nina’s body. After that she will burn down the house and pretend she died in the fire. Voila. She would then be able to start her new life as Nina and still have her money. She forgot one thing. Dr. Frank is truly mad.
"The Atomic Brain" AKA "Monstrosity" was released in (1963), (but it sounds like it was made in 1933.), and was directed by Joseph Mascelli. The narrator of the film is Bradford Dillman. And he narrates a lot. The cat was played by Xerxes the Cat. I was especially pleased with her performance. The movie is only 64 minutes long. Apparently in 2010 the movie was made into a musical. Bizarre, I know.
Is it bad? Yes. And somehow, even though it starts out bad, it gets worse. So worse that it manages to end up being good, with a cult following, and a musical about it. It’s a bad, bad movie that put the amp in camp. Whatever that means. It’s just plain stupid. I liked it.