They Saved Hitler's Brain (1969)

They Saved Hitler's Brain was made by combining a short feature with new footage shot by amateurs much later, and it shows.

The short feature, Madmen of Mandoras, is nothing special and concerns a plot to establish Hitler's head as the ruler of the world.  It could have been a shlocky but fun little appetizer for the main feature, but the budget is so low that the entire conspiracy to bring Hitler back to power is limited to Hitler's head (that just sits there in a glass box blinking), and a few guys.  They plan to release some kind of nerve gas, but I just don't see how this could possibly work out well for them.

Ten years later, some students filmed 20 minutes or so of footage and added it to increase the running time.  Instead of skillfully splicing scenes into the feature to lengthen it, they just filmed some nonsense and dropped the whole thing at the start of the movie.  Sure, it's in black and white like the rest of the movie, but the film looks newer as the costumes, hairstyles, and cars are obviously from a different generation or era.  I don't even understand how the new footage is related at all to the Madmen of Mandoras.

The only thing common to both is that they are awful.  I had trouble following what was going on because scenes didn't seem to flow into each other at all.  The movie is disjointed.  Nothing much happens for most of it, and like all awful 50s/60s "science fiction" movies, most of the running time is taken up by scenes of talking in offices, which are cheap to film.

I suppose I get what I deserve for watching stuff from "50 movies for $10" DVD collections, but it's pretty disheartening to watch these kinds of movies.  Hopefully the next one won't be so bad.