Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind.
Speaker 2: This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today
Speaker 2: we're bringing you an older episode of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: This was our look at Creature with the Adam Brain,
Speaker 2: prominently featured in one of my favorite Rocky Ericson songs.
Speaker 2: Creature with the Adam Brain came out in nineteen fifty five.
Speaker 2: In this episode, originally published on July seventh, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: All right, let's jump right in.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And this is Joe McCormick, and today we're going to
Speaker 2: be covering a movie from the nineteen fifties about evil
Speaker 2: scientists who want to use long distance electrodes to power
Speaker 2: the brain of dead men to do their bidding. No,
Speaker 2: not Plan nine from Outer Space, Not The Bride of
Speaker 2: the Monster. It's another movie with a very similar premise.
Speaker 2: This was sort of in the air. Apparently, this is
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty five's Creature with the Atom Brain.
Speaker 1: Which has always been a confusing title because I think
Speaker 1: for a while I even just would read it as
Speaker 1: creature with the atomic brain, because what would adam brain
Speaker 1: even mean other than possibly super small brain.
Speaker 2: Obviously, Yeah, it seems like an advance on the insult
Speaker 2: pea brain. You know, you go down to pe brain
Speaker 2: and then what's below that atom brain?
Speaker 1: I guess, Yeah, but no, it's it's essentially in the
Speaker 1: same vein as atomic brain. But yeah, but not only
Speaker 1: is this like perhaps an idea of a reduced brain,
Speaker 1: also reduced runtime. This one comes in at a slim
Speaker 1: sixty nine minutes. The one of the reasons we picked
Speaker 1: it for this week was that we had a super
Speaker 1: long movie last week and we had a short week
Speaker 1: this week, so it seemed like a good time to
Speaker 1: dip back back into the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 2: Sixty nine minutes, that's I don't know, that's kind of
Speaker 2: on the long side for these movies. I think a
Speaker 2: Attack of the Crab Monster is more like sixty three.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Some of those Corman and cormanqu pictures come in
Speaker 1: at an hour or less, so yeah, they can get
Speaker 1: shorter now. The other fun thing about this pick is
Speaker 1: that it inspired a Rocky Ericsson song. Rocky Erickson was
Speaker 1: a if not the Texan psychedelic rocker who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: forty seven through twenty nineteen, did a number of songs
Speaker 1: that were inspired or referenced horror movies or horror movie themes,
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of a treat to get to
Speaker 1: talk about a movie that he strongly and directly references.
Speaker 1: I think another one we've talked about is possibly nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine's The Alligator People. But yeah, today's movie inspired
Speaker 1: the Rocky ericson track of the same name, Creature with
Speaker 1: the Adam, which you can find on the nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: one album The Evil One.
Speaker 2: I first heard this album, I'm pretty sure in the
Speaker 2: summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college. I
Speaker 2: was hanging out with a friend and he put this
Speaker 2: on while we were playing chess, and it quickly became
Speaker 2: one of my favorite albums of all time, though it's
Speaker 2: one that I think is apparently not for everybody. I
Speaker 2: thought it was just great, But I took The Evil
Speaker 2: One like back to school with me in the fall,
Speaker 2: and you know, I was playing it for all my friends,
Speaker 2: and I feel like a lot of them just weren't
Speaker 2: into it. But it's one of my favorite rock and
Speaker 2: Roll Records, every two Headed Dog, The Wind and More,
Speaker 2: Bloody Hammer, Cold Night for Alligators, Night of the Vampire,
Speaker 2: Creature with the Adam Brain, the hits never stop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you You originally turned me on to
Speaker 1: Rocky Erickson, and it took a little while for it
Speaker 1: to really good. Tooksend to me this album in particular,
Speaker 1: but eventually it did, and come back to it pretty frequently.
Speaker 1: They're they're pretty often pretty hard hitting songs. There's pretty
Speaker 1: heavy stuff at times, and the lyrics are tremendous fun.
Speaker 2: But I want to say that while a number of
Speaker 2: songs on this fantastic album, the album is very monster
Speaker 2: themed overall, and while a number of songs on the
Speaker 2: album make oblique reference to identifiable monster movies, for example,
Speaker 2: The Alligator People, there's a song on there called It's
Speaker 2: a Cold Night for Alligator as it talks about how
Speaker 2: the dogs choke on their barking when they see alligator
Speaker 2: persons in the bog and fog. I'm pretty sure the
Speaker 2: song Night of the Vampire must have something to do
Speaker 2: with a particular vampire movie. That's the one where if
Speaker 2: it's raining and you're running, don't slip in mud, because
Speaker 2: if you do, you'll slip in blood. That's just logic.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so a lot of these other songs, the
Speaker 2: references are kind of, you know, oblique illusions, but this
Speaker 2: one is just head on. The song is called Creature
Speaker 2: with the Adam Brain. It's about a movie called Creature
Speaker 2: with the Adam Brain, and the song, at multiple points
Speaker 2: just Rocky starts reciting dialogue from the film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so it's pretty dead on. And I looked around.
Speaker 1: I've never read any books, you know, dedicated biographies about
Speaker 1: Rocky Erickson, but I found an article, an interview from
Speaker 1: The Quietess. I'm not sure what year this is, but
Speaker 1: titled getting to Grips with Rocky Ericson, and there's a
Speaker 1: part where they ask him. The interviewer says, what's your
Speaker 1: favorite horror movie, and Rocky Erickson says, quote, I like
Speaker 1: the Creature with the Adam Brain, and I like The
Speaker 1: Giant Cricket. I like them too a lot. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: we have that to go on. The Giant Cricket, I think,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure he might be referring to nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: seven's beginning of the end, but yeah, pretty strong on
Speaker 1: the Creature with the Adam brain here. Maybe there's some
Speaker 1: other interviews where he goes into it more. But there
Speaker 1: is something it is interesting to think about because on
Speaker 1: the surface, if you watch this movie not knowing it
Speaker 1: was anyone's favorite, you might guess that it is no
Speaker 1: one's favorite. Like, there are a lot of fun things
Speaker 1: about it, but it doesn't necessarily scream top tier fifty
Speaker 1: sci fi horror. But it does some things extremely well there.
Speaker 1: You know, there are some moments that are far creepier
Speaker 1: than you might expect them to be, and the ones
Speaker 1: that I kept coming back to were these moments where
Speaker 1: our antagonist Buchanan, who will get into and who is
Speaker 1: referenced in Rocky's song, is using super science to compel
Speaker 1: the dead to do things or speaking through the dead,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, I kept coming back to that
Speaker 1: thinking about, you know, trying to figure out what Rocky
Speaker 1: found so fascinating about this movie.
Speaker 2: I agree with that assessment. I totally had a great
Speaker 2: time watching this, but I don't think it is top
Speaker 2: tier in any dimension. It's not like a truly great
Speaker 2: fifty sci fi film in terms of being scary or
Speaker 2: having interesting science fiction premises or in human drama, any
Speaker 2: of that. It's also not one of the most notable
Speaker 2: in terms of excesses of cheese, Like it's not in
Speaker 2: Edward territory. You know, this is a competently made film,
Speaker 2: but nevertheless it does have some things that are working
Speaker 2: in both directions, and overall it's a fun ride and
Speaker 2: it just moves right along. This is not a slow
Speaker 2: or dull film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it does. It does really really move right along.
Speaker 1: So anyway, it'd be interesting to keep all this in mind.
Speaker 1: And again we also have to drive home. You don't
Speaker 1: have to have any kind of like specific reason to
Speaker 1: champion a particular horror movie or sci fi movie that
Speaker 1: no one else does. I don't know, you know, this
Speaker 1: is just one that's stuck with Rocky ericson and he
Speaker 1: made it into a great song. So there you go.
Speaker 2: Sorry, I just put this together. You mentioned that. So
Speaker 2: he said the other one that might be his favorite
Speaker 2: as the Giant Cricket. And you think that might be
Speaker 2: Beginning of the end if that is correct. Beginning of
Speaker 2: the End is a bird Eye Gordon film.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, just had to flag that there might be
Speaker 1: something else that could be classified as the Giant Cricket.
Speaker 1: But this is the main one I came across, and
Speaker 1: it seems to be in that sweet spot of fifties
Speaker 1: films that he's into.
Speaker 2: This is the one, doesn't it have? Like one of
Speaker 2: the special effects shots in it is bird Eye? Gordon
Speaker 2: had a regular sized cricket crawling over like a postcard
Speaker 2: of the New York skyline.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's the one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's smart.
Speaker 1: All right, well, elevator pitch for the creature with the
Speaker 1: Adam brain. The best I could come up with is
Speaker 1: Popular Science Magazine, June nineteen fifty five, The Horror Movie.
Speaker 1: That's good, yeah, because there is a real feel of
Speaker 1: I just caught up on the latest, you know, bleeding
Speaker 1: edge science and now I'm going to write a script
Speaker 1: for a horror movie that we have to make next week.
Speaker 2: You know, I've got another take on it. So if
Speaker 2: Edward originally sold Bride of the Monster as Bride of
Speaker 2: the Atom, this is like they're exploring more stuff in
Speaker 2: that space. We already did Bride of the Atom. Whatso
Speaker 2: how about entry level employee of the Atom? And I
Speaker 2: think that that's sort of the premise here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, let's go ahead and listen to that
Speaker 1: trailer audio. This is pretty goodn.
Speaker 4: Fish and science creates an electronic monster so terrifying only
Speaker 4: screams can describe it. Come back home, Come back home.
Speaker 4: According to the evidence, Fanny was murdered by a creature
Speaker 4: with adam rays of superhuman strength and a creature that
Speaker 4: cannot be killed by bullets. I said I would live
Speaker 4: to see you die. I just came from the bureau
Speaker 4: and checked the murderer's fingerprints.
Speaker 1: His name is Willard Pierce.
Speaker 2: They let me have it from the.
Speaker 4: Finals petty theft for three months in prison to prcule.
Speaker 4: How could to burcular men I have strength enough to
Speaker 4: break those bars like that?
Speaker 1: Do you think that's something?
Speaker 2: Answer this one? How could a dead man have strength
Speaker 2: enough to do it?
Speaker 1: Fantastic? But based on scientific fact.
Speaker 2: Please hello, your flight.
Speaker 4: You will stop all planes and trucks searching for radio activity.
Speaker 4: If you do not, many people will be killed.
