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February 3, 2025 79 mins

Why is he acting so strange? Do you think he's one of them? In this classic episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe experience 1955's "Creature with the Atom Brain," starring Richard Denning and Angela Stevens. (originally published 07/07/2023)

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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
This is Rob Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today
we're bringing you an older episode of Weird House Cinema.
This was our look at Creature with the Adam Brain,
prominently featured in one of my favorite Rocky Ericson songs.
Creature with the Adam Brain came out in nineteen fifty five.
In this episode, originally published on July seventh, twenty twenty three.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
All right, let's jump right in.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Hey you, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
And this is Joe McCormick, and today we're going to
be covering a movie from the nineteen fifties about evil
scientists who want to use long distance electrodes to power
the brain of dead men to do their bidding. No,
not Plan nine from Outer Space, Not The Bride of
the Monster. It's another movie with a very similar premise.

(01:09):
This was sort of in the air. Apparently, this is
nineteen fifty five's Creature with the Atom Brain.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Which has always been a confusing title because I think
for a while I even just would read it as
creature with the atomic brain, because what would adam brain
even mean other than possibly super small brain.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Obviously, Yeah, it seems like an advance on the insult
pea brain. You know, you go down to pe brain
and then what's below that atom brain?

Speaker 1 (01:37):
I guess, Yeah, but no, it's it's essentially in the
same vein as atomic brain. But yeah, but not only
is this like perhaps an idea of a reduced brain,
also reduced runtime. This one comes in at a slim
sixty nine minutes. The one of the reasons we picked
it for this week was that we had a super
long movie last week and we had a short week
this week, so it seemed like a good time to

(01:59):
dip back back into the nineteen fifties.

Speaker 2 (02:02):
Sixty nine minutes, that's I don't know, that's kind of
on the long side for these movies. I think a
Attack of the Crab Monster is more like sixty three.

Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah. Some of those Corman and cormanqu pictures come in
at an hour or less, so yeah, they can get
shorter now. The other fun thing about this pick is
that it inspired a Rocky Ericsson song. Rocky Erickson was
a if not the Texan psychedelic rocker who lived nineteen

(02:32):
forty seven through twenty nineteen, did a number of songs
that were inspired or referenced horror movies or horror movie themes,
and so it's kind of a treat to get to
talk about a movie that he strongly and directly references.
I think another one we've talked about is possibly nineteen

(02:52):
fifty nine's The Alligator People. But yeah, today's movie inspired
the Rocky ericson track of the same name, Creature with
the Adam, which you can find on the nineteen eighty
one album The Evil One.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
I first heard this album, I'm pretty sure in the
summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college. I
was hanging out with a friend and he put this
on while we were playing chess, and it quickly became
one of my favorite albums of all time, though it's

(03:25):
one that I think is apparently not for everybody. I
thought it was just great, But I took The Evil
One like back to school with me in the fall,
and you know, I was playing it for all my friends,
and I feel like a lot of them just weren't
into it. But it's one of my favorite rock and
Roll Records, every two Headed Dog, The Wind and More,

(03:46):
Bloody Hammer, Cold Night for Alligators, Night of the Vampire,
Creature with the Adam Brain, the hits never stop.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Yeah, I think you You originally turned me on to
Rocky Erickson, and it took a little while for it
to really good. Tooksend to me this album in particular,
but eventually it did, and come back to it pretty frequently.
They're they're pretty often pretty hard hitting songs. There's pretty
heavy stuff at times, and the lyrics are tremendous fun.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
But I want to say that while a number of
songs on this fantastic album, the album is very monster
themed overall, and while a number of songs on the
album make oblique reference to identifiable monster movies, for example,
The Alligator People, there's a song on there called It's
a Cold Night for Alligator as it talks about how

(04:35):
the dogs choke on their barking when they see alligator
persons in the bog and fog. I'm pretty sure the
song Night of the Vampire must have something to do
with a particular vampire movie. That's the one where if
it's raining and you're running, don't slip in mud, because
if you do, you'll slip in blood. That's just logic.
But anyway, so a lot of these other songs, the

(04:57):
references are kind of, you know, oblique illusions, but this
one is just head on. The song is called Creature
with the Adam Brain. It's about a movie called Creature
with the Adam Brain, and the song, at multiple points
just Rocky starts reciting dialogue from the film.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Yeah, yeah, so it's pretty dead on. And I looked around.
I've never read any books, you know, dedicated biographies about
Rocky Erickson, but I found an article, an interview from
The Quietess. I'm not sure what year this is, but
titled getting to Grips with Rocky Ericson, and there's a

(05:40):
part where they ask him. The interviewer says, what's your
favorite horror movie, and Rocky Erickson says, quote, I like
the Creature with the Adam Brain, and I like The
Giant Cricket. I like them too a lot. Yeah, so
we have that to go on. The Giant Cricket, I think,
I'm not sure he might be referring to nineteen fifty
seven's beginning of the end, but yeah, pretty strong on

(06:01):
the Creature with the Adam brain here. Maybe there's some
other interviews where he goes into it more. But there
is something it is interesting to think about because on
the surface, if you watch this movie not knowing it
was anyone's favorite, you might guess that it is no
one's favorite. Like, there are a lot of fun things
about it, but it doesn't necessarily scream top tier fifty
sci fi horror. But it does some things extremely well there.

(06:26):
You know, there are some moments that are far creepier
than you might expect them to be, and the ones
that I kept coming back to were these moments where
our antagonist Buchanan, who will get into and who is
referenced in Rocky's song, is using super science to compel
the dead to do things or speaking through the dead,

(06:47):
and I don't know, I kept coming back to that
thinking about, you know, trying to figure out what Rocky
found so fascinating about this movie.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
I agree with that assessment. I totally had a great
time watching this, but I don't think it is top
tier in any dimension. It's not like a truly great
fifty sci fi film in terms of being scary or
having interesting science fiction premises or in human drama, any
of that. It's also not one of the most notable

(07:16):
in terms of excesses of cheese, Like it's not in
Edward territory. You know, this is a competently made film,
but nevertheless it does have some things that are working
in both directions, and overall it's a fun ride and
it just moves right along. This is not a slow
or dull film.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Yeah, yeah, it does. It does really really move right along.
So anyway, it'd be interesting to keep all this in mind.
And again we also have to drive home. You don't
have to have any kind of like specific reason to
champion a particular horror movie or sci fi movie that
no one else does. I don't know, you know, this
is just one that's stuck with Rocky ericson and he
made it into a great song. So there you go.

Speaker 2 (07:59):
Sorry, I just put this together. You mentioned that. So
he said the other one that might be his favorite
as the Giant Cricket. And you think that might be
Beginning of the end if that is correct. Beginning of
the End is a bird Eye Gordon film.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Oh okay, just had to flag that there might be
something else that could be classified as the Giant Cricket.
But this is the main one I came across, and
it seems to be in that sweet spot of fifties
films that he's into.

Speaker 2 (08:24):
This is the one, doesn't it have? Like one of
the special effects shots in it is bird Eye? Gordon
had a regular sized cricket crawling over like a postcard
of the New York skyline.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah. I think that's the one.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, that's smart.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
All right, well, elevator pitch for the creature with the
Adam brain. The best I could come up with is
Popular Science Magazine, June nineteen fifty five, The Horror Movie.
That's good, yeah, because there is a real feel of
I just caught up on the latest, you know, bleeding
edge science and now I'm going to write a script

(09:01):
for a horror movie that we have to make next week.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
You know, I've got another take on it. So if
Edward originally sold Bride of the Monster as Bride of
the Atom, this is like they're exploring more stuff in
that space. We already did Bride of the Atom. Whatso
how about entry level employee of the Atom? And I
think that that's sort of the premise here.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, all right, let's go ahead and listen to that
trailer audio. This is pretty goodn.

Speaker 4 (09:40):
Fish and science creates an electronic monster so terrifying only
screams can describe it. Come back home, Come back home.
According to the evidence, Fanny was murdered by a creature

(10:01):
with adam rays of superhuman strength and a creature that
cannot be killed by bullets. I said I would live
to see you die. I just came from the bureau
and checked the murderer's fingerprints.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
His name is Willard Pierce.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
They let me have it from the.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
Finals petty theft for three months in prison to prcule.
How could to burcular men I have strength enough to
break those bars like that?

Speaker 1 (10:32):
Do you think that's something?

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Answer this one? How could a dead man have strength
enough to do it?

Speaker 1 (10:40):
Fantastic? But based on scientific fact.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
Please hello, your flight.

