"Perhaps we can get back to the meeting without any more skepticism."
Dr. Steve March (John Agar) is working in his lab when he notices his Geiger counter register radioactivity. He shows his colleague, Dan Murphy (Robert Fuller). Steve has located the source. It is thirty miles away at Mystery Mountain. After lunch the guys set out in a Jeep. They come across a rock fall in the road. Steve sees rock debris indicating recent activity. They get out and walk the rest of the way. They come across a cave that appears to have been made recently. With their flashlights they check out the cave. Suddenly there is an apparition of a huge brain floating in front of them. Steve and Dan fire at the apparition. A burst of radiation kills Dan. Then the brain shrinks and enters Steve’s body.
The entity is called Gor. He is a criminal brain creature from the planet Arous. His ambition is to control the world. By possessing Steve’s body, he can go about unnoticed. Through Steve he can threaten destruction to any government. When Steve comes back from Mystery Mountain his fiancée Sally Fallon (Joyce Meadows) notices that there is something different about Steve. Something wrong. Especially when he tries to rape her.
Sally convinces her father John (Thomas Browne Henry) to go with her to Mystery Mountain to find out what happened to Steve. They find the cave, and the body of Dan. Then another brain appears. He says his name is Vol and that he is looking for the criminal Gor. He is aware that Gor killed Dan and now inhabits the body of Steve. Vol visits Sally and John that night at their home. He needs to inhabit a body to keep an eye on Gor. He takes over the body of Sally’s dog, George. Now he needs to find the right time to confront Gor without killing Steve.
“The Brain From Planet Arous” was released in 1957. It was directed by Nathan Juran and is one in a list of brain movies. John Agar is at his over-the-top campy best. He doesn’t need those contact lenses to look insane. He can manage quite well on his own. The movie itself is one of those campy science fiction so bad it’s good movies, complete with a cult following.
If you’re an Agar fan, you have it already. If you like campy cheesy stuff, open wide.
The special effect for Agar's eyes was achieved by using special contact lenses lined with metal foil. These were used years later by actor Gary Lockwood during the “Star Trek” TV series (second pilot) episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Both the voice of Gor and Vol are done by Dale Tate. He is also an associate producer. The make-up was done by Jack Pierce.
The fissure of Rolando is the central sulcus, or fold, in the cerebral cortex in the brains of vertebrates. Also called the central fissure, it was originally called the fissure of Rolando or the Rolandic fissure, after Luigi Rolando. It is sometimes confused with the medial longitudinal fissure.