Speaker 2: There will be no other war. Hello, Hello, Hello, they
Speaker 2: hung up.
Speaker 1: Before I put the trace wrong.
Speaker 4: Slow down, Dave, Dave, Now the killed him.
Speaker 1: There you go. Based on scientific fact. This is a
Speaker 1: This is a film that that screams to be viewed.
Speaker 2: This is hard science, hard science. This is like it's
Speaker 2: like Asimov.
Speaker 1: All right, if you're before we go any further, if
Speaker 1: if if you would like to watch this movie before
Speaker 1: you get into the discussion, well you can.
Speaker 2: You can.
Speaker 1: You might catch a stream or two here or there,
Speaker 1: but the surefire way to view it is to pick
Speaker 1: up some physical media. There are a couple of nice
Speaker 1: collections that include it. One is the four DVD pack
Speaker 1: Icons of Horror collection Sam Katzman, which you can buy
Speaker 1: wherever you get your discs, that features the Giant Claw
Speaker 1: Creature with the Adam Brain, Zombies of Mara Tao, and
Speaker 1: the Werewolf. Arro Video also put these four movies out
Speaker 1: on Blu Ray in the set titled Cold War Creatures
Speaker 1: for Films from Sam Katzman, and I included a picture
Speaker 1: of the whole spread. Here, Joe, this one looks really nice.
Speaker 1: This is not how we watched it, but this will
Speaker 1: splendid if I can't even look at it too closely.
Speaker 1: Otherwise I'm gonna be tempted to buy this thing, and
Speaker 1: I don't have the shelf space.
Speaker 2: Gorgeous, Maybe I'm gonna buy it and then look.
Speaker 1: At that that that Adam brained creature right there on
Speaker 1: the cover. Beautiful.
Speaker 2: I gotta say the original posters for the creature with
Speaker 2: the Adam Brain are very good because they have a
Speaker 2: sort of like a green guy wearing a long coat
Speaker 2: with his arms outstretched walking towards you, and then instead
Speaker 2: of having him carrying an unconscious woman, they just have
Speaker 2: like an upside down woman at the bottom of the poster.
Speaker 2: They're like, oh, yeah, okay, we'll have that in there somewhere,
Speaker 2: but she's just like floating in white space. But then
Speaker 2: the green guy, his head is a drawing of an atom.
Speaker 1: So yes, there you go. Yeah, like the symbol of
Speaker 1: the atom just superimposed over his skull. All right, well,
Speaker 1: let's get into the connections on this one. So normally
Speaker 1: we would of course start with the director, but we're
Speaker 1: going to break tradition here and start with the producer
Speaker 1: since we just mentioned him and I think maybe it's
Speaker 1: fitting for this sort of release as well. And we've
Speaker 1: never talked about this producer before, but this is producer
Speaker 1: Sam Katzman, who lived nineteen oh one through nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: three American film producer and director, famous for his ability
Speaker 1: to pump out low budget features and cereals that actually
Speaker 1: made money. The genres were all over the place, as
Speaker 1: you might expect, but they obviously included horror movies. Not
Speaker 1: only did he do some beat Nick films, but I've
Speaker 1: seen some film historians credit him with the creation of
Speaker 1: the term beat Nick. I don't know if that's accurate
Speaker 1: or not, but at least he was in there enough
Speaker 1: that some people think he might have just come up
Speaker 1: with the term. He only directed five films, all of
Speaker 1: them released in nineteen thirty seven, but he produced one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty four films, and some of the more
Speaker 1: well known titles here include some very fun B movies
Speaker 1: that I think are much beloved. There's nineteen forty one's
Speaker 1: The Invisible Claw in nineteen forty twos The Corpse Vanishes.
Speaker 1: Those are both Bela Lagosi films. There's nineteen fifty six's
Speaker 1: The Werewolf, nineteen fifty seven's The Giant Claw. That's a
Speaker 1: giant bird movie, as I recall, nineteen fifty sevens The
Speaker 1: Zombies of Moratao and nineteen sixty sevens Kissing Cousins starring Elvis.
Speaker 2: Oh oh boy, is this one okay question? I haven't
Speaker 2: seen all the Elvis movies. Does he sing in all
Speaker 2: the movies? Or sometimes does he just act.
Speaker 1: You know, I've never watched an Elvis movie all the
Speaker 1: way through, but I assume he does. Why w don't
Speaker 1: you put Elvis in your movie if he's not gonna sing?
Speaker 2: I don't know. Elvis was handsome and surely well, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think they make movies with singers where they don't sing.
Speaker 1: They do, they do, And you know, I think we've
Speaker 1: we've we've certainly watched some things that had singers in
Speaker 1: him and they don't sing.
Speaker 2: Does Chris Christofferson sing in Blade? I don't think he does.
Speaker 1: He does not. Every Elvis movie I've seen a part
Speaker 1: of includes him singing. But yeah, I mean maybe he didn't.
Speaker 1: I just don't know if he sings in all of them?
Speaker 1: Right in, let us know, all right? The director is
Speaker 1: Edward L. Kahn, who lived eighteen ninety nine through nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three. I've seen him referred to as the one
Speaker 1: week Wonder because he could apparently absolutely pump these movies out.
Speaker 1: He was a kind of you go to guy, you
Speaker 1: gotta a B movie that needs to be made, it's
Speaker 1: definitely got that B movie budget. This is the guy
Speaker 1: that will get you across the finish line. He was
Speaker 1: all about quantity over quality and was highly prolific in
Speaker 1: the low budget film scene for three decades, directing one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty eight films, a lot of b movies.
Speaker 1: Certainly didn't win any Oscars or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: there's some really fun movies in the mix. You might
Speaker 1: know him from some of his nineteen fifties horror and
Speaker 1: sci fi films, some of which have actually wound up
Speaker 1: on Mystery Science Theater three thousand and the like over
Speaker 1: the years. There's nineteen fifty seven's It The Terror from
Speaker 1: Beyond Space, which is often cited as being very influential
Speaker 1: and in particular influential on Dan O'Bannon's alien work in
Speaker 1: the decades to come.
Speaker 2: How many different movies have we cited as likely inspiring Alien.
Speaker 2: We're getting to the point where I don't know if
Speaker 2: it makes sense to say it's inspired by because if
Speaker 2: it's inspired by like seven different movies, then that's just synthesis,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, I agree. Yeah, there's a whole list of
Speaker 1: them at this point, but I don't know. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, The Tear from Beyond Space. It be interesting
Speaker 1: to see exactly exactly what texture or detail he could
Speaker 1: have conceivably taken from that. Other films from this director
Speaker 1: include Invasion of the Saucer Men, The Zombies of Marital
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty six, is The She Creature, fifty nine's The
Speaker 1: Invisible Invaders, and The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake. He
Speaker 1: did a lot of westerns action films, bikers, various social
Speaker 1: exploitation films of the thirties, forties, fifties, and very early sixties.
Speaker 2: I have seen a description of his movie The Invisible
Speaker 2: Invaders as being pretty much the same premise as Creature
Speaker 2: with the Adam Brain, except instead of a gangster and
Speaker 2: a scientist, it's aliens who are using the who are
Speaker 2: reanimating the remote controlled corpses. Nice.
Speaker 1: I mean, you got a winning concept, you keep doing
Speaker 1: it all right? Well, that brings us who are the
Speaker 1: writer of this piece? And this is a writer we've
Speaker 1: discussed prefeit on Weird House. This is Kurt cid Mack,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen oh two through the year two thousand.
Speaker 1: He wrote the screenplay for nineteen forty six as The
Speaker 1: Beast with Five Fingers, starring Peter Lorii, which we talked about.
Speaker 1: He also wrote a novelization of that particular screenplay. He
Speaker 1: was a German born novelist, screenwriter and director who left
Speaker 1: Germany for first the UK and then the US due
Speaker 1: to concerns over rising anti Semitism under the Nazis. His
Speaker 1: German output was already pretty successful prior to all. This
Speaker 1: included a sci fi film titled FP One Doesn't Answer
Speaker 1: about a sort of sci fi aircraft carrier base. He
Speaker 1: did British war thrillers in some comedies, but then he
Speaker 1: struck it big with his nineteen forty one screenplay for
Speaker 1: The Invisible Man Returns and his original screenplay for forty
Speaker 1: one's The Wolfman, starring Claude Rains, Bell Lagosi and Lon
Speaker 1: Cheney Junior. He went on to write a whole lot
Speaker 1: of screenplays, including Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman forty three, I
Speaker 1: Walked with a Zombie from forty three, Son of Dracula
Speaker 1: also forty five, He House of Frankenstein from forty four,
Speaker 1: and many more. He wrote the forty two sci fi
Speaker 1: novel Donovan's Brain, which was adapted three times. Also. His brother,
Speaker 1: Robert Cimc was a director known for nineteen forty six
Speaker 1: is The Killers and The Spiral Staircase among others.
Speaker 2: You mentioned that he wrote the movie I Walked with
Speaker 2: a Zombie from nineteen forty three. I Walked with the
Speaker 2: Zombie is also the name and pretty much the entire
Speaker 2: lyrical content of another song by Rocky Erickson on the
Speaker 2: album The Evil One, which just repeatedly proclaims I walked
Speaker 2: with the Zombie last night.
Speaker 1: Great stuff. Yeah, definitely go go listen to some of
Speaker 1: this album after you listened to this podcast episode. As
Speaker 1: far as the script for this movie goes, you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps nothing special on the grand scheme of things, but
Speaker 1: I think it does seem legitimately interested in creating something
Speaker 1: inspired by the frontiers of science of the day, maybe
Speaker 1: on a tight schedule and a limited budget, obviously, But
Speaker 1: I also thought the die log is mostly pretty snappy,
Speaker 1: even if on the whole the movie feels very explanatory
Speaker 1: and procedural. Reminds me of some of the serials I've
Speaker 1: seen from this time period, but better pace, better acted,
Speaker 1: and so forth. All right, let's get into the cast here.
Speaker 1: Our star is Richard Dinnon playing doctor chet Walker. Dinning
Speaker 1: lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen ninety eight. Now you might
Speaker 1: well recognize this lean cut of fifties leading man here
Speaker 1: because he did work quite a lot, and he's probably
Speaker 1: best remembered though for one particular creature feature. His credits
Speaker 1: go back to the late nineteen thirties with various adventure films, comedies,
Speaker 1: and so forth. But in nineteen fifty four he starred
Speaker 1: in Jack Arnold's Creature from the Black Lagoon.