Speaker 4 (10:49):
You will stop all planes and trucks searching for radio activity.
If you do not, many people will be killed.

Speaker 2 (10:58):
There will be no other war. Hello, Hello, Hello, they
hung up.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Before I put the trace wrong.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
Slow down, Dave, Dave, Now the killed him.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
There you go. Based on scientific fact. This is a
This is a film that that screams to be viewed.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
This is hard science, hard science. This is like it's
like Asimov.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
All right, if you're before we go any further, if
if if you would like to watch this movie before
you get into the discussion, well you can.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
You can.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
You might catch a stream or two here or there,
but the surefire way to view it is to pick
up some physical media. There are a couple of nice
collections that include it. One is the four DVD pack
Icons of Horror collection Sam Katzman, which you can buy
wherever you get your discs, that features the Giant Claw
Creature with the Adam Brain, Zombies of Mara Tao, and

(12:24):
the Werewolf. Arro Video also put these four movies out
on Blu Ray in the set titled Cold War Creatures
for Films from Sam Katzman, and I included a picture
of the whole spread. Here, Joe, this one looks really nice.
This is not how we watched it, but this will
splendid if I can't even look at it too closely.
Otherwise I'm gonna be tempted to buy this thing, and

(12:45):
I don't have the shelf space.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Gorgeous, Maybe I'm gonna buy it and then look.

Speaker 1 (12:49):
At that that that Adam brained creature right there on
the cover. Beautiful.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
I gotta say the original posters for the creature with
the Adam Brain are very good because they have a
sort of like a green guy wearing a long coat
with his arms outstretched walking towards you, and then instead
of having him carrying an unconscious woman, they just have
like an upside down woman at the bottom of the poster.

(13:16):
They're like, oh, yeah, okay, we'll have that in there somewhere,
but she's just like floating in white space. But then
the green guy, his head is a drawing of an atom.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
So yes, there you go. Yeah, like the symbol of
the atom just superimposed over his skull. All right, well,
let's get into the connections on this one. So normally
we would of course start with the director, but we're
going to break tradition here and start with the producer
since we just mentioned him and I think maybe it's
fitting for this sort of release as well. And we've
never talked about this producer before, but this is producer

(13:49):
Sam Katzman, who lived nineteen oh one through nineteen seventy
three American film producer and director, famous for his ability
to pump out low budget features and cereals that actually
made money. The genres were all over the place, as
you might expect, but they obviously included horror movies. Not
only did he do some beat Nick films, but I've
seen some film historians credit him with the creation of

(14:12):
the term beat Nick. I don't know if that's accurate
or not, but at least he was in there enough
that some people think he might have just come up
with the term. He only directed five films, all of
them released in nineteen thirty seven, but he produced one
hundred and twenty four films, and some of the more
well known titles here include some very fun B movies
that I think are much beloved. There's nineteen forty one's

(14:35):
The Invisible Claw in nineteen forty twos The Corpse Vanishes.
Those are both Bela Lagosi films. There's nineteen fifty six's
The Werewolf, nineteen fifty seven's The Giant Claw. That's a
giant bird movie, as I recall, nineteen fifty sevens The
Zombies of Moratao and nineteen sixty sevens Kissing Cousins starring Elvis.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Oh oh boy, is this one okay question? I haven't
seen all the Elvis movies. Does he sing in all
the movies? Or sometimes does he just act.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
You know, I've never watched an Elvis movie all the
way through, but I assume he does. Why w don't
you put Elvis in your movie if he's not gonna sing?

Speaker 2 (15:13):
I don't know. Elvis was handsome and surely well, yeah, yeah,
I think they make movies with singers where they don't sing.

Speaker 1 (15:20):
They do, they do, And you know, I think we've
we've we've certainly watched some things that had singers in
him and they don't sing.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
Does Chris Christofferson sing in Blade? I don't think he does.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
He does not. Every Elvis movie I've seen a part
of includes him singing. But yeah, I mean maybe he didn't.
I just don't know if he sings in all of them?
Right in, let us know, all right? The director is
Edward L. Kahn, who lived eighteen ninety nine through nineteen
sixty three. I've seen him referred to as the one

(15:53):
week Wonder because he could apparently absolutely pump these movies out.
He was a kind of you go to guy, you
gotta a B movie that needs to be made, it's
definitely got that B movie budget. This is the guy
that will get you across the finish line. He was
all about quantity over quality and was highly prolific in
the low budget film scene for three decades, directing one

(16:14):
hundred and twenty eight films, a lot of b movies.
Certainly didn't win any Oscars or anything like that, but
there's some really fun movies in the mix. You might
know him from some of his nineteen fifties horror and
sci fi films, some of which have actually wound up
on Mystery Science Theater three thousand and the like over
the years. There's nineteen fifty seven's It The Terror from

(16:35):
Beyond Space, which is often cited as being very influential
and in particular influential on Dan O'Bannon's alien work in
the decades to come.

Speaker 2 (16:45):
How many different movies have we cited as likely inspiring Alien.
We're getting to the point where I don't know if
it makes sense to say it's inspired by because if
it's inspired by like seven different movies, then that's just synthesis,
isn't it.

Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, Yeah, I agree. Yeah, there's a whole list of
them at this point, but I don't know. I haven't
seen it, The Tear from Beyond Space. It be interesting
to see exactly exactly what texture or detail he could
have conceivably taken from that. Other films from this director
include Invasion of the Saucer Men, The Zombies of Marital
nineteen fifty six, is The She Creature, fifty nine's The

(17:21):
Invisible Invaders, and The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake. He
did a lot of westerns action films, bikers, various social
exploitation films of the thirties, forties, fifties, and very early sixties.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
I have seen a description of his movie The Invisible
Invaders as being pretty much the same premise as Creature
with the Adam Brain, except instead of a gangster and
a scientist, it's aliens who are using the who are
reanimating the remote controlled corpses. Nice.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
I mean, you got a winning concept, you keep doing
it all right? Well, that brings us who are the
writer of this piece? And this is a writer we've
discussed prefeit on Weird House. This is Kurt cid Mack,
who lived nineteen oh two through the year two thousand.
He wrote the screenplay for nineteen forty six as The
Beast with Five Fingers, starring Peter Lorii, which we talked about.

(18:13):
He also wrote a novelization of that particular screenplay. He
was a German born novelist, screenwriter and director who left
Germany for first the UK and then the US due
to concerns over rising anti Semitism under the Nazis. His
German output was already pretty successful prior to all. This
included a sci fi film titled FP One Doesn't Answer

(18:33):
about a sort of sci fi aircraft carrier base. He
did British war thrillers in some comedies, but then he
struck it big with his nineteen forty one screenplay for
The Invisible Man Returns and his original screenplay for forty
one's The Wolfman, starring Claude Rains, Bell Lagosi and Lon
Cheney Junior. He went on to write a whole lot
of screenplays, including Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman forty three, I

(18:55):
Walked with a Zombie from forty three, Son of Dracula
also forty five, He House of Frankenstein from forty four,
and many more. He wrote the forty two sci fi
novel Donovan's Brain, which was adapted three times. Also. His brother,
Robert Cimc was a director known for nineteen forty six
is The Killers and The Spiral Staircase among others.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
You mentioned that he wrote the movie I Walked with
a Zombie from nineteen forty three. I Walked with the
Zombie is also the name and pretty much the entire
lyrical content of another song by Rocky Erickson on the
album The Evil One, which just repeatedly proclaims I walked
with the Zombie last night.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
Great stuff. Yeah, definitely go go listen to some of
this album after you listened to this podcast episode. As
far as the script for this movie goes, you know,
perhaps nothing special on the grand scheme of things, but
I think it does seem legitimately interested in creating something
inspired by the frontiers of science of the day, maybe

(19:55):
on a tight schedule and a limited budget, obviously, But
I also thought the die log is mostly pretty snappy,
even if on the whole the movie feels very explanatory
and procedural. Reminds me of some of the serials I've
seen from this time period, but better pace, better acted,
and so forth. All right, let's get into the cast here.

(20:23):
Our star is Richard Dinnon playing doctor chet Walker. Dinning
lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen ninety eight. Now you might
well recognize this lean cut of fifties leading man here
because he did work quite a lot, and he's probably
best remembered though for one particular creature feature. His credits

(20:44):
go back to the late nineteen thirties with various adventure films, comedies,
and so forth. But in nineteen fifty four he starred
in Jack Arnold's Creature from the Black Lagoon.

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Was he one of the forgettable humans in it?

