They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968)

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They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968)

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At the end of World War II, Nazi officials spirited the living head of Adolf Hitler out of Germany to a hiding place in the South American country of Mandoras, in order to revive the Third Reich at a later date. By the 1960s these men believed the time had come, so they kidnap a top scientist in order to force him to help keep Hitler alive. Several intellgence agencies find out about the plot and send agents to stop it.

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They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968)

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They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968)

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They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968)

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They Saved Hitler's Brain (1968)

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The movie is indeed a pastiche of two separate films with separate casts, shot years apart. However, I take issue with Leonard Maltin and the others who refer to the Stanley Cortez footage (the latter part of the film) as being from the 1950s. The actors are dancing The Twist in the Dos Palabras club in one Cortez scene. The Twist became a craze in the Fall of 1960, and remained all the rage for the next couple of years. The original Madmen of Mandoras was released in 1963 (I have a 22X28 poster, complete set of lobby cards, and some stills from this flick). All this is consistent with an early '60s (probably '62 or '63) filming of the Cortez footage.
The el cheapo additional footage (the first part of the film) was probably shot sometime between 1972-1976. The "liner notes" to the Drive-In Cult Classics 2 DVD says the modification of the old Crown International Pictures for TV release began in 1972, and the first mention of "They Saved Hitler's Brain" in a TV listing was in December, 1976. BTW, StanleyCortez was a distinguished cinematographer who was nominated for an academy award - Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons; he also photographed Charles Laughton's Night of the Hunter. The professionally photographed latter part of the film compared with the totally amateurish photography in the first part of the film makes the hodgepodge all the more evident. (IMDB viewer)