Speaker 2: Was he one of the forgettable humans in it?
Speaker 1: He's the forgettable human in it?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Okay, look up if for some reason you're looking up
Speaker 1: stills from a Creature from the Black Lagoon and you
Speaker 1: don't focus on that fabulous monster costume, you'll probably see
Speaker 1: Richard Dinning standing around, you know, shirtless boat or on
Speaker 1: a boat with a shotgun, comforting a woman. That sort
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 2: I would say, Richard Dinning is not bad in this movie,
Speaker 2: but not great either. He's sort of there, He's fine.
Speaker 1: It's a very warkhorse performance, Like does he do anything wrong?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Is there anything bad?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Is there anything where you're like, Yeah, you really leaned
Speaker 1: into that and made it more interesting than it should
Speaker 1: have been. It's hard to make a case for that,
Speaker 1: but absolutely fulfills the role here. So after Black Lagoon
Speaker 1: he continued to act in war in action films, and
Speaker 1: really most of his output is not sci fi or horror.
Speaker 1: But it's just one of those quirks where I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, Creature from the Black Lagoon casts a far
Speaker 1: greater shadow than perhaps anything else he was in, certainly
Speaker 1: in terms of things we're likely to discuss on Weird House,
Speaker 1: but he was also in nineteen fifty seven's The Black Scorpion.
Speaker 1: I know this is a monster movie you've been tempted
Speaker 1: to do before, Joe, because it has a kind of
Speaker 1: a redunculous looking monster in it.
Speaker 2: I've the name sounds familiar, but I've forgotten what this
Speaker 2: monster is. I must have sent it your way. Let
Speaker 2: me look it up. Oh yes, okay, yeah, we may
Speaker 2: have to return to this someday. Sorry. I got briefly
Speaker 2: sidetracked because there's apparently another unrelated movie called Black Scorpion
Speaker 2: from the nineties that looks like some kind of I
Speaker 2: don't know, erotic action movie or something. I'm seeing a
Speaker 2: lot of shiny leather.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's some sort of like syndicated female superhero thing. Now,
Speaker 1: this one was like a desert monster movie with a
Speaker 1: big goofy scorpion monster in it.
Speaker 2: That sounds right, Okay, yeah, yeah, well I have to
Speaker 2: take a look again.
Speaker 1: He was also in nineteen fifty five's The Day the
Speaker 1: World Ended, and if you're looking outside of genre, he
Speaker 1: also had a pretty i think third billing in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty seven's Unaffair to Remember, which is a pretty big picture,
Speaker 1: but not creature level. Not creature level.
Speaker 2: I'd say his role in this movie is somewhat likable actually,
Speaker 2: except he's somewhat flip about danger to his child. We
Speaker 2: can come back to that later. But he really needs
Speaker 2: a dry martini and he is really into his wife.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I wasn't really prepared for just how all over
Speaker 1: each other. These two are the married couple that we
Speaker 1: have in the film of Doctor chat Walker and Joyce Walker.
Speaker 2: It is an enthusiastic marital relationship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even though I think they have the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: like single pair of single beds in the bedroom.
Speaker 2: They got the twin those four but yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that was interesting. But yeah. Joyce Walker is
Speaker 1: played by Angela Stevens, who lived nineteen twenty five through
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, nineteen fifties blonde bombshell who pretty much only
Speaker 1: acted during that decade, retiring fairly early on for family reasons.
Speaker 1: But she did a nice smorgas board of b cinema, westerns, horror,
Speaker 1: women in prisons, jungle adventures, that sort of thing. This
Speaker 1: may well be her her biggest role, but she also
Speaker 1: has an uncredited role in nineteen fifty six is the
Speaker 1: Harder They Fall? Now, what does she do in this
Speaker 1: film aside from you know, being doctor Chet's loving wife,
Speaker 1: you know, again for the for the nineteen fifties especially,
Speaker 1: they're they're kind of all over each other.
Speaker 2: They are, And she also like she's really keeping up
Speaker 2: with the news and with the caper, because there are
Speaker 2: multiple points where like she reveals a detail to one
Speaker 2: of the investigators or even to the bad guy in
Speaker 2: the form of an adam brain zombie who is sitting
Speaker 2: in her living room playing with her child that ends
Speaker 2: up moving the plot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so I think that's a good point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she's not nearly as minimal a presence as you might
Speaker 1: find the hero's wife in many of these films from
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties and so forth. All Right, our movie
Speaker 1: does have a German mad scientist, and it is doctor
Speaker 1: Wilhelm Steig played by Gregory Gay who lived nineteen hundred
Speaker 1: through nineteen ninety three. He was a Russian born actor
Speaker 1: who left after the nineteen seventeen October Revolution. His first
Speaker 1: screen role was an uncredited role as an officer in
Speaker 1: John Barrymore's nineteen twenty eight silent movie about the final
Speaker 1: days of Czarist Russia, Tempest, but he went on to bigger,
Speaker 1: small roles, bigger supporting roles, often playing Russians or Germans,
Speaker 1: often playing diplomats. I think he even shows up on
Speaker 1: the sixties Batman series at one point playing a Russian
Speaker 1: diplomat uncredited. Some of his more visible roles include a
Speaker 1: bit part of a German banker in nineteen forty two's Casablanca,
Speaker 1: a casino owner in nineteen sixties Oceans eleven, and he
Speaker 1: also pops up in nineteen sixty one's Blue Hawaii. This
Speaker 1: starred Elvis and was filmed at the hotel from Death Moon,
Speaker 1: the Coco Palms Resort.
Speaker 2: It just occurred to me, I can't believe they never
Speaker 2: made an Elvis werewolf movie. Can you imagine how he
Speaker 2: could howl?
Speaker 1: Oh man? Yeah? Off the top of my head. I
Speaker 1: don't yeah, I don't think any Elvis movies get into
Speaker 1: horror sci fi, they're all they're all based more in
Speaker 1: just kind of teeny boppy comedy and drama.
Speaker 2: Elvis Presley starring in The Werewolf of Makeout Beach.
Speaker 1: It would have been good. All right. We have another
Speaker 1: villain in this and it is Frank Buchanan. This is
Speaker 1: the character whose name is reference in the Rocky Ericson song.
Speaker 1: This character is played by Michael Granger, who lived nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty three through nineteen eighty one. He is our and
Speaker 1: we'll have to come back to this. I guess he's
Speaker 1: our deported American mobster who was wandering around Europe, found
Speaker 1: alf a German mad scientist, and now has returned to
Speaker 1: seek vengeance on both sides of the law with super science.
Speaker 2: How does one like acquire so you need a doctor
Speaker 2: Fritz to make zombies for you? How do you acquire one?
Speaker 1: You just you. I took it to be like the
Speaker 1: situation where he found this guy. He started financing his work,
Speaker 1: and then you know, once you've been financed by someone
Speaker 1: like this, after a while, you know what they're gonna do.
Speaker 1: They're like, it's time to move this project back to
Speaker 1: the States and begin the next phase, which is Project Vengeance,
Speaker 1: Project Personal Vendetta.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, Granger is pretty interesting because he's an American actor
Speaker 1: of stage and screen who mostly worked small parts on
Speaker 1: the on the screen in the likes of nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: three's The Big Heat and the Magnetic Monster, one of
Speaker 1: only a handful of movies that Kurt siat Meca actually directed,
Speaker 1: as well as nineteen fifty eight Murder by Contract. But
Speaker 1: he was also very active on Broadway and was in
Speaker 1: the original Broadway run of Fiddler on the Roof. Oh
Speaker 1: now it's been It's been a long time since I've
Speaker 1: seen Fiddler on the Roof. I think I saw it
Speaker 1: as a child, so I haven't watched it in a while.
Speaker 1: But he plays a character the butcher named Lazarre Wolf.
Speaker 1: Not laser Wolf, I assume, but Lazarre Wolf. And this
Speaker 1: would have been from like nineteen sixty four through nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy two.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, you know, I do remember it being emphasized
Speaker 2: as laser Wolf. Really, I don't. I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's how they would actually say it in Russia, but
Speaker 2: I remember it like scans that way for the lines
Speaker 2: in some of the songs. Wolf is the so the
Speaker 2: oldest daughter, Zetol, is engaged to laser wolf but she
Speaker 2: doesn't love him. She loves what's his name the other
Speaker 2: I think Muttle the tailor. And so there's this whole
Speaker 2: like like, Teva wants to find a way to get
Speaker 2: his daughter out of that engagement so she can marry
Speaker 2: the guy she really loves, and so he has to
Speaker 2: come up with this scheme where he may up a
Speaker 2: dream with a bad omen where where Laser Wolfe's wife
Speaker 2: will come back as a wraith. And do you remember
Speaker 2: any of this?
Speaker 1: No, man, I don't remember it wraiths or anything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I just remember. I literally just remember the same
Speaker 1: there's there's someone does sing on a roof, right or
Speaker 1: is that a fabricated memory plays a fiddle on a roof.
Speaker 1: That's okay, that's the part I remember.
Speaker 2: No, Okay, well, yeah I remember. It's actually a great subplot.
Speaker 2: So basically, the guy he wants his daughter to be
Speaker 2: able to marry the guy she loves instead of the
Speaker 2: guy she's engaged to, and in order to do so,
Speaker 2: he makes up a fake death omen dream.
Speaker 1: Hm hmm, okay, I really need to I need to
Speaker 1: see it again. That's it? Or I almost see it
Speaker 1: for the first time. Anyway, Granger, I really liked him
Speaker 1: in this. He has a voice that's just as smooth
Speaker 1: as crushed velvet, and he gives way more charisma to
Speaker 1: this role than I think anyone was asking of him.