Speaker 1 (20:56):
He's the forgettable human in it?

Speaker 2 (20:58):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Okay, look up if for some reason you're looking up
stills from a Creature from the Black Lagoon and you
don't focus on that fabulous monster costume, you'll probably see
Richard Dinning standing around, you know, shirtless boat or on
a boat with a shotgun, comforting a woman. That sort
of thing.

Speaker 2 (21:19):
I would say, Richard Dinning is not bad in this movie,
but not great either. He's sort of there, He's fine.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
It's a very warkhorse performance, Like does he do anything wrong?

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Now?

Speaker 1 (21:31):
Is there anything bad?

Speaker 2 (21:32):
Now?

Speaker 1 (21:32):
Is there anything where you're like, Yeah, you really leaned
into that and made it more interesting than it should
have been. It's hard to make a case for that,
but absolutely fulfills the role here. So after Black Lagoon
he continued to act in war in action films, and
really most of his output is not sci fi or horror.

(21:53):
But it's just one of those quirks where I think,
I mean, Creature from the Black Lagoon casts a far
greater shadow than perhaps anything else he was in, certainly
in terms of things we're likely to discuss on Weird House,
but he was also in nineteen fifty seven's The Black Scorpion.
I know this is a monster movie you've been tempted
to do before, Joe, because it has a kind of

(22:14):
a redunculous looking monster in it.

Speaker 2 (22:18):
I've the name sounds familiar, but I've forgotten what this
monster is. I must have sent it your way. Let
me look it up. Oh yes, okay, yeah, we may
have to return to this someday. Sorry. I got briefly
sidetracked because there's apparently another unrelated movie called Black Scorpion
from the nineties that looks like some kind of I
don't know, erotic action movie or something. I'm seeing a

(22:40):
lot of shiny leather.

Speaker 1 (22:42):
Yeah, that's some sort of like syndicated female superhero thing. Now,
this one was like a desert monster movie with a
big goofy scorpion monster in it.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
That sounds right, Okay, yeah, yeah, well I have to
take a look again.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
He was also in nineteen fifty five's The Day the
World Ended, and if you're looking outside of genre, he
also had a pretty i think third billing in nineteen
fifty seven's Unaffair to Remember, which is a pretty big picture,
but not creature level. Not creature level.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
I'd say his role in this movie is somewhat likable actually,
except he's somewhat flip about danger to his child. We
can come back to that later. But he really needs
a dry martini and he is really into his wife.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah. I wasn't really prepared for just how all over
each other. These two are the married couple that we
have in the film of Doctor chat Walker and Joyce Walker.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
It is an enthusiastic marital relationship.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
Yeah, even though I think they have the nineteen fifties
like single pair of single beds in the bedroom.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
They got the twin those four but yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
So yeah, that was interesting. But yeah. Joyce Walker is
played by Angela Stevens, who lived nineteen twenty five through
twenty sixteen, nineteen fifties blonde bombshell who pretty much only
acted during that decade, retiring fairly early on for family reasons.
But she did a nice smorgas board of b cinema, westerns, horror,

(24:09):
women in prisons, jungle adventures, that sort of thing. This
may well be her her biggest role, but she also
has an uncredited role in nineteen fifty six is the
Harder They Fall? Now, what does she do in this
film aside from you know, being doctor Chet's loving wife,
you know, again for the for the nineteen fifties especially,

(24:31):
they're they're kind of all over each other.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
They are, And she also like she's really keeping up
with the news and with the caper, because there are
multiple points where like she reveals a detail to one
of the investigators or even to the bad guy in
the form of an adam brain zombie who is sitting
in her living room playing with her child that ends

(24:53):
up moving the plot.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Yeah, yeah, so I think that's a good point. Yeah,
she's not nearly as minimal a presence as you might
find the hero's wife in many of these films from
the nineteen fifties and so forth. All Right, our movie
does have a German mad scientist, and it is doctor
Wilhelm Steig played by Gregory Gay who lived nineteen hundred

(25:18):
through nineteen ninety three. He was a Russian born actor
who left after the nineteen seventeen October Revolution. His first
screen role was an uncredited role as an officer in
John Barrymore's nineteen twenty eight silent movie about the final
days of Czarist Russia, Tempest, but he went on to bigger,
small roles, bigger supporting roles, often playing Russians or Germans,

(25:41):
often playing diplomats. I think he even shows up on
the sixties Batman series at one point playing a Russian
diplomat uncredited. Some of his more visible roles include a
bit part of a German banker in nineteen forty two's Casablanca,
a casino owner in nineteen sixties Oceans eleven, and he
also pops up in nineteen sixty one's Blue Hawaii. This

(26:01):
starred Elvis and was filmed at the hotel from Death Moon,
the Coco Palms Resort.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
It just occurred to me, I can't believe they never
made an Elvis werewolf movie. Can you imagine how he
could howl?

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Oh man? Yeah? Off the top of my head. I
don't yeah, I don't think any Elvis movies get into
horror sci fi, they're all they're all based more in
just kind of teeny boppy comedy and drama.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Elvis Presley starring in The Werewolf of Makeout Beach.

Speaker 1 (26:34):
It would have been good. All right. We have another
villain in this and it is Frank Buchanan. This is
the character whose name is reference in the Rocky Ericson song.
This character is played by Michael Granger, who lived nineteen
twenty three through nineteen eighty one. He is our and
we'll have to come back to this. I guess he's
our deported American mobster who was wandering around Europe, found

(26:59):
alf a German mad scientist, and now has returned to
seek vengeance on both sides of the law with super science.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
How does one like acquire so you need a doctor
Fritz to make zombies for you? How do you acquire one?

Speaker 1 (27:14):
You just you. I took it to be like the
situation where he found this guy. He started financing his work,
and then you know, once you've been financed by someone
like this, after a while, you know what they're gonna do.
They're like, it's time to move this project back to
the States and begin the next phase, which is Project Vengeance,
Project Personal Vendetta.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Now, Granger is pretty interesting because he's an American actor
of stage and screen who mostly worked small parts on
the on the screen in the likes of nineteen fifty
three's The Big Heat and the Magnetic Monster, one of
only a handful of movies that Kurt siat Meca actually directed,
as well as nineteen fifty eight Murder by Contract. But

(27:54):
he was also very active on Broadway and was in
the original Broadway run of Fiddler on the Roof. Oh
now it's been It's been a long time since I've
seen Fiddler on the Roof. I think I saw it
as a child, so I haven't watched it in a while.
But he plays a character the butcher named Lazarre Wolf.
Not laser Wolf, I assume, but Lazarre Wolf. And this

(28:16):
would have been from like nineteen sixty four through nineteen
seventy two.

Speaker 2 (28:19):
Oh wow, you know, I do remember it being emphasized
as laser Wolf. Really, I don't. I don't know if
that's how they would actually say it in Russia, but
I remember it like scans that way for the lines
in some of the songs. Wolf is the so the
oldest daughter, Zetol, is engaged to laser wolf but she

(28:41):
doesn't love him. She loves what's his name the other
I think Muttle the tailor. And so there's this whole
like like, Teva wants to find a way to get
his daughter out of that engagement so she can marry
the guy she really loves, and so he has to
come up with this scheme where he may up a
dream with a bad omen where where Laser Wolfe's wife

(29:05):
will come back as a wraith. And do you remember
any of this?

Speaker 1 (29:09):
No, man, I don't remember it wraiths or anything. Yeah,
it's I just remember. I literally just remember the same
there's there's someone does sing on a roof, right or
is that a fabricated memory plays a fiddle on a roof.
That's okay, that's the part I remember.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
No, Okay, well, yeah I remember. It's actually a great subplot.
So basically, the guy he wants his daughter to be
able to marry the guy she loves instead of the
guy she's engaged to, and in order to do so,
he makes up a fake death omen dream.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
Hm hmm, okay, I really need to I need to
see it again. That's it? Or I almost see it
for the first time. Anyway, Granger, I really liked him
in this. He has a voice that's just as smooth
as crushed velvet, and he gives way more charisma to
this role than I think anyone was asking of him.
He's he's quite good. I don't want to take anything

(29:54):
away from Dinning, because again, he's he's solid, hits all
the right notes. But Granger brings that nice bit of
something extra to the role, Like the dialogue is already
nice and snappy, but he breathes just a little extra
malice and machination into everything, which is especially potent when
he is speaking into the minds of the dead or

(30:15):
through the dead, because I think if memory serves the
voice we hear come out of most of the walking
dead the Atom creatures is the voice of Granger, the
voice of Buchanan, and Yeah, it's eerie and effective.

