The Atomic Brain (Monstrosity; Joseph Mascelli and Jack Pollexfen, 1963)

Dr. Otto Frank (Killers from Space's Frank Gerstle) is a scientist working on brain transplantation using atomic fission, testing his process on corpses, although all that results are mindless zombies. He steals a woman's body from the local cemetery with the aid of Hans, a dog's brain in the body of a car crash victim. Dr. Frank's elderly employer, Hetty March (Night Tide's Marjorie Eaton), "one of the richest women in the world, wants him to use this process to put her brain into the body of a beautiful young woman, and therefore advertises for a foreign domestic. Three women are accepted: Viennese Nina Rhodes (Mr. Sardonicus' Judy Peters), buxom Englishwoman Beatrice "Bea" Mullins (A Bucket of Blood's Judy Bamber), and demure, somewhat plain Mexican Anita Gonzales (Gentlemen Prefers Blondes' Lisa Lang). Mrs. March's aging gigolo Victor (Frank Fowler) picks them up at the airport. Dr. Frank examines each woman for physical imperfections. Mrs. March declares Anita, who has a prominent birthmark on her back, "hideous" and "useless." Nina, finding Mrs. March and her house understandably creepy, attempts to give notice, but the old woman dismisses her desire. Soon after, Anita hears a knock on the door of her room, and screams upon opening it. Nina and Bea attempt to escape the house, but to no avail, while Anita gets a new brain of her own.

Most people who know me well are aware that Mystery Science Theater 3000 is one of my all-time favorite shows. A lot of film buffs hate the show, but I'm not one of them. That said, I will admit that not every movie they riffed is completely terrible. My unironic love for Mario Bava's Danger: Diabolik knows no bounds, and I find a lot to enjoy in some of the Roger Corman films they did, to name two prominent examples. Therefore, if I review a movie on here that the Best Brains crew gave the razz, I promise to give it a fair shake. Bava or Corman this isn't, though, sadly. It was filmed in ten days, and it shows. For one thing, the science is dodgy even by early '60s horror film standards. How exactly does one use atomic fission and a cyclotron to switch brains? We never see Dr. Frank performing surgery, so perhaps he's actually switching minds somehow...except we see him holding Mrs. March's brain at one point! Also, how does having a dog's brain in a human's body give the resulting individual a beetle brow and fangs? Early in the film, the actor playing Hans seems to be wearing a furry mask in a few shots, rather than the makeup he wears throughout most of the film. The soundtrack seems oddly whimsical and light-hearted during some of the scenes that are supposed to be dramatic. The accents of the three "foreign" domestics are all over the place: Peters doesn't even bother; Lang recites her lines flatly with the occasional bit of Spanish, and answers a knock on the door with "Quien es? Who ees eet?"; and Bamber sports one of the most pitiful attempts at a British accent I have ever heard in any film. Seriously, she makes Keira Knightley's Russian accent in A Dangerous Method seem subtle by comparison. She also chews the scenery big time in the scene where she realizes something horrible has happened to her. Gerstle is definitely the best actor in the whole film, and has a great monologue about how he has been ostracized for his work, while Dr. Alexis Carrel, the real-life transplant pioneer, received a Nobel Prize. I choose to believe, and may make it official in a short story or novel someday, that Dr. Otto Frank, the mad scientist who revives corpses and was scorned by his peers, shortened his last name because of the stigma attached to the name Frankenstein and many of his relatives. It's hard not to read a lesbian subtext into the way Marjorie Eaton paws at and ogles her potential new bodies, especially Bamber. Frank Fowler's Victor delivers the charming line, "She doesn't have a brain. There might be advantages!" The voiceover narration by co-screenwriter Dean Dillman, Jr.'s better-known brother Bradford is even worse, containing such lines as "Making love to an 80-year-old woman in the body of a 20-year-old girl is insanity!", "She was quite harmless, and at times even amusing", and "So firm...so nicely rounded in places men like." Keep in mind two of the other screenwriters, Sue Russell and Vy Dwiggins, were women themselves. This is also the second movie in a row I've covered that lists an animal in the closing credits, in this case Xerxes(!!!) the Cat. Those expecting more than cheese will be disappointed, and I wouldn't blame any feminists for hating it, but it's prime riffing material, even if you're just playing MST3K: The Home Version.