Speaker 1: He's he's quite good. I don't want to take anything
Speaker 1: away from Dinning, because again, he's he's solid, hits all
Speaker 1: the right notes. But Granger brings that nice bit of
Speaker 1: something extra to the role, Like the dialogue is already
Speaker 1: nice and snappy, but he breathes just a little extra
Speaker 1: malice and machination into everything, which is especially potent when
Speaker 1: he is speaking into the minds of the dead or
Speaker 1: through the dead, because I think if memory serves the
Speaker 1: voice we hear come out of most of the walking
Speaker 1: dead the Atom creatures is the voice of Granger, the
Speaker 1: voice of Buchanan, and Yeah, it's eerie and effective.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Later they upgrade their technology so that the Adam
Speaker 2: Brain zombies can speak with their own voice, but they
Speaker 2: only do that for day if I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is I think more plot oriented than anything
Speaker 1: we'll get into the end of Dave.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know exactly how it works that when
Speaker 2: the earlier ones talk they speak with Buchanan's voice because
Speaker 2: they would still be using their vocal cords, but I
Speaker 2: don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, special effects, which I guess they're not that impressive
Speaker 1: in this particular film, are worth noting here just because
Speaker 1: they're by Jack Erickson, who lived nineteen eleven through nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight, special effects guy who worked with Ray Harryhusen
Speaker 1: the same year on It Came from Beneath the Sea,
Speaker 1: which was also part of the double feature with this
Speaker 1: very film.
Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Ericson also has a special effects credit on the Galaxy
Speaker 1: Being episode of the classic Outer Limits series. That episode
Speaker 1: starred Cliff Robertson, but more notable than Robertson, it featured
Speaker 1: one of the series more memorable aliens. This was this
Speaker 1: kind of like weirdly glowing creature that. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: go back and watch any Outer Limits episode from this
Speaker 1: time period, that's the one to check out, because the
Speaker 1: creature absolutely pops.
Speaker 2: Galaxy Being. I can't help but imagine that title inspired
Speaker 2: the title of the later Don Dollar film Galaxy Invader.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely it did. Love Galaxy Invader. That
Speaker 1: one's good, all right. Finally, just a note on the
Speaker 1: music here, it's all stock music, so there's somebody to
Speaker 1: single out here, just all stock music. Nothing remarkable about it. Now,
Speaker 1: all right, well, shall we get into the plot.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. You know what, quite strong opening. In fact,
Speaker 2: I would say I think the best looking shot in
Speaker 2: the film is the very opening shot. So we come
Speaker 2: up on a kind of a silent alley way in
Speaker 2: the night time, with trees and shrubbery crowding in on
Speaker 2: both sides, and then in the background, in the distance
Speaker 2: in the shot, there is moonlight pouring in from above
Speaker 2: in a kind of shaft, and that moonlight is falling
Speaker 2: on the dark shape of a man shambling slowly toward
Speaker 2: the camera as nothing but a heartbeat pounds on the soundtrack,
Speaker 2: and then the credits roll as he wanders in our direction.
Speaker 2: It's very very strong opening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't waste any time. You know, it's screaming,
Speaker 1: get kids, stop making out and watch your I guess
Speaker 1: second help of the double feature.
Speaker 2: But as I said, I don't think any other shot
Speaker 2: in the movie is as artistically composed as this one is.
Speaker 2: This is the best looking thing we're going to get
Speaker 2: now with my post. George Romero expectations. I thought this
Speaker 2: was going to be a decaying zombie coming toward us
Speaker 2: because of his shambling gait. But no, it is a
Speaker 2: man in a suit and a tie who looks actually
Speaker 2: pretty normal, except his expression is sort of vacant. He
Speaker 2: is a stocky, square featured fellow. He walks like right
Speaker 2: up in our faces. And then the next thing we
Speaker 2: see is him driving a four door sedan around some
Speaker 2: kind of winding mountain roads. So I was thinking, wait
Speaker 2: a minute, is he a zombie or not? Because zombies,
Speaker 2: as generally understood cannot operate motor vehicles, with the exception,
Speaker 2: of course, of Jason Vorhees and Jason takes Manhattan, because
Speaker 2: I stand by my assertion that Jason does drive the boat.
Speaker 1: Well, as we'll learn, this is a special kind of zombie.
Speaker 1: This is a super science zombies, so maybe different rules apply.
Speaker 2: Right. So the zombie non zombie guy, whatever he is,
Speaker 2: he parks his car beside a street lamp outside some
Speaker 2: large building that rob I wonder, what did you initially
Speaker 2: think this building was? I was like, okay, is he
Speaker 2: at like city hall or a nice hotel or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looked a like more official like that. I
Speaker 1: was a little surprised when it turned out to be
Speaker 1: more of a like a criminal underworld location as opposed
Speaker 1: to anything concerning like the you know, the city government.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought, maybe, oh, maybe this is a bank,
Speaker 2: but I think it's supposed to be a casino and
Speaker 2: maybe like an illegal underworld casino. So I don't know
Speaker 2: why it's so fancy looking, but yeah, So he gets
Speaker 2: out of the car, he shambles towards the building. Inside
Speaker 2: we see cashiers closing up money changing stations, and then
Speaker 2: we see a lackey in a tuxedo taking a bag
Speaker 2: of money into a spacious office decorated with nick knacks
Speaker 2: like there's a big Easter island head And this is
Speaker 2: the office of mister Hennessy, who is the number one
Speaker 2: head guy in charge of this hotel city Hall casino.
Speaker 2: The lackey reports that the take for the night was
Speaker 2: twenty grand. Hennessy seems pleased with this, and Hennessy opens
Speaker 2: up his wall safe and starts counting the money and
Speaker 2: narrating into his dictaphone as he does so. And interestingly,
Speaker 2: he's not counting in terms of he's not like counting
Speaker 2: the money. He is counting the numbers of individual bills.
Speaker 2: So he's like, this many hundred dollar bills, this many
Speaker 2: fifty dollars bills. Is that normal criminal behavior? I don't know. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: outside the window, the zombie driver keeps staggering toward the building,
Speaker 2: and then we see through the zombie's eyes, and then
Speaker 2: there's an interesting transition. We see through his eyes on
Speaker 2: a TV screen on screen. So now we're somewhere else
Speaker 2: in a laboratory. They make it easy to know where
Speaker 2: you are by like having electrodes emit zapping sounds. And
Speaker 2: there's a TV showing the zombies eye view, and there
Speaker 2: are two guys watching it. You've got a stout gangsters
Speaker 2: gangster looking man in a suit and a bespectacled scientist
Speaker 2: in a white lab coat. And the gangster guy is
Speaker 2: holding a microphone up to his mouth while the scientist
Speaker 2: is fiddling with knobs. Back at the casino, the zombie
Speaker 2: bends the bars outside the window to Hennessy's office. He
Speaker 2: just you know, grabs him with his hands, bends him back,
Speaker 2: and then smashes through the glass. He actually basically he
Speaker 2: just like flathand outward pushes through the window.
Speaker 1: There are numerous stunts where like a sort of roundish
Speaker 1: man goes through a plate of glass glass window in
Speaker 1: this movie. And I was looking at some of the
Speaker 1: stunt players and one of the guys did this I think,
Speaker 1: pretty much the same stunt in The Wizard of Oz
Speaker 1: as the Cowardly Lion. So I guess it was just
Speaker 1: like printed on this guy's business, like you need a
Speaker 1: like a slightly rotund actor to go through a window.
Speaker 2: I'm your guy, and I'll do it just by pushing
Speaker 2: the glass out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, obviously it's trick glass, but still specialized skill.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know if I can tell
Speaker 2: trick class just by looking at it. I will assume
Speaker 2: this was a safe set. Yeah, but anyway, Yeah, so
Speaker 2: the guy comes through the window. He goes up to Hennessy.
Speaker 2: He says in a in a mechanical voice, I told
Speaker 2: you i'd come back. And here we're getting into one
Speaker 2: of the bits of dialogue that Rocky Ericson just recites
Speaker 2: in the song. And the zombie says, remember Buchanan, and
Speaker 2: Hennessy says, but you're not Buchanan. The zombie says, I
Speaker 2: may not look like him, but I am him. Don't
Speaker 2: you recognize the voice, Jim, I promised to see you
Speaker 2: die and I will. Then Hennessy he whips out a
Speaker 2: pistol tries to shoot the zombie, but of course it
Speaker 2: does no good. The zombie grabs Hennessy lifts him up
Speaker 2: over his head and then we see only a shadow
Speaker 2: of the two figures cast upon the wall, and in
Speaker 2: the shadow, the zombie just folds Tennessy like a wallet.
Speaker 2: He just snaps him in half backwards like a kitcat
Speaker 2: bar crunch. It is brutal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love this. This is a great use of
Speaker 1: shadow and implying the physical violence. There's another example of
Speaker 1: this later on in the film, but this is the
Speaker 1: best example of it. It just lifts him up in
Speaker 1: a gorilla press and does this backbreaker death move. And
Speaker 1: as this was occurring, as he was like setting this up,
Speaker 1: especially where you see an actual zombie grab a good dude,
Speaker 1: grapple him and lift him up, I was like, I
Speaker 1: bet this guy's a wrestler. Sure enough. This role is
Speaker 1: played by former pro wrestler Carl Killer Davis aka Crippler Carl,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen oh eight through nineteen seventy seven. I
Speaker 1: was not familiar with this guy, but apparently it was
Speaker 1: a big heel in the thirties and forties. He got
Speaker 1: his first acting break playing one of the I think
Speaker 1: ten strongmen who opposes Mighty Joe Young in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: nine's Mighty Joe Young, alongside fellow wrestler turned actor Tor Johnson,
Speaker 1: as well as some other big guys like Italian boxer
Speaker 1: wrestler of the Day Primo Canara and anyway. This led
Speaker 1: to a whole career of heavy roles for Davis. And
Speaker 1: here he is our zombie.
Speaker 2: He's got a great look for film too, though he's
Speaker 2: got very kind of square head and sharp features. He's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Unlike Tor, I think he mostly played like heavies
Speaker 1: and like you know, enforcers and so forth, as opposed
Speaker 1: to outright monsters.
Speaker 2: Wait, this wasn't one of the communist saboteur wrestlers in
Speaker 2: the Mighty Tobar, was it.
Speaker 1: No, that was a different guy. But that was another
Speaker 1: one where you could tell, like the way he was
Speaker 1: I think it was the bumping in that one, Like
Speaker 1: the way he was falling down. You know, he could tell, Okay,
Speaker 1: this guy's a wrestler. He's got to be and you know, sure,
Speaker 1: enough once you know the signs, it's pretty clear.
Speaker 2: All right. Well so anyway, after the zombie just breaks
Speaker 2: Tennessee in half like a cracker, Hennessy's goons run in
Speaker 2: the start shooting at the zombie, but he seems unbothered
Speaker 2: by bullets. I think there are some squibs in this
Speaker 2: scene that look pretty good.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah, there are a number of effects in
Speaker 1: the film where people are like shooting through zombies, and yeah,
Speaker 1: it looks believable. A lot of films would just have
Speaker 1: the maybe you're having the gun actually fire blanks, and
Speaker 1: the rest is just implied.