Speaker 2 (30:31):
Yeah. Later they upgrade their technology so that the Adam
Brain zombies can speak with their own voice, but they
only do that for day if I think.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, which is I think more plot oriented than anything
we'll get into the end of Dave.

Speaker 2 (30:46):
Yeah, I don't know exactly how it works that when
the earlier ones talk they speak with Buchanan's voice because
they would still be using their vocal cords, but I
don't know. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:58):
Now, special effects, which I guess they're not that impressive
in this particular film, are worth noting here just because
they're by Jack Erickson, who lived nineteen eleven through nineteen
seventy eight, special effects guy who worked with Ray Harryhusen
the same year on It Came from Beneath the Sea,
which was also part of the double feature with this
very film.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
That's right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Ericson also has a special effects credit on the Galaxy
Being episode of the classic Outer Limits series. That episode
starred Cliff Robertson, but more notable than Robertson, it featured
one of the series more memorable aliens. This was this
kind of like weirdly glowing creature that. Yeah, if you
go back and watch any Outer Limits episode from this
time period, that's the one to check out, because the

(31:42):
creature absolutely pops.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Galaxy Being. I can't help but imagine that title inspired
the title of the later Don Dollar film Galaxy Invader.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Oh yeah, absolutely absolutely it did. Love Galaxy Invader. That
one's good, all right. Finally, just a note on the
music here, it's all stock music, so there's somebody to
single out here, just all stock music. Nothing remarkable about it. Now,
all right, well, shall we get into the plot.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Let's do it. You know what, quite strong opening. In fact,
I would say I think the best looking shot in
the film is the very opening shot. So we come
up on a kind of a silent alley way in
the night time, with trees and shrubbery crowding in on
both sides, and then in the background, in the distance

(32:32):
in the shot, there is moonlight pouring in from above
in a kind of shaft, and that moonlight is falling
on the dark shape of a man shambling slowly toward
the camera as nothing but a heartbeat pounds on the soundtrack,
and then the credits roll as he wanders in our direction.
It's very very strong opening.

Speaker 1 (32:52):
Yeah, it doesn't waste any time. You know, it's screaming,
get kids, stop making out and watch your I guess
second help of the double feature.

Speaker 2 (33:01):
But as I said, I don't think any other shot
in the movie is as artistically composed as this one is.
This is the best looking thing we're going to get
now with my post. George Romero expectations. I thought this
was going to be a decaying zombie coming toward us
because of his shambling gait. But no, it is a

(33:22):
man in a suit and a tie who looks actually
pretty normal, except his expression is sort of vacant. He
is a stocky, square featured fellow. He walks like right
up in our faces. And then the next thing we
see is him driving a four door sedan around some
kind of winding mountain roads. So I was thinking, wait

(33:42):
a minute, is he a zombie or not? Because zombies,
as generally understood cannot operate motor vehicles, with the exception,
of course, of Jason Vorhees and Jason takes Manhattan, because
I stand by my assertion that Jason does drive the boat.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
Well, as we'll learn, this is a special kind of zombie.
This is a super science zombies, so maybe different rules apply.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Right. So the zombie non zombie guy, whatever he is,
he parks his car beside a street lamp outside some
large building that rob I wonder, what did you initially
think this building was? I was like, okay, is he
at like city hall or a nice hotel or something.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
Yeah, it looked a like more official like that. I
was a little surprised when it turned out to be
more of a like a criminal underworld location as opposed
to anything concerning like the you know, the city government.

Speaker 2 (34:32):
Yeah, I thought, maybe, oh, maybe this is a bank,
but I think it's supposed to be a casino and
maybe like an illegal underworld casino. So I don't know
why it's so fancy looking, but yeah, So he gets
out of the car, he shambles towards the building. Inside
we see cashiers closing up money changing stations, and then
we see a lackey in a tuxedo taking a bag

(34:55):
of money into a spacious office decorated with nick knacks
like there's a big Easter island head And this is
the office of mister Hennessy, who is the number one
head guy in charge of this hotel city Hall casino.
The lackey reports that the take for the night was
twenty grand. Hennessy seems pleased with this, and Hennessy opens

(35:15):
up his wall safe and starts counting the money and
narrating into his dictaphone as he does so. And interestingly,
he's not counting in terms of he's not like counting
the money. He is counting the numbers of individual bills.
So he's like, this many hundred dollar bills, this many
fifty dollars bills. Is that normal criminal behavior? I don't know. Meanwhile,

(35:38):
outside the window, the zombie driver keeps staggering toward the building,
and then we see through the zombie's eyes, and then
there's an interesting transition. We see through his eyes on
a TV screen on screen. So now we're somewhere else
in a laboratory. They make it easy to know where
you are by like having electrodes emit zapping sounds. And

(36:02):
there's a TV showing the zombies eye view, and there
are two guys watching it. You've got a stout gangsters
gangster looking man in a suit and a bespectacled scientist
in a white lab coat. And the gangster guy is
holding a microphone up to his mouth while the scientist
is fiddling with knobs. Back at the casino, the zombie

(36:25):
bends the bars outside the window to Hennessy's office. He
just you know, grabs him with his hands, bends him back,
and then smashes through the glass. He actually basically he
just like flathand outward pushes through the window.

Speaker 1 (36:39):
There are numerous stunts where like a sort of roundish
man goes through a plate of glass glass window in
this movie. And I was looking at some of the
stunt players and one of the guys did this I think,
pretty much the same stunt in The Wizard of Oz
as the Cowardly Lion. So I guess it was just
like printed on this guy's business, like you need a

(37:01):
like a slightly rotund actor to go through a window.

Speaker 2 (37:04):
I'm your guy, and I'll do it just by pushing
the glass out.

Speaker 1 (37:08):
Yeah, I mean, obviously it's trick glass, but still specialized skill.

Speaker 2 (37:12):
I don't know. I don't know if I can tell
trick class just by looking at it. I will assume
this was a safe set. Yeah, but anyway, Yeah, so
the guy comes through the window. He goes up to Hennessy.
He says in a in a mechanical voice, I told
you i'd come back. And here we're getting into one
of the bits of dialogue that Rocky Ericson just recites
in the song. And the zombie says, remember Buchanan, and

(37:36):
Hennessy says, but you're not Buchanan. The zombie says, I
may not look like him, but I am him. Don't
you recognize the voice, Jim, I promised to see you
die and I will. Then Hennessy he whips out a
pistol tries to shoot the zombie, but of course it
does no good. The zombie grabs Hennessy lifts him up

(37:59):
over his head and then we see only a shadow
of the two figures cast upon the wall, and in
the shadow, the zombie just folds Tennessy like a wallet.
He just snaps him in half backwards like a kitcat
bar crunch. It is brutal.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Yeah, I love this. This is a great use of
shadow and implying the physical violence. There's another example of
this later on in the film, but this is the
best example of it. It just lifts him up in
a gorilla press and does this backbreaker death move. And
as this was occurring, as he was like setting this up,
especially where you see an actual zombie grab a good dude,

(38:38):
grapple him and lift him up, I was like, I
bet this guy's a wrestler. Sure enough. This role is
played by former pro wrestler Carl Killer Davis aka Crippler Carl,
who lived nineteen oh eight through nineteen seventy seven. I
was not familiar with this guy, but apparently it was
a big heel in the thirties and forties. He got
his first acting break playing one of the I think

(39:00):
ten strongmen who opposes Mighty Joe Young in nineteen forty
nine's Mighty Joe Young, alongside fellow wrestler turned actor Tor Johnson,
as well as some other big guys like Italian boxer
wrestler of the Day Primo Canara and anyway. This led
to a whole career of heavy roles for Davis. And

(39:20):
here he is our zombie.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
He's got a great look for film too, though he's
got very kind of square head and sharp features. He's good.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Yeah. Unlike Tor, I think he mostly played like heavies
and like you know, enforcers and so forth, as opposed
to outright monsters.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
Wait, this wasn't one of the communist saboteur wrestlers in
the Mighty Tobar, was it.

Speaker 1 (39:46):
No, that was a different guy. But that was another
one where you could tell, like the way he was
I think it was the bumping in that one, Like
the way he was falling down. You know, he could tell, Okay,
this guy's a wrestler. He's got to be and you know, sure,
enough once you know the signs, it's pretty clear.

