Includes "spoilers": if you don't want to know the "shocking twist ending" to THE ATOMIC BRAIN, don't read the following!
This bitter old semi-ambulatory rich lady lives in a secluded mansion with her manservant Victor and a mad scientist whose brain experiments have created a Dog-boy and a hot brunette zombie who occasionally wanders around the set ("She doesn't have a brain… there might be advantages", Victor muses). Every now and the Doc and Dog-boy go to the cemetery to dig up the fresh corpses of pretty young girls, which he sticks into his cyclotron, carefully placing the bodies so that two metal bands cover their naughty parts so he won't be distracted by necrophiliac lust while he atomizes their brains.
Anyway, the old woman who's funding Doc's experiments needs a sexy new body, so she tricks three foreign au pairs to come live at the mansion and audition as her new digs. Then Doc sticks a cat's brain in Anita the Mexican's body because she has a birthmark on her back. But the Mexican cat girl claws out the eyes of Bea, the blond with the same measurements as Marilyn Monroe, the chick that the old biddy had specially picked out for her new hot bod. Doc saves Bea's eyeball in a jar so he can stick it back in her later, but then they forget about that subplot and decide to use Nina's body instead. This might be a blessing in disguise for the old crone, because Austrian Nina is the only one without an accent that sounds like it came out of a bad high school play.
Anyway, the old lady stabs Victor after 2/3 of the maids try to seduce him, then Doc betrays her and transplants her brain into a cat instead of into Nina. The cat gets the last laugh when Doc helpfully climbs into his own cyclotron and she pushes the button that turns him into a skeleton before blowing up the house.
This movie was so good it inspired
JaseSF's avatar. An excellent music score is highlighted by a swinging tune perfectly synchronized to Bea's sashaying rear. This would make a great double feature with that other early 1960s hunt-for-a-curvy-young-torso-to-transplant-a-half-dead-lady-onto sci-fi extravaganza, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN’T DIE. 3 out of 5 stars.