Speaker 2: It's just a mid shot you don't like see it.
Speaker 2: But this was like you see like these squibs exploding
Speaker 2: out the back of the zombies suit jacket. Yeah, but anyway,
Speaker 2: zombie goes out the window, he gets in the car
Speaker 2: and drives away. Meanwhile, we see back in the laboratory
Speaker 2: where the two guys are watching Zombie ITV. The guy
Speaker 2: holding the microphone starts saying, come back home, come back home.
Speaker 2: So it's clear what's starting to become clear what's going on.
Speaker 2: This is like a remote controlled zombie or somnambulist or
Speaker 2: something here and then there's a kind of funny moment
Speaker 2: where the other guy grabs the microphone, like the scientist
Speaker 2: takes it from the gangster guy, and he starts saying
Speaker 2: in a German accent, get in the automobile, Get in
Speaker 2: the automobile, the automobile, get inside. So eventually the zombie obeys,
Speaker 2: and then the gangster guy this is Buchanan, and we
Speaker 2: already know that because he was the one talking through
Speaker 2: the zombie. Remember Buchanan, I am him, and the scientists
Speaker 2: this is doctor Steig. They chatter about how the zombies work.
Speaker 2: Buchanan is afraid that the zombie won't make it back
Speaker 2: because of his gunshot wounds, but Steig says that as
Speaker 2: long as he still has an ounce of fluid in
Speaker 2: his body, he'll keep moving. And when these creatures are
Speaker 2: damaged or run low on power, they automatically return to
Speaker 2: the home base.
Speaker 1: Like a room.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like that. But there's also you can see
Speaker 2: emerging some conflict between Buchanan and Stig zombie mission control.
Speaker 2: Buchanan is pleased. He's like, all right, that was the
Speaker 2: first of them, first of the people on my murder list,
Speaker 2: But there are more we have to send our zombies
Speaker 2: after and then Steig kind of breaks into a lament.
Speaker 2: He's like, oh, you know, I invented these remote control
Speaker 2: zombies hoping that they could be used to help humanity
Speaker 2: because they could do tasks that were dangerous for living workers.
Speaker 2: But now that I'm working with Buchanan, he's like, all
Speaker 2: you want to do is see people die. But Buchanan protests,
Speaker 2: He's like, look, I don't just want to see people die.
Speaker 2: I want to see particular people die and I'll get
Speaker 2: them all. After this, Buchanan and Steig go into the
Speaker 2: first of many in the movie almost ritualistic scenes of
Speaker 2: dressing in these lead lined suits with respirator hoses and
Speaker 2: crawling through a plastic lined tunnel into the operating room,
Speaker 2: which I think we assume must be flooded with radiation.
Speaker 2: This is kind of the storage room for more zombies
Speaker 2: like our spine cruncher friend, and these are the titular
Speaker 2: creatures with the atom brains. Now, while in the radioactive room,
Speaker 2: they have to decommission a couple of Adam brain dudes
Speaker 2: who have deteriorated beyond use. Because Stig explains, different parts
Speaker 2: of the body die at different times and buchanans like,
Speaker 2: does the brain still die first? And Steig says, always,
Speaker 2: the brain always dies first.
Speaker 1: They didn't have an acid vat for this though. This
Speaker 1: would have been a great time to have an acid vat.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you know you think that the they say
Speaker 2: it so portentously, you almost think that the brain always
Speaker 2: dies first is going to become a plot point. But
Speaker 2: I don't think it does.
Speaker 1: That's I think that this is something we can chalk
Speaker 1: up to, but not only the script of the performances here,
Speaker 1: but there are a lot of lines like this that
Speaker 1: that work far far better than they they probably that
Speaker 1: they could have or certainly should have. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like it this is not an important detail, but you
Speaker 1: know it still kind of zings and sticks with you.
Speaker 1: And I don't think this is Granger speaking this line.
Speaker 1: I think this is this is the doctor.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, But all right, that's sort of the setup
Speaker 2: for the film. You start to see, like what the
Speaker 2: supernatural or science fiction premises, what comes next in this
Speaker 2: kind of movie. Police arrive on the scene, of course, investigators,
Speaker 2: and one of them is our hero, who seems to
Speaker 2: be I'm going to say that the hero character is
Speaker 2: the product of a compromise in the writer's room. They
Speaker 2: went something like this, It's let's see, should our leading
Speaker 2: man be a cop or a scientist? What if he
Speaker 2: was both? So our hero, Chet Walker is some kind
Speaker 2: of science cop. He is a cop, but he heads
Speaker 2: up a forensic laboratory full of microscopes and glass slides
Speaker 2: and Geiger counters, and he seems to be, I don't know,
Speaker 2: like a mister wizard detective. He's like where the police
Speaker 2: come to console his genius in order to solve murder cases.
Speaker 2: But they also don't just refer evidence to him. He's
Speaker 2: like always first on the scene investigating the crime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is kind of like the nineteen fifties version
Speaker 1: of CSI. I guess you know where you have the
Speaker 1: forensic expert. He's also just very, very and perhaps unrealistically
Speaker 1: front and center of any investigation.
Speaker 2: All right, So chet and colleagues are on sen at
Speaker 2: the casino where Hennessy got crunched like a ritz cracker,
Speaker 2: and they discover several interesting things. They say, whoever broke
Speaker 2: in was able to bend back the iron bars outside
Speaker 2: the window with his bare hands. They noticed the perpetrator
Speaker 2: did not bother to steal the money from the safe.
Speaker 2: They say he was shot, leaving behind a trail of
Speaker 2: blood and yet was still able to escape, and then
Speaker 2: finally they discovered that his blood, his fingerprints, and his
Speaker 2: footprints all glow in the dark. Also in this scene
Speaker 2: there is the beginning of a theme where Chet is
Speaker 2: followed around by a gang of I don't know, like
Speaker 2: five to seven excitable and fairly credulous reporters who are
Speaker 2: all slobbering for a story. And so the reporters are like,
Speaker 2: how did he ben those bars? And Chet says maybe
Speaker 2: he ate all his vitamins, and the reporters like vitamins
Speaker 2: like he thinks, so maybe this is a real scoop.
Speaker 2: I don't know about vitamins vitamins behind iron bar killing,
Speaker 2: I think. In the scene we also meet Chet's friend Dave,
Speaker 2: who is some other kind of cop. Is he supposed
Speaker 2: to be like FBI or something or police captain? He
Speaker 2: seems in some way separate from whatever Chet is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I can never completely nail it down. I
Speaker 1: will throw in that. Dave is played by s John Lonner,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen through two thousand and six, mostly small roles,
Speaker 1: but appears in Hitchcock's Marnie from sixty four, Mommy dearis
Speaker 1: from eighty one and was also in both The Werewolf
Speaker 1: in fifty six, and I was a teenage Werewolf from
Speaker 1: fifty seven.
Speaker 2: So back at the lab, Chet analyzes the luminous residue
Speaker 2: and the blood left behind at the crime scene. He
Speaker 2: discovers that the blood is not blood at all, it's
Speaker 2: some kind of artificial concoction containing microscopic crystals. And then
Speaker 2: the question is why does it all glow? Well, Chet
Speaker 2: starts holding a Geiger counter up to it and it
Speaker 2: starts it's going nuts. And doctor Walker's like, this so
Speaker 2: called blood is radioactive, Dave says dangerously, So Chet responds,
Speaker 2: plus nine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, didn't throw in like you wouldn't want to be
Speaker 1: around this stuff for long because that's back on the
Speaker 1: desk and kids conversation.
Speaker 2: They just put it on the desk. You keep talking. Yeah, So,
Speaker 2: while leaving the lab, Chet is again intercepted by the reporters.
Speaker 2: They demand a story, and Chet tells them that Hennessy
Speaker 2: was killed by quote, a creature with adam rays of
Speaker 2: superhuman strength and a creature that cannot be killed by bullets,
Speaker 2: and the reporters are angered by this because they think
Speaker 2: he is pulling their leg, and one of the reporters
Speaker 2: threatens to misspell chet Walker's name, which this sent me
Speaker 2: down a rabbit hole of what would be the best
Speaker 2: way to misspell chet Walker. I'm gonna say, like Cheb Wonker.
Speaker 2: M M.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a delicate balance because you don't want to
Speaker 1: put anything in the paper that I'll get you in trouble.
Speaker 1: He's got to get it, get it, you know, the
Speaker 1: right level of insulting without being profane. But anyway, I
Speaker 1: like this one little back and forth here because it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll just tell you straight up what's going on with
Speaker 1: the zombie and dare you to print it? Dare you
Speaker 1: to take me seriously?
Speaker 2: So the next morning, Dave comes to Chet's house and
Speaker 2: he's greeted by Chet's wife, Joyce. This is when we
Speaker 2: first meet Chet's family. We find out he's not just
Speaker 2: any science cop. This is a science cop of the family.
Speaker 2: So he's had a wife named Joyce and a daughter
Speaker 2: named Penny. Penny has a cherished doll named Henrietta, and
Speaker 2: this leads to a weird exchange where Dave, who I
Speaker 2: think is like trying to feed either Penny or the
Speaker 2: Dolls serial. But Dave is like, you know, I used
Speaker 2: to go with a girl named Henrietta. And Penny says
Speaker 2: what happened to her? And Dave says, what happened to
Speaker 2: her shouldn't happen to your doll? She married a con man.
Speaker 2: Hey strange, But anyway, this is not a social call.
Speaker 2: Dave is here to discuss work. He has some alarming news.
Speaker 2: They got back a match on the fingerprints found at
Speaker 2: the crime scene. They belonged to a convicted criminal who
Speaker 2: died in jail twenty four days ago. From here we
Speaker 2: go to let's see, it's been a few minutes since
Speaker 2: we had a murder in this movie. We've got to
Speaker 2: have another Adam Brain murder. So now we cut to
Speaker 2: district Attorney McGraw, who we met at the first crime
Speaker 2: scene earlier. I think he had a line that was
Speaker 2: something like, look, just a district attorney, not a chemist.
Speaker 2: McGraw is getting in his car in his garage when
Speaker 2: he is startled by a strange man in a mechanics jumpsuit.