Speaker 2 (40:00):
All right. Well so anyway, after the zombie just breaks
Tennessee in half like a cracker, Hennessy's goons run in
the start shooting at the zombie, but he seems unbothered
by bullets. I think there are some squibs in this
scene that look pretty good.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
Mm hmm. Yeah, there are a number of effects in
the film where people are like shooting through zombies, and yeah,
it looks believable. A lot of films would just have
the maybe you're having the gun actually fire blanks, and
the rest is just implied.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
It's just a mid shot you don't like see it.
But this was like you see like these squibs exploding
out the back of the zombies suit jacket. Yeah, but anyway,
zombie goes out the window, he gets in the car
and drives away. Meanwhile, we see back in the laboratory
where the two guys are watching Zombie ITV. The guy
holding the microphone starts saying, come back home, come back home.

(40:51):
So it's clear what's starting to become clear what's going on.
This is like a remote controlled zombie or somnambulist or
something here and then there's a kind of funny moment
where the other guy grabs the microphone, like the scientist
takes it from the gangster guy, and he starts saying
in a German accent, get in the automobile, Get in

(41:12):
the automobile, the automobile, get inside. So eventually the zombie obeys,
and then the gangster guy this is Buchanan, and we
already know that because he was the one talking through
the zombie. Remember Buchanan, I am him, and the scientists
this is doctor Steig. They chatter about how the zombies work.

(41:34):
Buchanan is afraid that the zombie won't make it back
because of his gunshot wounds, but Steig says that as
long as he still has an ounce of fluid in
his body, he'll keep moving. And when these creatures are
damaged or run low on power, they automatically return to
the home base.

Speaker 1 (41:51):
Like a room.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Oh yeah, like that. But there's also you can see
emerging some conflict between Buchanan and Stig zombie mission control.
Buchanan is pleased. He's like, all right, that was the
first of them, first of the people on my murder list,
But there are more we have to send our zombies
after and then Steig kind of breaks into a lament.

(42:15):
He's like, oh, you know, I invented these remote control
zombies hoping that they could be used to help humanity
because they could do tasks that were dangerous for living workers.
But now that I'm working with Buchanan, he's like, all
you want to do is see people die. But Buchanan protests,
He's like, look, I don't just want to see people die.
I want to see particular people die and I'll get

(42:36):
them all. After this, Buchanan and Steig go into the
first of many in the movie almost ritualistic scenes of
dressing in these lead lined suits with respirator hoses and
crawling through a plastic lined tunnel into the operating room,
which I think we assume must be flooded with radiation.

(43:00):
This is kind of the storage room for more zombies
like our spine cruncher friend, and these are the titular
creatures with the atom brains. Now, while in the radioactive room,
they have to decommission a couple of Adam brain dudes
who have deteriorated beyond use. Because Stig explains, different parts
of the body die at different times and buchanans like,

(43:22):
does the brain still die first? And Steig says, always,
the brain always dies first.

Speaker 1 (43:28):
They didn't have an acid vat for this though. This
would have been a great time to have an acid vat.

Speaker 2 (43:32):
Oh yeah, you know you think that the they say
it so portentously, you almost think that the brain always
dies first is going to become a plot point. But
I don't think it does.

Speaker 1 (43:44):
That's I think that this is something we can chalk
up to, but not only the script of the performances here,
but there are a lot of lines like this that
that work far far better than they they probably that
they could have or certainly should have. You know, it's
like it this is not an important detail, but you
know it still kind of zings and sticks with you.
And I don't think this is Granger speaking this line.

(44:05):
I think this is this is the doctor.

Speaker 2 (44:07):
Yeah yeah, But all right, that's sort of the setup
for the film. You start to see, like what the
supernatural or science fiction premises, what comes next in this
kind of movie. Police arrive on the scene, of course, investigators,
and one of them is our hero, who seems to
be I'm going to say that the hero character is

(44:28):
the product of a compromise in the writer's room. They
went something like this, It's let's see, should our leading
man be a cop or a scientist? What if he
was both? So our hero, Chet Walker is some kind
of science cop. He is a cop, but he heads
up a forensic laboratory full of microscopes and glass slides

(44:51):
and Geiger counters, and he seems to be, I don't know,
like a mister wizard detective. He's like where the police
come to console his genius in order to solve murder cases.
But they also don't just refer evidence to him. He's
like always first on the scene investigating the crime.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
Yeah, this is kind of like the nineteen fifties version
of CSI. I guess you know where you have the
forensic expert. He's also just very, very and perhaps unrealistically
front and center of any investigation.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
All right, So chet and colleagues are on sen at
the casino where Hennessy got crunched like a ritz cracker,
and they discover several interesting things. They say, whoever broke
in was able to bend back the iron bars outside
the window with his bare hands. They noticed the perpetrator
did not bother to steal the money from the safe.
They say he was shot, leaving behind a trail of

(45:53):
blood and yet was still able to escape, and then
finally they discovered that his blood, his fingerprints, and his
footprints all glow in the dark. Also in this scene
there is the beginning of a theme where Chet is
followed around by a gang of I don't know, like
five to seven excitable and fairly credulous reporters who are

(46:14):
all slobbering for a story. And so the reporters are like,
how did he ben those bars? And Chet says maybe
he ate all his vitamins, and the reporters like vitamins
like he thinks, so maybe this is a real scoop.
I don't know about vitamins vitamins behind iron bar killing,

(46:35):
I think. In the scene we also meet Chet's friend Dave,
who is some other kind of cop. Is he supposed
to be like FBI or something or police captain? He
seems in some way separate from whatever Chet is.

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Yeah, yeah, I can never completely nail it down. I
will throw in that. Dave is played by s John Lonner,
who lived nineteen through two thousand and six, mostly small roles,
but appears in Hitchcock's Marnie from sixty four, Mommy dearis
from eighty one and was also in both The Werewolf
in fifty six, and I was a teenage Werewolf from

(47:11):
fifty seven.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
So back at the lab, Chet analyzes the luminous residue
and the blood left behind at the crime scene. He
discovers that the blood is not blood at all, it's
some kind of artificial concoction containing microscopic crystals. And then
the question is why does it all glow? Well, Chet
starts holding a Geiger counter up to it and it
starts it's going nuts. And doctor Walker's like, this so

(47:37):
called blood is radioactive, Dave says dangerously, So Chet responds,
plus nine.

Speaker 1 (47:45):
Yeah, didn't throw in like you wouldn't want to be
around this stuff for long because that's back on the
desk and kids conversation.

Speaker 2 (47:52):
They just put it on the desk. You keep talking. Yeah, So,
while leaving the lab, Chet is again intercepted by the reporters.
They demand a story, and Chet tells them that Hennessy
was killed by quote, a creature with adam rays of
superhuman strength and a creature that cannot be killed by bullets,
and the reporters are angered by this because they think

(48:13):
he is pulling their leg, and one of the reporters
threatens to misspell chet Walker's name, which this sent me
down a rabbit hole of what would be the best
way to misspell chet Walker. I'm gonna say, like Cheb Wonker.
M M.

Speaker 1 (48:28):
Yeah. It's a delicate balance because you don't want to
put anything in the paper that I'll get you in trouble.
He's got to get it, get it, you know, the
right level of insulting without being profane. But anyway, I
like this one little back and forth here because it's like, yeah,
I'll just tell you straight up what's going on with
the zombie and dare you to print it? Dare you
to take me seriously?

Speaker 2 (48:48):
So the next morning, Dave comes to Chet's house and
he's greeted by Chet's wife, Joyce. This is when we
first meet Chet's family. We find out he's not just
any science cop. This is a science cop of the family.
So he's had a wife named Joyce and a daughter
named Penny. Penny has a cherished doll named Henrietta, and
this leads to a weird exchange where Dave, who I

(49:09):
think is like trying to feed either Penny or the
Dolls serial. But Dave is like, you know, I used
to go with a girl named Henrietta. And Penny says
what happened to her? And Dave says, what happened to
her shouldn't happen to your doll? She married a con man.
Hey strange, But anyway, this is not a social call.

(49:31):
Dave is here to discuss work. He has some alarming news.
They got back a match on the fingerprints found at
the crime scene. They belonged to a convicted criminal who
died in jail twenty four days ago. From here we
go to let's see, it's been a few minutes since
we had a murder in this movie. We've got to
have another Adam Brain murder. So now we cut to

(49:52):
district Attorney McGraw, who we met at the first crime
scene earlier. I think he had a line that was
something like, look, just a district attorney, not a chemist.
McGraw is getting in his car in his garage when
he is startled by a strange man in a mechanics jumpsuit.
It looks kind of like Michael Myers without a mask,

(50:12):
and the man says I'm from Buchanan. If you know that,
you know why I'm here. It's no use, McGraw. And
then he reaches into McGrath's car and yanks the steering
wheel out of its housing, and he says, I said
I would see you die. I am watching you now.

