THE CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN

US, 1955, 69 minutes, Black and white.
Richard Denning, Angela Stevens, S. John Lawner, Michael Granger, Gregory Gaye.
Directed by Edward L. Cahn.

The B Feature was a popular aspect of the double bills, especially in English-speaking countries. They were churned out by the American industry as well as by the British from the 1930s to the 1960s. The coming of television did not immediately halt their production or popularity but, at the beinning of the 1960s, with the big-budget widescreen films that were becoming more and more popular, there was little place for these films.

When the Americans began making telemovies in the late 1960s, these became the alternative to the B films.

However, there were still a number of film-makers who made genre pictures during the 1970s, often Z budget in production and imagination. Later, the successors of these films were the straight-to-video and straight-to-DVD films of the 1990s and into the 21st century.

In the United States, especially with the popular serials that took on themes of science and even space exploration, the 1950s saw a proliferation of short science fiction films, some of them now considered excellent examples of their type, others were just schlock.

One of the features of these films was the atomic age and many of the films were warnings about radiation dangers and the possibilities of mutations and monsters. Godzilla emerged from this period. Space also fascinated film-makers and audiences at this time. The first Sputnik was launched in 1957 and soon after the first astronauts went into space. The moon landing was in 1969. Many of the films (even Kubrick’s 1968 2001: a Space Odyssey) tried to imagine what space travel would be like. There was a huge spate of space films.

Unfortunately, special effects were quite limited at the time and many audiences would find these quite risible. However, taken in their time, they had their impact.

This was the period of Ed Wood and his Planet 9 from Outer Space but also the beginning of the career of Roger Corman and his many protégés who became top-class directors.

There had been a Hollywood tradition of horror since the 1930s which led to many spoofs. However, all kinds of horror made a comeback in the 1950s, not only in the shockers from the US but also from Hammer Studios in England. These films also continued throughout the 1960s and 1970s and influenced some of the poorer directors like Ted. V. Mikels with films like The Corpse Grinders. These films, along with the popularity of the blaxploitation films now show their age with their characteristic costumes and hair styles, the touch sometimes of the psychedelic and the grainy film stock.

Creature with the Atom Brain is one of many science fiction B-budget films from the 1950s, a supporting feature with another film of its style?

This was written by Curt Siodmak (brother of Robert Siodmak, the director of such thrillers as The Spiral Staircase). He was also a novelist and wrote Donovan’s Brain (filmed many times) and seemed to have a focus on thrillers with issues of the brain.

The director is Edward L. Cahn who began directing in the early 1930s and who directed mainly very short B-budget films. However, during the 1950s he directed quite a number of this kind of science fiction film including The She Creature, Voodoo Woman, Zombies of Mora Tau, Invasion of the Saucer Men.

The star is Richard Denning, a solid Hollywood star of action features including Creature from the Black Lagoon. Towards the end of his career he was in eighty episodes of Hawaii Five-O.

The film is really a gangster thriller. A gangster uses an ex-Nazi scientist to reactivate dead men’s brains and to control them and send them out to wreak vengeance on those who betrayed him. This means that it has the tough of the zombie movie as well as the living dead. While tongue-in-cheek, the film is also a serious police investigation.

1.The title? The sensationalism? The writer’s interest in the brain and its effects? Tampering with the brain?

2.The tradition of the zombie films, the living dead?

3.The black and white photography, the suburban locations? The ordinary lifestyle and this kind of science fiction? The laboratory? The musical score?

4.The focus on Buchanan, his controlling the scientist? The scientist going along with him, being paid, the support for the finances of the laboratory? His controlling the zombies? The microphone, the brain circuitry? The development of the television screen and the transmitting of what the zombies saw? The use of this in the murders? The character of the scientist, his being killed by the gangster? The gangster and the intensity of his revenge?

5.The victims, police, the district attorney? The killing of the detective and using him to destroy the investigator? The range of disappearing bodies from the morgue? The final attack of the living dead and their fighting the policeman?

6.Chet Walker, ordinary, his investigations? His home life, relationship with George, the domestic comedy with the sexual overtones? Their daughter? The visits of Uncle Dave, the gift of the doll, the destruction of the doll? The substitute doll at the end – and her calling it Dave? The balance of this domestic comedy with the more serious issues?

7.The police, the investigation, the discovery of the bodies – the counting of the money at the club, the dictaphone and listening to the record? The investigations? Following Dave, his attempts to kill Chet Walker? Chet and his escape from the speeding car? Alerting the police? The authorities?

8.The build-up to the climax, Dave and his getting the information from Penny about her father’s whereabouts, the scientist and Buchanan and their control? The injury to the circuitry and their loss of visuals?

9.The final confrontation, the dangers of radioactivity, the fight of the police with the men? Dave and his returning for the energy source, breaking the window? Chet and the confrontation with Buchanan?

10.The gangster thriller combined with 1950s-style B-budget science fiction?