Speaker 2: It looks kind of like Michael Myers without a mask,
Speaker 2: and the man says I'm from Buchanan. If you know that,
Speaker 2: you know why I'm here. It's no use, McGraw. And
Speaker 2: then he reaches into McGrath's car and yanks the steering
Speaker 2: wheel out of its housing, and he says, I said
Speaker 2: I would see you die. I am watching you now.
Speaker 2: I think there's like an implied therefore, like he's saying
Speaker 2: I said I would see you die, I can see
Speaker 2: you now. Therefore you're going to die.
Speaker 1: Well, Buchanan knows he only has so much time to gloat.
Speaker 1: He's got to get to it with this remote death
Speaker 1: via reanimated corpse.
Speaker 2: Right, So this Adam brain lifts McGraw up by the
Speaker 2: neck and then crunches him somehow does another crunchy thing.
Speaker 2: So Chet and Dave arrive at the murder scene in
Speaker 2: the garage, and there is a doctor on site who's like, yes,
Speaker 2: of course, I already gave his wife a sedative. It
Speaker 2: is nineteen fifty five. I know what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 2: But he also concludes that McGraw was killed by having
Speaker 2: his bones crushed by a single hand. I can deduce
Speaker 2: that by looking at him somehow, And this leads Chet
Speaker 2: and Dave to conclude that it was the same murderer
Speaker 2: as Hennessy. But that doesn't make sense, they say, because
Speaker 2: Hennessy he was some kind of gangland boss and McGraw
Speaker 2: was a district attorney, so that was like cop and criminal.
Speaker 2: They're on opposite sides. How would they share a common enemy. Well,
Speaker 2: there are more clues. McGraw's car is radioactive now and
Speaker 2: the fingerprints of the murderer match a man who died
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago, so another dead man's fingerprints around
Speaker 2: the scene. And the reporters show back up again there,
Speaker 2: you know. They go up to Chet and they're like, hey,
Speaker 2: were you actually serious about these murders being done by
Speaker 2: a thing with a brain charged by Adam Rays? And
Speaker 2: Chet's like, yes, I was serious. And then the reporters say,
Speaker 2: hot dog, you know we had a scoop. We didn't
Speaker 2: even know it, And then they all run off together.
Speaker 2: I'm like, is that a scoop if all nine of
Speaker 2: you got it at the same time? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Are they all working for the same papers? This is
Speaker 1: the budget for this newspaper? Is a ditting question.
Speaker 2: They also they don't like stop to get a quote
Speaker 2: or ask any follow up questions. They just he just
Speaker 2: confirms it was Adam Brain's and they're like, okay, we
Speaker 2: got a story, and they run off.
Speaker 1: Confirmed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. After this, we go to one of my
Speaker 2: favorite characters in the movie. Who is uh is his
Speaker 2: name Dick Cutting?
Speaker 1: Dick Cutting?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, okay, So we go to Dick Cutting is
Speaker 2: a man who looks like he should be playing like
Speaker 2: a commander in the Galactic Empire in Star Wars. He
Speaker 2: has that kind of he should be Admiral Cutting.
Speaker 1: Played by Richard H. Cutting, who lived nineteen twelve through
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two.
Speaker 2: Wait, that's his real name.
Speaker 1: Apparently. Yeah. He was also an attack of the crab
Speaker 1: monsters in South Pacific.
Speaker 2: Oh, I didn't recognize him from crab Monsters. We'll see
Speaker 2: which one was he is he the scientist in it?
Speaker 2: I'll have to come back and doctor James Carson. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2: So he's got a news monologue which is just tremendous.
Speaker 2: His scenes are some of my favorite stuff in the film.
Speaker 2: So he says hello, ladies and gentlemen. He's sitting at
Speaker 2: like a very nice looking desk, and then behind him
Speaker 2: there's a shelf full of what looked like very old books.
Speaker 2: You know they're like, I don't know first editions or something.
Speaker 2: He says, Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is Dick cutting
Speaker 2: with today's commentary on the news. As you know, today's
Speaker 2: story hinges around the killing of District Attorney McGraw, whose
Speaker 2: body was found today in his garage, murdered in much
Speaker 2: the same manner as Hennessy was. What connection can the
Speaker 2: murder have to Hennessy, who was obviously a gangland boss
Speaker 2: is unknown at present. Chet Walker of the police Laboratory
Speaker 2: has given out a fantastic story so incredible that one
Speaker 2: can lend it little credence. Doctor Walker is of the
Speaker 2: opinion that these crimes are being perpetrated by dead men. Yes,
Speaker 2: I said, dead men restored to life in some unknown
Speaker 2: manner by being charged with atom Ray's which gives them
Speaker 2: superhuman strength and makes them impervious to bullets. Well, if
Speaker 2: you want to believe that story, you can, And then
Speaker 2: cut to Buchanan switching off the TV angrily.
Speaker 1: There'll be more from Dick cutting here in a bed.
Speaker 1: It gets even better.
Speaker 2: Today's commentary on the.
Speaker 1: News, filmed in what just looks like a lawyer's office
Speaker 1: as opposed to a TV studio or.
Speaker 2: Something, except there are curtains on the wall in the background.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, So Buchanan is mad that I guess they've
Speaker 2: figured out the whole scheme. And now, even though dick
Speaker 2: cutting does not lend it any credence, he's mad just
Speaker 2: to hear it being spoken, the lips of dick Cutting,
Speaker 2: even if to be dismissed. Yes, so Buchanan says, this
Speaker 2: doctor Walker has quite the imagination, and then Steig says,
Speaker 2: the kind of imagination that could prove dangerous to us.
Speaker 2: And then Buchanan says, you mean the kind of imagination
Speaker 2: that could prove dangerous to him? Ooh, Buchanan is ruthless.
Speaker 2: Now next we get another what I thought was a
Speaker 2: highlight of the film, which is the meeting at City
Speaker 2: Hall scene. This is like twenty two twenty three minutes
Speaker 2: in Walker meets with the mayor and a bunch of
Speaker 2: big wigs, including a General Saunders, and oh my god,
Speaker 2: this guy's line deliveries. I don't know if you found
Speaker 2: them as hilarious as I did, but they're just perfect.
Speaker 2: He's I don't know if I can do an impression,
Speaker 2: but you know they're they're introducing everybody, and he's like,
Speaker 2: I'm from the military called just concerned me. So Chat
Speaker 2: explains the creature with the Adam brain theory of the
Speaker 2: case by talking about Faraday's experiments with a frog's leg,
Speaker 2: you know, animating it with electricities, Like what if we
Speaker 2: could do the same thing but with a human with
Speaker 2: atomic rays and that, you know, basically like Colonel Sanders
Speaker 2: is oh wait, no, is that his name? Colonel No? Sorry,
Speaker 2: General Saunders. The genuine mistake here, okay, General Saunders, who says,
Speaker 2: oh ye sorry. Chat requests trucks and planes that can
Speaker 2: detect radiation so that they can find the headquarters of
Speaker 2: the atom brain monsters, and General Saunders is like, I'll
Speaker 2: go through your.
Speaker 1: Plans, oh man, So now the investigation into the atom creatures,
Speaker 1: the atom brain creatures is about to have military support.
Speaker 2: This is I think we've talked about this before, but
Speaker 2: this is a way that a lot of stories from
Speaker 2: this era are structured that makes them I think not
Speaker 2: nearly as thrilling or high tension as they could be
Speaker 2: just in the plot wise, because it basically has the
Speaker 2: heroes aligned with like powerful forces and many you know,
Speaker 2: lots of backup, like the police, and the military are
Speaker 2: aligned with the heroes, helping search out the isolated, besieged
Speaker 2: bad guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all all of the lawful good agencies are going
Speaker 1: to align and will overcome the I guess lawful evil
Speaker 1: or maybe chaotoic evil forces of the villain. Like, there's
Speaker 1: not really, there's no conflict among them, there's no question
Speaker 1: of confidence. It's just a matter of time.
Speaker 2: Really, all right. So somewhere in here there is a
Speaker 2: plot where Buchanan and Steige send a road assassin after
Speaker 2: Chet Walker. They figured out that he's onto them, and
Speaker 2: they get this guy in a car like trying to
Speaker 2: chase him down and run him off the road, but
Speaker 2: instead they just follow him to a military airfield where
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, actually we need to do surveillance. This
Speaker 2: guy's got something big cooking. But next there is a
Speaker 2: scene at Chet and Joyce's house, and I thought the
Speaker 2: sequence of this whole scene, the arc here is hilarious.
Speaker 2: So first Chet comes home, Chet and Joyce are all
Speaker 2: over each other, of course, then they announced it's time
Speaker 2: for dinner. Then Joyce sees a newspaper that has a
Speaker 2: banner headline do dead men walk city streets? Authorities tracking
Speaker 2: down all clues. Also some other headlines. I see building
Speaker 2: code under fire.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I feel that that was going to be
Speaker 1: the lead. But then this dead man walking the street
Speaker 1: thing popped up exactly.
Speaker 2: So Joyce gets the paper. She says, it's not true,
Speaker 2: is it? I assume she's not talking about the building code.
Speaker 2: She means like, is it true about the dead men?
Speaker 2: And Chet says, better hide it from Penny. Say, could
Speaker 2: use a really nice cold martini, So Joyce makes him one.
Speaker 2: And then as she is making him a nice cold martini,
Speaker 2: she's like, well, pennies out playing in the street where
Speaker 2: the atomic brains are? Is that safe? And doctor Chet says,
Speaker 2: there seems to be some sort of definite pattern. Can't
Speaker 2: put my finger on it, but I do know that
Speaker 2: Hennessy and mcgral were killed for a reason. And then
Speaker 2: Joyce is like, well, it's all right. Then he didn't
Speaker 2: really answer the question, and Chet says, well, for a while,
Speaker 2: I don't think they've gotten around to indiscriminate killings yet.
Speaker 1: That's not even part of the plan. Has been described
Speaker 1: by Buchanan. They are very specific killings. These they're not
Speaker 1: random killings either, a specific vengeance killings.