(50:33):
I think there's like an implied therefore, like he's saying
I said I would see you die, I can see
you now. Therefore you're going to die.

Speaker 1 (50:41):
Well, Buchanan knows he only has so much time to gloat.
He's got to get to it with this remote death
via reanimated corpse.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Right, So this Adam brain lifts McGraw up by the
neck and then crunches him somehow does another crunchy thing.
So Chet and Dave arrive at the murder scene in
the garage, and there is a doctor on site who's like, yes,
of course, I already gave his wife a sedative. It
is nineteen fifty five. I know what I'm supposed to do.

(51:10):
But he also concludes that McGraw was killed by having
his bones crushed by a single hand. I can deduce
that by looking at him somehow, And this leads Chet
and Dave to conclude that it was the same murderer
as Hennessy. But that doesn't make sense, they say, because
Hennessy he was some kind of gangland boss and McGraw

(51:34):
was a district attorney, so that was like cop and criminal.
They're on opposite sides. How would they share a common enemy. Well,
there are more clues. McGraw's car is radioactive now and
the fingerprints of the murderer match a man who died
a few weeks ago, so another dead man's fingerprints around
the scene. And the reporters show back up again there,

(51:55):
you know. They go up to Chet and they're like, hey,
were you actually serious about these murders being done by
a thing with a brain charged by Adam Rays? And
Chet's like, yes, I was serious. And then the reporters say,
hot dog, you know we had a scoop. We didn't
even know it, And then they all run off together.
I'm like, is that a scoop if all nine of
you got it at the same time? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Are they all working for the same papers? This is
the budget for this newspaper? Is a ditting question.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
They also they don't like stop to get a quote
or ask any follow up questions. They just he just
confirms it was Adam Brain's and they're like, okay, we
got a story, and they run off.

Speaker 1 (52:33):
Confirmed.

Speaker 2 (52:34):
Yeah, okay. After this, we go to one of my
favorite characters in the movie. Who is uh is his
name Dick Cutting?

Speaker 1 (52:43):
Dick Cutting?

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Yes, yeah, okay, So we go to Dick Cutting is
a man who looks like he should be playing like
a commander in the Galactic Empire in Star Wars. He
has that kind of he should be Admiral Cutting.

Speaker 1 (52:59):
Played by Richard H. Cutting, who lived nineteen twelve through
nineteen seventy two.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
Wait, that's his real name.

Speaker 1 (53:05):
Apparently. Yeah. He was also an attack of the crab
monsters in South Pacific.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Oh, I didn't recognize him from crab Monsters. We'll see
which one was he is he the scientist in it?
I'll have to come back and doctor James Carson. Okay, okay.
So he's got a news monologue which is just tremendous.
His scenes are some of my favorite stuff in the film.
So he says hello, ladies and gentlemen. He's sitting at
like a very nice looking desk, and then behind him

(53:31):
there's a shelf full of what looked like very old books.
You know they're like, I don't know first editions or something.
He says, Hello, ladies and gentlemen. This is Dick cutting
with today's commentary on the news. As you know, today's
story hinges around the killing of District Attorney McGraw, whose
body was found today in his garage, murdered in much
the same manner as Hennessy was. What connection can the

(53:54):
murder have to Hennessy, who was obviously a gangland boss
is unknown at present. Chet Walker of the police Laboratory
has given out a fantastic story so incredible that one
can lend it little credence. Doctor Walker is of the
opinion that these crimes are being perpetrated by dead men. Yes,
I said, dead men restored to life in some unknown

(54:16):
manner by being charged with atom Ray's which gives them
superhuman strength and makes them impervious to bullets. Well, if
you want to believe that story, you can, And then
cut to Buchanan switching off the TV angrily.

Speaker 1 (54:31):
There'll be more from Dick cutting here in a bed.
It gets even better.

Speaker 2 (54:35):
Today's commentary on the.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
News, filmed in what just looks like a lawyer's office
as opposed to a TV studio or.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
Something, except there are curtains on the wall in the background.

Speaker 4 (54:46):
Ah.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Yes, yeah, So Buchanan is mad that I guess they've
figured out the whole scheme. And now, even though dick
cutting does not lend it any credence, he's mad just
to hear it being spoken, the lips of dick Cutting,
even if to be dismissed. Yes, so Buchanan says, this
doctor Walker has quite the imagination, and then Steig says,

(55:09):
the kind of imagination that could prove dangerous to us.
And then Buchanan says, you mean the kind of imagination
that could prove dangerous to him? Ooh, Buchanan is ruthless.
Now next we get another what I thought was a
highlight of the film, which is the meeting at City
Hall scene. This is like twenty two twenty three minutes
in Walker meets with the mayor and a bunch of

(55:32):
big wigs, including a General Saunders, and oh my god,
this guy's line deliveries. I don't know if you found
them as hilarious as I did, but they're just perfect.
He's I don't know if I can do an impression,
but you know they're they're introducing everybody, and he's like,
I'm from the military called just concerned me. So Chat

(55:56):
explains the creature with the Adam brain theory of the
case by talking about Faraday's experiments with a frog's leg,
you know, animating it with electricities, Like what if we
could do the same thing but with a human with
atomic rays and that, you know, basically like Colonel Sanders
is oh wait, no, is that his name? Colonel No? Sorry,

(56:19):
General Saunders. The genuine mistake here, okay, General Saunders, who says,
oh ye sorry. Chat requests trucks and planes that can
detect radiation so that they can find the headquarters of
the atom brain monsters, and General Saunders is like, I'll

(56:41):
go through your.

Speaker 1 (56:42):
Plans, oh man, So now the investigation into the atom creatures,
the atom brain creatures is about to have military support.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
This is I think we've talked about this before, but
this is a way that a lot of stories from
this era are structured that makes them I think not
nearly as thrilling or high tension as they could be
just in the plot wise, because it basically has the
heroes aligned with like powerful forces and many you know,
lots of backup, like the police, and the military are

(57:15):
aligned with the heroes, helping search out the isolated, besieged
bad guys.

Speaker 1 (57:21):
Yeah, all all of the lawful good agencies are going
to align and will overcome the I guess lawful evil
or maybe chaotoic evil forces of the villain. Like, there's
not really, there's no conflict among them, there's no question
of confidence. It's just a matter of time.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
Really, all right. So somewhere in here there is a
plot where Buchanan and Steige send a road assassin after
Chet Walker. They figured out that he's onto them, and
they get this guy in a car like trying to

(58:02):
chase him down and run him off the road, but
instead they just follow him to a military airfield where
they're like, oh, actually we need to do surveillance. This
guy's got something big cooking. But next there is a
scene at Chet and Joyce's house, and I thought the
sequence of this whole scene, the arc here is hilarious.
So first Chet comes home, Chet and Joyce are all

(58:23):
over each other, of course, then they announced it's time
for dinner. Then Joyce sees a newspaper that has a
banner headline do dead men walk city streets? Authorities tracking
down all clues. Also some other headlines. I see building
code under fire.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
Oh man, I feel that that was going to be
the lead. But then this dead man walking the street
thing popped up exactly.

Speaker 2 (58:47):
So Joyce gets the paper. She says, it's not true,
is it? I assume she's not talking about the building code.
She means like, is it true about the dead men?
And Chet says, better hide it from Penny. Say, could
use a really nice cold martini, So Joyce makes him one.
And then as she is making him a nice cold martini,

(59:08):
she's like, well, pennies out playing in the street where
the atomic brains are? Is that safe? And doctor Chet says,
there seems to be some sort of definite pattern. Can't
put my finger on it, but I do know that
Hennessy and mcgral were killed for a reason. And then
Joyce is like, well, it's all right. Then he didn't
really answer the question, and Chet says, well, for a while,

(59:31):
I don't think they've gotten around to indiscriminate killings yet.

