Solid monster film, even better in 3-D. Repeat after me: White one-piece swimsuit.
The Brain That Wouldn’t Die
This movie has EVERYTHING: a mad scientist (though handsome for the ladies), a car wreck, a decapitation, strippers, a Bette Page wanna-be, a talking head [not David Byrne] in a pan, a deformed assistant who gets his arm ripped off and bleeds out, a monster locked in a closet that you don’t see until the last 30 seconds, a fire that destroys everything, a damsel in distress, awful music, leering photographers, lab equipment, “pretty” girls being set up to lose their heads–the only thing missing is a lightning storm. Combine ingredients until movie turns into a big pile of .
It also has one of my favorite quotes ever (especially when applied to some of my musical endeavors):
“The paths of experimentation twist and turn through mountains of miscalculations and often lose themselves in error and darkness!”
^ I’ll see your “paths of experimentation…” (a fantastic line) and raise you, “Speak. I know you have a civil tongue in your head because I sewed it back myself.” (from I Was A Teenage Frankenstein)
Yeah, it really is a high quality movie. It was originally shot and shown in theaters using the polarized light technique which is very expensive all around, and yes, might have kept them from filming in color. Since then it’s usually shown in 3D with red and blue glasses that don’t do it justice. I’d rather have the color than the 3D.
^ No argument here. Our high school movie club rented and showed 3-D CFTBL–the “Big Bang” shot in the beginning was fantastic and the jungle background was eerily effective, but the other effects were too “Count Floyd” IYKWIM. Color would have been the better investment.
I wouldn’t count those as “cheesy.” They are actually quite good movies (and don’t really have monsters per se, either). Other good movies include the original of The Fly, The Thing from Another Planet, and Them!
To be cheesy, a movie should have an inane plot, bad direction, bad acting, bad dialog, and cheap special effects.
The director of Creature From the Black Lagoon has stated that he would not mind if they colorized it, provided they got the colors right. He said that the Gill-Man’s costume was a delicate shade of moss-green. Posters, comics, and toymakers always made the colors too garish.
As for lines, Bela Lugosi had a good one in The Human Monster.
“You are blind, Lou, and you cannot speak. But you can hear — and that will never do!”
I recorded The Atomic Brain aka The Monstrosity last night. Not sure I’ll bother watching it. This is a lame brain transplant movie. Released in the 60s it was actually shot several years beforehand. It shows several scenes of nearly naked young women which just adds to the cheese factor. Definitely qualifies as cheesy otherwise with nothing approaching quality.
The Devil Doll was on Svengoolie last night. It’s occasionally better than the typical shrunken people movie as the ‘dolls’ are used to commit crimes, but otherwise hardly worth the time. Many of these are so bad I’ll never watch them again, it’s not the old days anymore where they might be the only thing on TV late at night pass the time with, there’s always something better on TV now, even if not better by much.
ETA: I had not seen the other brain-related posts just above while writing this one. And mine is definitely not The Brain From Planet Arous.
Speaking of quotes …
I’m not remembering the movie’s name, but there was one of those late 1950s “classics” involving monsters that were disembodied life-sized human-like brains trailing a spinal cord & some spinal nerves and (IIRC) with eyeballs somehow hanging just below the brow of the cerebrum. And they could fly. Or at least jump out at victims from their hiding places. The humans called the monsters “ghouls”. Somehow the ghouls killed whoever they jumped onto. Or else transformed the human into a new ghoul; I forget which. Either way it was Not a Good Thing to get jumped by a ghoul.
Of course it takes place in a desert small town complete w earnest good guy but not too bright Sheriff, attractive sweetheart Nell, a scientist from the nearby military base come to investigate, and all the oh-so-hokey rest.
A one point the scientist is using technobabble to explain to the sheriff, the sweetheart, and a few generic townsfolks how to defeat these things. At which point the sheriff butts in: “So you mean, doctor, that if we kill the brain we kill the ghoul?” He replies something like “Yes, that’s pretty much it.”
My thought as an ~8-yo at the time: Hell, the whole thing is a brain; there’s not much else to kill. Now armed with this miraculous martial maneuver (and a bunch of shotguns) the townsfolk proceed to splatter the marauding mental meat menace all over the landscape.
But ever since, when I need a “no shit Sherlock!” comment it’s “If we kill the brain we kill the ghoul!”
I just clicked around in there, but the brains / ghouls look about right. And that movie name is tickling something in my brain. Though I seem to have messed up the setting; not a desert town. Awesome find; thank you! I’ll watch the whole thing some time (or at least try to) & report back if I find the scene.
And dayum did Nell get an “A” in brassiere! I was far too young to notice that the last time I watched.
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