Speaker 2: But so Chet seems to be like, yes, it is
Speaker 2: okay for Penny to play in the street with the
Speaker 2: Adam Brains. And then Penny comes inside. She asked for
Speaker 2: the newspaper because she wants to read the funnies, and
Speaker 2: they lie and tell her it didn't come today. Then
Speaker 2: she wants to turn on the TV, and they lie
Speaker 2: and tell her the TV is broken. You know, it
Speaker 2: must be new tubes or something. Then Chet gets his
Speaker 2: martini and he's like, ooh, I've been thinking about this
Speaker 2: all day. And then Dave arrives. Captain Dave here arrives
Speaker 2: to explain more Adam Brain news, and then they send
Speaker 2: Penny to her room so she can't hear the conversation
Speaker 2: and they have a whole big argument about it. Penny's like,
Speaker 2: you know, oh, I you know, I promise not to
Speaker 2: bother them. They're like, no, you must go. I think
Speaker 2: they tell her to go to her room and like
Speaker 2: punish Henrietta the doll or something. So there is this
Speaker 2: persistent theme about them systematically hiding knowledge of danger from
Speaker 2: Penny while actually not protecting her from the danger itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course I think you could make a
Speaker 1: lot out of that too as a commentary on people
Speaker 1: growing up in the nineteen fifties and even some subsequent decades.
Speaker 1: You know, not so much as it concerns the threat
Speaker 1: of adam brained walking corpses, but various other issues in life.
Speaker 1: You know, this sense of being overly protective in one way,
Speaker 1: but not preparing a child at all for the realities
Speaker 1: of well, in this case, the walking dead.
Speaker 2: Right, So Dave has some information. He explains the backstory
Speaker 2: that he pieced together that could make sense of all this.
Speaker 2: There was this guy Buchanan, the old crime boss in town,
Speaker 2: who many years ago was tried and convicted of crime
Speaker 2: and then sent into exile in Italy. What was this
Speaker 2: like a common punishment in the nineteen forties. So you're
Speaker 2: convicted of being a mafia boss and instead of going
Speaker 2: to prison, you're sent to Italy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I had the same head scratching situation with this detail,
Speaker 1: and I was looking it up and I can't find
Speaker 1: anything that would support this as an actual reality. I
Speaker 1: think you can get instant just some murky stuff about
Speaker 1: US states being able to exile people from a given state.
Speaker 1: But I didn't come across anything regarding like judicial exile,
Speaker 1: like unless Buchanan was an Italian national. I guess maybe
Speaker 1: that would make sense, but there's nothing to indicate that
Speaker 1: he is or was. This is his name is Buchanan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a Scottish name. Yeah, So I don't know. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe there's something lost and re writes to the script
Speaker 1: like it's one thing if he was living in exile
Speaker 1: because he fled the law, like that would seem to
Speaker 1: match up. But this idea of being exiled even in
Speaker 1: like the nineteen forties, to another country because you were
Speaker 1: a criminal, career criminal, I just don't know if that
Speaker 1: makes any sense at all.
Speaker 2: Well, anyway, apparently when he was convicted, he stood up
Speaker 2: in court and swore revenge on Da McGraw and everybody
Speaker 2: else who had testified against him at trial, which included Hennessy,
Speaker 2: who was his number two, but also included three other guys,
Speaker 2: and we'll meet them in a minute. We also will
Speaker 2: eventually learn, via these repeated cabe that they received from
Speaker 2: police in Rome that while Buchanan was there, he made
Speaker 2: friends with a German scientist named Stig who did weird
Speaker 2: experiments on dogs, cats, and monkeys involving atomic radiation. So
Speaker 2: it's all coming together now for the police investigators. But
Speaker 2: they think, Okay, these other three guys who testified against Buchanan,
Speaker 2: they are in danger, so we got to round them up.
Speaker 2: And then at the very end of the scene, there's
Speaker 2: a strange thing where Joyce offers Chet a second Martini
Speaker 2: to take in the car with him. He turns it down,
Speaker 2: so she chugs it and then has a coughing fit.
Speaker 2: So it's like she can't hang stretch.
Speaker 1: Like, even if it doesn't make sense, it's like the
Speaker 1: script is economic. They're fitting a lot of stuff. Then
Speaker 1: there's no ways in space. Even if we don't really
Speaker 1: understand what the point.
Speaker 2: Is, right, but we know what's going to happen next, Right,
Speaker 2: Buchanan's going to be sending Adam brainiacs to kill the
Speaker 2: three more guys, the others who testified against him. The
Speaker 2: police offer to let those guys stay in jail for
Speaker 2: their own protection, but they turn it down. They're like, no,
Speaker 2: I'm going to be at home. Now.
Speaker 1: We're about I think at the thirty four minute mark
Speaker 1: here and there's we're gonna check back in with Dick
Speaker 1: cutting for just an absolutely perfect newscast that brings to
Speaker 1: mind the newscaster from the Simpsons. There's this great sort
Speaker 1: of issuing of an apology concerning the Adam Brain creatures. I,
Speaker 1: for one, welcome our new Adam Brain overlords, according Dick Cutting,
Speaker 1: so he says.
Speaker 2: And with the murder of Jason, Oh so, one of
Speaker 2: the guys, one of the three guys gets murdered, Dick
Speaker 2: Cutting says, And with the murder of Jason Franschat last night,
Speaker 2: I must apologize for my recent skepticism regarding these atomic creatures.
Speaker 2: It seems they do exist, and they are prowling the street.
Speaker 2: I love it, but I think there's a subtext also,
Speaker 2: which is like, but please do allow your children to
Speaker 2: continue to play in the street. We don't want them
Speaker 2: to know there could be any danger. And now a
Speaker 2: message from our sponsor, you know, healthy lung cigarettes.
Speaker 1: I do feel like this movie was sponsored by pipe smoke.
Speaker 1: There there's a lot of like Chat is always smoking
Speaker 1: a pipe. There scenes where two characters having conversations smoking
Speaker 1: pipes at the same time. I haven't seen this much
Speaker 1: pipe smoke since Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 2: We're going to get to a pipe scene in a minute. So,
Speaker 2: but first, there are those planes and trucks that the
Speaker 2: Chet requested earlier. They've got radium finders equipped and they're
Speaker 2: scanning the city to find Adam brain HQ. And there's
Speaker 2: a scene where Stig is out on the town. I
Speaker 2: think he's out getting medicine to treat his radiation poisoning,
Speaker 2: and he ducks into a bar to hide from the
Speaker 2: military because they're like doing a house to house with
Speaker 2: their bayonets out. I guess looking for I don't know
Speaker 2: any scientists. I don't know exactly what they're running around with.
Speaker 2: I guess they've got Geiger counters. Maybe they're scanning people
Speaker 2: to see, like, are you radioactive? So he runs into
Speaker 2: a bar to hide, orders a beer and then runs
Speaker 2: out through the back door, leaves radiation on his beer
Speaker 2: and they find that there. But they're like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: so we're looking for this German accent guy. Then there
Speaker 2: is a research segment of the film, rob I think
Speaker 2: you recently alluded to there's a like in each campaign
Speaker 2: of Arkham Horror, there's like a research segment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, this is our research segment for sure.
Speaker 2: Chet goes to consult a neurologist friend of his about
Speaker 2: Steig and his research. He learns all about Adam brain experiments.
Speaker 2: Actually not Adam brain experiments. He learns about so I
Speaker 2: think the thing is he learns that there have been
Speaker 2: experiments that you can use electrodes to remotely control the
Speaker 2: behavior of other creatures, like dogs. So they watch a
Speaker 2: film strip with an electric dog. That is the cutest
Speaker 2: thing I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Yes, you'll never see fictional footage of dog mad science experiments.
Speaker 1: That is so horrible because yeah, there's the the implication
Speaker 1: on some level is that this is cruel and monstrous,
Speaker 1: but you don't get that from the footage because it's
Speaker 1: clearly like somebody's beloved pet dog with a couple of
Speaker 1: wires attached to its collar or something, or maybe just
Speaker 1: kind of like tucked into its fur, and then it's
Speaker 1: just doing dog stuff. They're like, look it barks on command,
Speaker 1: Look it sets down, and so forth.
Speaker 2: How can you imagine a dog doing something on command?
Speaker 2: But no, they're doing it by controlling its brain. But
Speaker 2: also it's funny because the dog is like, they're like,
Speaker 2: you hear, by flipping this electrode, you can make it
Speaker 2: vicious and then it goes er.
Speaker 1: But it's the cutest dog, So it is.
Speaker 2: It's cute viciousness. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is like I don't know what kind of dog,
Speaker 1: like a bingee dog, you know, that level of dog.
Speaker 2: So that's the like electric control. But then I think
Speaker 2: they make the bridge to the Adam brain thing by saying, oh,
Speaker 2: but could you control a dead person with this kind
Speaker 2: of method? And the guy's like no, because you didn't
Speaker 2: have the energy to power the body if they were
Speaker 2: no longer alive. But then Chad is like, what if
Speaker 2: you used atom rays? And then the guy's like, oh no,
Speaker 2: I hadn't thought of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, He's like, we're not there yet, but kind of
Speaker 1: implying like it's a good idea though, like this is
Speaker 1: a good way to use corpses, but we're just not
Speaker 1: there yet.
Speaker 2: But this whole scene, they're just digging into some pipes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just so much pipe smoking. They both have
Speaker 1: one going.
Speaker 2: It's like, try some of my tobacco blend.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Now, from here, there is a subplot where Buchanan and
Speaker 2: Styg resort to terrorism. They're trying to get the army
Speaker 2: to stop scanning with their radium finders, so they have
Speaker 2: one of the Adam brains call in from a payphone
Speaker 2: to the Army. I guess to call somebody and say, like,
Speaker 2: stop your investigation or there will be disasters. And of
Speaker 2: course the authorities don't negotiate with Adam Brain, so they
Speaker 2: don't stop. And then we are treated to stock footage
Speaker 2: of like trains derailing and mountains exploding and stuff. We
Speaker 2: see a headline in the newspaper that says, plane bus
Speaker 2: and rail crashes stir public.
Speaker 1: Really in this calculation on the cannon's part, because he
Speaker 1: always doing is antagonizing the military at this point, if
Speaker 1: he really wanted the heat to die down, they should
Speaker 1: have just stopped doing Adam Brains.
Speaker 2: For a little bit. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also, doesn't he have just like three more murders left
Speaker 1: to complete his agenda here?
Speaker 2: I think he did one of the three, so he's
Speaker 2: got two more.