Speaker 1 (59:36):
That's not even part of the plan. Has been described
by Buchanan. They are very specific killings. These they're not
random killings either, a specific vengeance killings.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
But so Chet seems to be like, yes, it is
okay for Penny to play in the street with the
Adam Brains. And then Penny comes inside. She asked for
the newspaper because she wants to read the funnies, and
they lie and tell her it didn't come today. Then
she wants to turn on the TV, and they lie
and tell her the TV is broken. You know, it
must be new tubes or something. Then Chet gets his

(01:00:09):
martini and he's like, ooh, I've been thinking about this
all day. And then Dave arrives. Captain Dave here arrives
to explain more Adam Brain news, and then they send
Penny to her room so she can't hear the conversation
and they have a whole big argument about it. Penny's like,
you know, oh, I you know, I promise not to
bother them. They're like, no, you must go. I think
they tell her to go to her room and like

(01:00:30):
punish Henrietta the doll or something. So there is this
persistent theme about them systematically hiding knowledge of danger from
Penny while actually not protecting her from the danger itself.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Yeah, and of course I think you could make a
lot out of that too as a commentary on people
growing up in the nineteen fifties and even some subsequent decades.
You know, not so much as it concerns the threat
of adam brained walking corpses, but various other issues in life.
You know, this sense of being overly protective in one way,

(01:01:07):
but not preparing a child at all for the realities
of well, in this case, the walking dead.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Right, So Dave has some information. He explains the backstory
that he pieced together that could make sense of all this.
There was this guy Buchanan, the old crime boss in town,
who many years ago was tried and convicted of crime
and then sent into exile in Italy. What was this

(01:01:35):
like a common punishment in the nineteen forties. So you're
convicted of being a mafia boss and instead of going
to prison, you're sent to Italy.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
Yeah. I had the same head scratching situation with this detail,
and I was looking it up and I can't find
anything that would support this as an actual reality. I
think you can get instant just some murky stuff about
US states being able to exile people from a given state.
But I didn't come across anything regarding like judicial exile,

(01:02:05):
like unless Buchanan was an Italian national. I guess maybe
that would make sense, but there's nothing to indicate that
he is or was. This is his name is Buchanan. Yeah,
that's a Scottish name. Yeah, So I don't know. I mean,
maybe there's something lost and re writes to the script
like it's one thing if he was living in exile

(01:02:27):
because he fled the law, like that would seem to
match up. But this idea of being exiled even in
like the nineteen forties, to another country because you were
a criminal, career criminal, I just don't know if that
makes any sense at all.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
Well, anyway, apparently when he was convicted, he stood up
in court and swore revenge on Da McGraw and everybody
else who had testified against him at trial, which included Hennessy,
who was his number two, but also included three other guys,
and we'll meet them in a minute. We also will
eventually learn, via these repeated cabe that they received from

(01:03:01):
police in Rome that while Buchanan was there, he made
friends with a German scientist named Stig who did weird
experiments on dogs, cats, and monkeys involving atomic radiation. So
it's all coming together now for the police investigators. But
they think, Okay, these other three guys who testified against Buchanan,

(01:03:22):
they are in danger, so we got to round them up.
And then at the very end of the scene, there's
a strange thing where Joyce offers Chet a second Martini
to take in the car with him. He turns it down,
so she chugs it and then has a coughing fit.
So it's like she can't hang stretch.

Speaker 1 (01:03:39):
Like, even if it doesn't make sense, it's like the
script is economic. They're fitting a lot of stuff. Then
there's no ways in space. Even if we don't really
understand what the point.

Speaker 2 (01:03:47):
Is, right, but we know what's going to happen next, Right,
Buchanan's going to be sending Adam brainiacs to kill the
three more guys, the others who testified against him. The
police offer to let those guys stay in jail for
their own protection, but they turn it down. They're like, no,
I'm going to be at home. Now.

Speaker 1 (01:04:05):
We're about I think at the thirty four minute mark
here and there's we're gonna check back in with Dick
cutting for just an absolutely perfect newscast that brings to
mind the newscaster from the Simpsons. There's this great sort
of issuing of an apology concerning the Adam Brain creatures. I,
for one, welcome our new Adam Brain overlords, according Dick Cutting,

(01:04:28):
so he says.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
And with the murder of Jason, Oh so, one of
the guys, one of the three guys gets murdered, Dick
Cutting says, And with the murder of Jason Franschat last night,
I must apologize for my recent skepticism regarding these atomic creatures.
It seems they do exist, and they are prowling the street.

(01:04:50):
I love it, but I think there's a subtext also,
which is like, but please do allow your children to
continue to play in the street. We don't want them
to know there could be any danger. And now a
message from our sponsor, you know, healthy lung cigarettes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
I do feel like this movie was sponsored by pipe smoke.
There there's a lot of like Chat is always smoking
a pipe. There scenes where two characters having conversations smoking
pipes at the same time. I haven't seen this much
pipe smoke since Lord of the Rings.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
We're going to get to a pipe scene in a minute. So,
but first, there are those planes and trucks that the
Chet requested earlier. They've got radium finders equipped and they're
scanning the city to find Adam brain HQ. And there's
a scene where Stig is out on the town. I
think he's out getting medicine to treat his radiation poisoning,

(01:05:40):
and he ducks into a bar to hide from the
military because they're like doing a house to house with
their bayonets out. I guess looking for I don't know
any scientists. I don't know exactly what they're running around with.
I guess they've got Geiger counters. Maybe they're scanning people
to see, like, are you radioactive? So he runs into
a bar to hide, orders a beer and then runs

(01:06:01):
out through the back door, leaves radiation on his beer
and they find that there. But they're like, oh, okay,
so we're looking for this German accent guy. Then there
is a research segment of the film, rob I think
you recently alluded to there's a like in each campaign
of Arkham Horror, there's like a research segment.

Speaker 1 (01:06:21):
Yeah, yep, this is our research segment for sure.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Chet goes to consult a neurologist friend of his about
Steig and his research. He learns all about Adam brain experiments.
Actually not Adam brain experiments. He learns about so I
think the thing is he learns that there have been
experiments that you can use electrodes to remotely control the
behavior of other creatures, like dogs. So they watch a

(01:06:48):
film strip with an electric dog. That is the cutest
thing I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 (01:06:52):
Yes, you'll never see fictional footage of dog mad science experiments.
That is so horrible because yeah, there's the the implication
on some level is that this is cruel and monstrous,
but you don't get that from the footage because it's
clearly like somebody's beloved pet dog with a couple of

(01:07:12):
wires attached to its collar or something, or maybe just
kind of like tucked into its fur, and then it's
just doing dog stuff. They're like, look it barks on command,
Look it sets down, and so forth.

Speaker 2 (01:07:23):
How can you imagine a dog doing something on command?
But no, they're doing it by controlling its brain. But
also it's funny because the dog is like, they're like,
you hear, by flipping this electrode, you can make it
vicious and then it goes er.

Speaker 1 (01:07:37):
But it's the cutest dog, So it is.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
It's cute viciousness. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:42):
Yeah, this is like I don't know what kind of dog,
like a bingee dog, you know, that level of dog.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
So that's the like electric control. But then I think
they make the bridge to the Adam brain thing by saying, oh,
but could you control a dead person with this kind
of method? And the guy's like no, because you didn't
have the energy to power the body if they were
no longer alive. But then Chad is like, what if
you used atom rays? And then the guy's like, oh no,

(01:08:08):
I hadn't thought of that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Yeah, He's like, we're not there yet, but kind of
implying like it's a good idea though, like this is
a good way to use corpses, but we're just not
there yet.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
But this whole scene, they're just digging into some pipes.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Yeah, yeah, just so much pipe smoking. They both have
one going.

Speaker 2 (01:08:28):
It's like, try some of my tobacco blend.

Speaker 1 (01:08:30):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Now, from here, there is a subplot where Buchanan and
Styg resort to terrorism. They're trying to get the army
to stop scanning with their radium finders, so they have
one of the Adam brains call in from a payphone
to the Army. I guess to call somebody and say, like,

(01:08:52):
stop your investigation or there will be disasters. And of
course the authorities don't negotiate with Adam Brain, so they
don't stop. And then we are treated to stock footage
of like trains derailing and mountains exploding and stuff. We
see a headline in the newspaper that says, plane bus
and rail crashes stir public.

Speaker 1 (01:09:14):
Really in this calculation on the cannon's part, because he
always doing is antagonizing the military at this point, if
he really wanted the heat to die down, they should
have just stopped doing Adam Brains.

Speaker 2 (01:09:24):
For a little bit. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
Also, doesn't he have just like three more murders left
to complete his agenda here?

Speaker 2 (01:09:31):
I think he did one of the three, so he's
got two more.

