Movies

Movies

Copyright 2016 Robert Fuller Official Website

Soundtrack available from Monstrous Music. Click picture for link

DVD available from Amazon

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Premiere: 1st October 1957

Producer/Cinematographer: Jacques Marquette

Director: Nathan Juran as Nathan Hertz

Screenplay: Ray Buffum

Musical Score: Walter Greene

Run time: 71 minutes, B/W

Cast:

John Agar (Steve March)

Joyce Meadows (Sally Fallon)

Robert Fuller (Dan Murphy)

Thomas Browne Henry (John Fallon)

Released by Howco International and shot for less than $75,000 in roughly 10 days, Arous caught the later wave of popular post-war American sci-fi films of the 1950s – the decade which unleashed a golden age of screen mayhem on an eager public already consuming mass quantities of sci-fi literature. And the public flooded in, often entertained by stars including Robert Fuller, who launched their movies with personal appearances before ecstatic fans at theatres and drive-ins. “All those science fiction movies, what are you gonna say, one was bad and one was good? They were all pictures made on a low budget that did well and people loved them.” Robert Fuller, Drive-In Movie Memories

The Brain from Planet Arous was one such picture.

How world domination begins…

While investigating extreme radioactivity at Mystery Mountain in the desert, nuclear physicists Steve March (prolific sci-fi regular John Agar) and Dan Murphy (Robert Fuller) slam their jeep into a rock and haul themselves through the scorching heat to a newly formed cave. Once inside, they declare to whatever is lurking there they come as friends.

Fail!

Blinding light, and then, a gigantic floating brain with eyes appears to the gaping scientists. They shoot at it, of course.

Fail!

The menacing brain promptly voids the sweating Dan and takes over Steve’s body.

[Sidebar: Nowhere in any of his other roles does Robert Fuller so comically seal his own fate as he does via doomed “Dan”. In his under 15 minutes of screen time, he chatters wryly about cremated hamburgers, rampaging gamma rays, frying up in desert heat and how he should have studied accounting. Sadly, until his charred body is found, his absence is indelicately explained by his playboy penchant for fleshpots in Las Vegas. Rest in peace hottie Dan, who went out with both a flash and a bang.]  

How world domination gets sidetracked…

By a woman! Steve-turned-Gor returns home to his comely fiancée Sally (Joyce Meadows) and immediately Gor’s fatal flaw is revealed – the lecherous delights of being a human male! Suspicious of her amorous man who has never kissed her like that before, Sally knows something is very, very wrong. Back in Steve’s office, the fiendish brain briefly emerges from Steve, identifies himself as Gor from planet Arous, outlines an evil plot to become master of the universe and admits he has the hots for Sally.

Troubling though Steve’s grabby hands may be, Sally enlists her father John (Thomas Browne Henry) to help investigate Steve’s more alarming erratic behavior which includes blowing up planes with scary Gor eyes, searing the town Sheriff, demolishing a military Atomic-bomb test site and bringing a half-dozen world leaders to their knees.

Enter Vol, the benevolent brain dispatched from planet Arous to save earthlings from the criminal rogue Gor. Proving his cunning superiority to Gor, Vol inhabits the body of Sally’s dog George, on account of a dog can spy on Steve all the time without anything seeming amiss. Vol advises the alluring Sally of Gor’s other Achilles heels. He has to return to his true form now and then to get oxygen, and there is a vulnerable spot at the top of his big sadistic brain. With the help of dog George/Vol and an encyclopedia, Sally plots to outwit the leering, murderous Gor and get her passive fiancé back.

How world domination ends…

With a woman! In an epic battle scene, intrepid Sally saves Steve, and thus the world, by ingeniously steering him to the brain’s weak spot. As Gor exits Steve’s body for a moment to get some air and cackle maniacally, Steve regains his sensitive self, grabs an axe and hacks the squealing monster to the ground. Mission over, Vol quietly vacates George the dog, who has been mostly idle outside the window.

In one final hilarious twist, Steve does not believe Sally’s tale the dog was inhabited by an alien brain, and he condescendingly dismisses her overactive imagination.

You’re welcome, Steve.

Intelligence from Planet Arous

According to Joyce Meadows (who plays Sally brilliantly), Gor the Brain was such a delicate prop the destructive end scene had to be well-rehearsed. During one take, when John Agar apparently critically injured it with his axe, the crew had to rush in to perform brain surgery. And if at times Gor seems more melancholy than malevolent, it may be due to the sad realization its uplifting piano wires were clearly visible on screen and couldn’t be hidden by film technology of the day.

Conversely, Walter Greene’s wildly suspenseful orchestral score for the movie did not contain a string section!

Review by Belinda New

April 2016