518 - THE ATOMIC BRAIN with short: WHAT ABOUT JUVENILE DELINQUENCY? (RHINO DVD Box #3 and VHS)

Short:  The short that starts this episode begins with a carload of young hoodlums, who apparently belong to the “Shazam” gang based on the look of their insignia, bumping into another car that’s sitting at a stop sign.  When the man in the other car gets out, the hoods beat him up and rob him.  Later the hoods pick up another member of their gang who then figures out that the man the others beat up was his dad.  He is surprisingly upset about this (maybe because they stole his dad’s pen?) and he drops out of the gang.  The next day, the rest of the gang threatens him, so he and some goody-two-shoed friends race over to speak at a town council meeting on juvenile delinquency.  “What would you say if you were in this boy’s shoes?”  This is yet another dated public service type short that M&tBs rip to shreds.

Synopsis:  The feature is another in the mad scientist genre.  The plot in this one is about a scientist whose research in brain transference is being financed by an old rich woman.  She wants him to succeed in his work so that he can transfer her brain into the body of a beautiful young woman.  The research starts with corpses but, after they keep ending up as zombies, the work moves up to live subjects, which is where the three beautiful women who are invited to stay at the old woman’s castle come in.  The women slowly begin to suspect that something strange is going, particularly when a research “volunteer” begins meowing like a cat because the doctor transplanted a feline brain into her body.  Now the two remaining women want to escape, but cannot.  So the scientist moves forward on the plan to transplant the old woman’s brain into one young woman’s body.  But, instead, he double-crosses the old woman and transplants her brain into the body of a cat.  Now the young woman will inherit the old woman’s money and the scientist can continue his research.  But, first he must enter the atomic brain transplant machine and – unlucky for him – the old cat will have her revenge!

Stinger:  (Stinger missing from Rhino release)

Don’s Review:  This Mad Scientist movie is pretty funny on its own.  Although the plot is a bit reminiscent of The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (ep #513), this movie thankfully lacks the melancholy drabness of that film and I found it to be a lot more cheesy fun.  And the riffing by M&tBs is great, plus I also liked this host segments in this very funny episode .  A very good choice by Rhino in choosing this one for home video release.

Don’s Rating:     [ S:   F: ]