Speaker 1 (01:09:33):
Two murders left, and you're gonna go ahead and rile
up the military. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
Yeah, it seems like he should keep his eye on
the ball, like they're really getting sidetracked. I feel like
it would be harder to accomplish plane bus and rail
crashes than to just finish his business. Yeah, but oh no.
Then we get to a scene where Dave Chet's friend
gets Adam brained. He gets attacked by I think the

(01:09:58):
one of the three guys who was on the murder list,
the accountant, the former accountant of Buchanan. He gets killed
in his house by an Adam brain. He gets turned
into an Adam brain. He kills Dave in Dave's car,
and then Dave gets Adam brained.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
And we get to see the is this the Adam
brain itself? Could I couldn't make out all the detail
when I was viewing it. It's just some sort of
implied some sort of like thing with wires on it.
It's going to go into the open cranium because I
don't know. Do we mention that all the Adam brains
have like what appears to be stitching across their forehead.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
Yeah, that their head has been opened up like a
like a pez dispenser and something is inserted in it.
The thing is some kind of electrode brain plates. I
think they install the plate in the brain to send
electrodes down into the brain tissue to control the body remotely,
and then they power it with the Adam rays. So

(01:10:51):
they Adam brain Dave and then they get Dave talking.
They're like testing him out. They find that he can
use his own vocal cords so he won't sound like
Buchanan when he talks. He'll sound like Dave. But they're
like get you. They're like, you know, Captain Harris, say
your name, and he goes, my name is David Harris,
Homicide Squad. And then they tuck a knife in his

(01:11:13):
pants and they send him on his way. I think
they're sending him to try to go kill Chet Walker,
the main guy.

Speaker 1 (01:11:19):
Yeah, and since he can talk like Dave, he's more
of an infiltration unit at this point.

Speaker 2 (01:11:24):
So there is a scene that I think is supposed
to be very tense but actually was mostly funny where
Dave goes to Chet's house. Chet's not home, but Joyce
and Penny are there. He comes to the door and
Penny's like, who is it, and he goes, my name
is David Harris, Captain Harris, Homicide Squad. And she lets
him in and Joyce is like, oh, why so formal, Dave?

(01:11:47):
You sound terrible? Are you coming down with a cold?
And he's playing with pennies Dolly while Penny goes into
the kitchen to talk to her mom, and then Joyce
just happens to let She's like, oh, Chet had a
brainstorm this morning, Dave something about giving out phony information
to Buchanan about where the men and protective custody are

(01:12:08):
when actually they are at the county jail. So now
not realizing that Dave is actually Adam brain Dave, and
now Buchanan has that information, you know where he's going.
He's going to the county jail to get his revenge.
But the end of the scene finally made sense sort
of some of the lyrics from the Rocky Erickson song,

(01:12:31):
which again I'd never seen the movie before, so I
didn't know what this referred to. But there are some
lyrics that say threw the doll right down, ripped its
guts off, and threw it on the ground. And at
the end of the scene, Penny comes back into the room,
Dave is gone, but she finds her doll just smashed
to pieces on the floor.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
If you're not familiar with the lyrics of Rocky erics
and songs, they often do have this kind of like
stream of consciousness kind of quality to them, and they
seem kind of cryptic and hard to decipher and don't
always include proper grammar, but often uses improper grammar in
ways that feel intentional and important to whatever he was

(01:13:14):
trying to get across.

Speaker 2 (01:13:15):
Right, Like the preposition ripped its guts off instead of
out interesting and it doesn't have guts, it's a doll. Yeah.
So Adam brain Dave goes to get his revenge. Buchanan
sends him to the jail where he kills the other
two witnesses. And then after that, Adam Brain Dave tries

(01:13:36):
to kill Chet because Chet gets into a car with
him and then they're like, crash the car, smash it
to pieces, but Chet jumps out of the car in
time to save himself. Though I don't know if you
jump out of a speeding car, that's you're gonna get hurt.
That's not good for you.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
Yeah, not in movies. Though in movies you can just
jump out of them and you're fine.

Speaker 2 (01:13:54):
It's the same principle as like if you jump up
right before the crashing plane hits the ground, you'll be ok.
But after this crash, the police recover Adam brain Dave.
Adam Brain Dave is damaged, so he's no longer following
orders from Buchanan. But so they like they check him
out and they're like oh wow, look at all the
electrodes in his brain. But he recovers some functionality while

(01:14:16):
in the hospital does another window stunt, like he pushes
the glass out of a window and then jumps out
the window to shamble back to Adam brain HQ. This
leads the police in the military right to the bad guys,
and then we have our final showdown. Buchanan gets mad
at Steig for some reason. I don't remember why. Actually,
Buchanan just kills Stig.

Speaker 1 (01:14:38):
I think then Iig finally is like, I can't take
it anymore. This is too much murder. I wasn't in
it for the murder. I was just in it for
the resurrection of the dead. And so he brains him
with a with a some sort of eye guy Ranch
or something before he can destroy the machine.

Speaker 2 (01:14:53):
Yeah, so Buchanan then he gets all of his Adam
brain's active at once. There's like ten of them, and
he's like, go out attack the police kill them all.
So there's a big fight where the police are all
fighting with Adam brains on the lawn and then Chet
has to go inside and smash up the machine. But
before he can do that, Buchanan corners him and there's

(01:15:16):
like a there's a showdown there. But ultimately Buchanan is
destroyed by his own wrath because one of the Adam
brains comes in and grabs I think it's the Adam
Brain Dave maybe comes in and grabs Buchanan and strangles him.
He kills him.

Speaker 1 (01:15:34):
Yeah, destroyed by his own Adam brains. A fitting ending there.

Speaker 2 (01:15:39):
Yeah, And then they destroy the Adam ray machine and
that powers down all of the Adam Brains on the
lawn and good prevails over evil.

Speaker 1 (01:15:48):
Pretty pretty solid ending, mostly by the books. I loved
the battle on the lawn between the Adam Brains and
the law and military. It was better than I expected
it to be. And again you get the people, you know,
firing bullets through the Adam brains and a lot of
like crunching and so forth. But then we close things

(01:16:09):
out though with the family unit at the dinner table
with with with Chet and his family.

Speaker 2 (01:16:17):
And that's enough of that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:16:18):
Yeah, And we get this super weird ending where the
little girl what's her name, Henrietta.

Speaker 2 (01:16:25):
No, Henrietta is the doll that got stripped off. The
girl is Penny.

Speaker 1 (01:16:30):
Penny, yes, sorry, Penny is asking about Uncle Dave. She's like,
where's Uncle Dave? And they don't tell her that he's dead.
They're like, oh, he's gone for a little while, which
is crazy, right, because it's one thing to you know,
obviously you want to keep it age appropriate. You don't
have to tell her that a career criminal and a
mad scientist murdered him and then stuffed his brain with

(01:16:53):
electrodes and reanimated his corpse and made it do murders.
But to just be like, oh, the Uncle Dave went
away for littlely, he's on a vacation. No, no, Uncle
Dave is dead, Like, at least tell her he's dead.

Speaker 2 (01:17:06):
He went up to an Adam farm upstate.

Speaker 1 (01:17:08):
Yeah, it's so weird, and perhaps you know, telling of
how you know, we approached the protection of our children
in previous decades. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:17:21):
All right, Well that's all I gotta say about creature
with the Adam brain. Why is he acting so strange?
It's because he is a creature with an Adam brain.
The mystery is solved.

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
Ah, yeah, it's it's a it's a fun one. If
you enjoy fifties B movies, this is a solid and
entertaining good time. You know it's again it's not not
top tier for genre and time period, but but pretty solid.
It's never boring. Uh, there's a lot, a lot to
love here. As always, we'd love to hear from everyone
out there if you have thoughts on the movie of

(01:17:52):
the week, Creature with the Adam Brain, if you have
thoughts on the music of Rocky ericson as it relates
to this movie, or just in general, well yeah, right
in we'd love to hear from you about that as well.
A reminder that we're primarily a science podcast here at
Stuff to Blow your mind with core episodes on Tuesdays
and Thursdays, but on Fridays we set aside most serious
concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird

(01:18:12):
House Cinema. If you want to see a complete list
of the movies we've covered over the years here for
Weird House Cinema, you can go to letterbox dot com.
It's l E T T E or boxb dot com.
We have a profile there called weird House and we
have a list of all the movies we've covered, and
you can do all sorts of neat filters to see
like what decades and you know what genres and so forth,

(01:18:32):
and I also blog about these at sim mutamusic dot com.
I'll definitely do a blog post for this movie because
I want to make sure that I throw in somewhere
where you can stream that Rocky ericson song and compare
it to the film.

Speaker 2 (01:18:45):
Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. If you
would like to get in touch with us with feedback
on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
for the future, or just to say hello, you can
email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:19:05):
Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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