Speaker 1: Two murders left, and you're gonna go ahead and rile
Speaker 1: up the military. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like he should keep his eye on
Speaker 2: the ball, like they're really getting sidetracked. I feel like
Speaker 2: it would be harder to accomplish plane bus and rail
Speaker 2: crashes than to just finish his business. Yeah, but oh no.
Speaker 2: Then we get to a scene where Dave Chet's friend
Speaker 2: gets Adam brained. He gets attacked by I think the
Speaker 2: one of the three guys who was on the murder list,
Speaker 2: the accountant, the former accountant of Buchanan. He gets killed
Speaker 2: in his house by an Adam brain. He gets turned
Speaker 2: into an Adam brain. He kills Dave in Dave's car,
Speaker 2: and then Dave gets Adam brained.
Speaker 1: And we get to see the is this the Adam
Speaker 1: brain itself? Could I couldn't make out all the detail
Speaker 1: when I was viewing it. It's just some sort of
Speaker 1: implied some sort of like thing with wires on it.
Speaker 1: It's going to go into the open cranium because I
Speaker 1: don't know. Do we mention that all the Adam brains
Speaker 1: have like what appears to be stitching across their forehead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that their head has been opened up like a
Speaker 2: like a pez dispenser and something is inserted in it.
Speaker 2: The thing is some kind of electrode brain plates. I
Speaker 2: think they install the plate in the brain to send
Speaker 2: electrodes down into the brain tissue to control the body remotely,
Speaker 2: and then they power it with the Adam rays. So
Speaker 2: they Adam brain Dave and then they get Dave talking.
Speaker 2: They're like testing him out. They find that he can
Speaker 2: use his own vocal cords so he won't sound like
Speaker 2: Buchanan when he talks. He'll sound like Dave. But they're
Speaker 2: like get you. They're like, you know, Captain Harris, say
Speaker 2: your name, and he goes, my name is David Harris,
Speaker 2: Homicide Squad. And then they tuck a knife in his
Speaker 2: pants and they send him on his way. I think
Speaker 2: they're sending him to try to go kill Chet Walker,
Speaker 2: the main guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and since he can talk like Dave, he's more
Speaker 1: of an infiltration unit at this point.
Speaker 2: So there is a scene that I think is supposed
Speaker 2: to be very tense but actually was mostly funny where
Speaker 2: Dave goes to Chet's house. Chet's not home, but Joyce
Speaker 2: and Penny are there. He comes to the door and
Speaker 2: Penny's like, who is it, and he goes, my name
Speaker 2: is David Harris, Captain Harris, Homicide Squad. And she lets
Speaker 2: him in and Joyce is like, oh, why so formal, Dave?
Speaker 2: You sound terrible? Are you coming down with a cold?
Speaker 2: And he's playing with pennies Dolly while Penny goes into
Speaker 2: the kitchen to talk to her mom, and then Joyce
Speaker 2: just happens to let She's like, oh, Chet had a
Speaker 2: brainstorm this morning, Dave something about giving out phony information
Speaker 2: to Buchanan about where the men and protective custody are
Speaker 2: when actually they are at the county jail. So now
Speaker 2: not realizing that Dave is actually Adam brain Dave, and
Speaker 2: now Buchanan has that information, you know where he's going.
Speaker 2: He's going to the county jail to get his revenge.
Speaker 2: But the end of the scene finally made sense sort
Speaker 2: of some of the lyrics from the Rocky Erickson song,
Speaker 2: which again I'd never seen the movie before, so I
Speaker 2: didn't know what this referred to. But there are some
Speaker 2: lyrics that say threw the doll right down, ripped its
Speaker 2: guts off, and threw it on the ground. And at
Speaker 2: the end of the scene, Penny comes back into the room,
Speaker 2: Dave is gone, but she finds her doll just smashed
Speaker 2: to pieces on the floor.
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar with the lyrics of Rocky erics
Speaker 1: and songs, they often do have this kind of like
Speaker 1: stream of consciousness kind of quality to them, and they
Speaker 1: seem kind of cryptic and hard to decipher and don't
Speaker 1: always include proper grammar, but often uses improper grammar in
Speaker 1: ways that feel intentional and important to whatever he was
Speaker 1: trying to get across.
Speaker 2: Right, Like the preposition ripped its guts off instead of
Speaker 2: out interesting and it doesn't have guts, it's a doll. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Adam brain Dave goes to get his revenge. Buchanan
Speaker 2: sends him to the jail where he kills the other
Speaker 2: two witnesses. And then after that, Adam Brain Dave tries
Speaker 2: to kill Chet because Chet gets into a car with
Speaker 2: him and then they're like, crash the car, smash it
Speaker 2: to pieces, but Chet jumps out of the car in
Speaker 2: time to save himself. Though I don't know if you
Speaker 2: jump out of a speeding car, that's you're gonna get hurt.
Speaker 2: That's not good for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not in movies. Though in movies you can just
Speaker 1: jump out of them and you're fine.
Speaker 2: It's the same principle as like if you jump up
Speaker 2: right before the crashing plane hits the ground, you'll be ok.
Speaker 2: But after this crash, the police recover Adam brain Dave.
Speaker 2: Adam Brain Dave is damaged, so he's no longer following
Speaker 2: orders from Buchanan. But so they like they check him
Speaker 2: out and they're like oh wow, look at all the
Speaker 2: electrodes in his brain. But he recovers some functionality while
Speaker 2: in the hospital does another window stunt, like he pushes
Speaker 2: the glass out of a window and then jumps out
Speaker 2: the window to shamble back to Adam brain HQ. This
Speaker 2: leads the police in the military right to the bad guys,
Speaker 2: and then we have our final showdown. Buchanan gets mad
Speaker 2: at Steig for some reason. I don't remember why. Actually,
Speaker 2: Buchanan just kills Stig.
Speaker 1: I think then Iig finally is like, I can't take
Speaker 1: it anymore. This is too much murder. I wasn't in
Speaker 1: it for the murder. I was just in it for
Speaker 1: the resurrection of the dead. And so he brains him
Speaker 1: with a with a some sort of eye guy Ranch
Speaker 1: or something before he can destroy the machine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Buchanan then he gets all of his Adam
Speaker 2: brain's active at once. There's like ten of them, and
Speaker 2: he's like, go out attack the police kill them all.
Speaker 2: So there's a big fight where the police are all
Speaker 2: fighting with Adam brains on the lawn and then Chet
Speaker 2: has to go inside and smash up the machine. But
Speaker 2: before he can do that, Buchanan corners him and there's
Speaker 2: like a there's a showdown there. But ultimately Buchanan is
Speaker 2: destroyed by his own wrath because one of the Adam
Speaker 2: brains comes in and grabs I think it's the Adam
Speaker 2: Brain Dave maybe comes in and grabs Buchanan and strangles him.
Speaker 2: He kills him.
Speaker 1: Yeah, destroyed by his own Adam brains. A fitting ending there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then they destroy the Adam ray machine and
Speaker 2: that powers down all of the Adam Brains on the
Speaker 2: lawn and good prevails over evil.
Speaker 1: Pretty pretty solid ending, mostly by the books. I loved
Speaker 1: the battle on the lawn between the Adam Brains and
Speaker 1: the law and military. It was better than I expected
Speaker 1: it to be. And again you get the people, you know,
Speaker 1: firing bullets through the Adam brains and a lot of
Speaker 1: like crunching and so forth. But then we close things
Speaker 1: out though with the family unit at the dinner table
Speaker 1: with with with Chet and his family.
Speaker 2: And that's enough of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we get this super weird ending where the
Speaker 1: little girl what's her name, Henrietta.
Speaker 2: No, Henrietta is the doll that got stripped off. The
Speaker 2: girl is Penny.
Speaker 1: Penny, yes, sorry, Penny is asking about Uncle Dave. She's like,
Speaker 1: where's Uncle Dave? And they don't tell her that he's dead.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, he's gone for a little while, which
Speaker 1: is crazy, right, because it's one thing to you know,
Speaker 1: obviously you want to keep it age appropriate. You don't
Speaker 1: have to tell her that a career criminal and a
Speaker 1: mad scientist murdered him and then stuffed his brain with
Speaker 1: electrodes and reanimated his corpse and made it do murders.
Speaker 1: But to just be like, oh, the Uncle Dave went
Speaker 1: away for littlely, he's on a vacation. No, no, Uncle
Speaker 1: Dave is dead, Like, at least tell her he's dead.
Speaker 2: He went up to an Adam farm upstate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's so weird, and perhaps you know, telling of
Speaker 1: how you know, we approached the protection of our children
Speaker 1: in previous decades. I don't know.
Speaker 2: All right, Well that's all I gotta say about creature
Speaker 2: with the Adam brain. Why is he acting so strange?
Speaker 2: It's because he is a creature with an Adam brain.
Speaker 2: The mystery is solved.
Speaker 1: Ah, yeah, it's it's a it's a fun one. If
Speaker 1: you enjoy fifties B movies, this is a solid and
Speaker 1: entertaining good time. You know it's again it's not not
Speaker 1: top tier for genre and time period, but but pretty solid.
Speaker 1: It's never boring. Uh, there's a lot, a lot to
Speaker 1: love here. As always, we'd love to hear from everyone
Speaker 1: out there if you have thoughts on the movie of
Speaker 1: the week, Creature with the Adam Brain, if you have
Speaker 1: thoughts on the music of Rocky ericson as it relates
Speaker 1: to this movie, or just in general, well yeah, right
Speaker 1: in we'd love to hear from you about that as well.
Speaker 1: A reminder that we're primarily a science podcast here at
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your mind with core episodes on Tuesdays
Speaker 1: and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most serious
Speaker 1: concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema. If you want to see a complete list
Speaker 1: of the movies we've covered over the years here for
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema, you can go to letterbox dot com.
Speaker 1: It's l E T T E or boxb dot com.
Speaker 1: We have a profile there called weird House and we
Speaker 1: have a list of all the movies we've covered, and
Speaker 1: you can do all sorts of neat filters to see
Speaker 1: like what decades and you know what genres and so forth,
Speaker 1: and I also blog about these at sim mutamusic dot com.
Speaker 1: I'll definitely do a blog post for this movie because
Speaker 1: I want to make sure that I throw in somewhere
Speaker 1: where you can stream that Rocky ericson song and compare
Speaker 1: it to the film.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. If you
Speaker 2: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 2: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 2: for the future, or just to say hello, you can
Speaker 2: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 2: dot com.
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