“The 17th gland is the secret of youth and eternal life.”
Dr. Charles Conway (John Carradine) runs a psychiatric hospital. In his spare time he experiments on his charges by operating on them and inserting artificial glands into them. He is attempting to create immortality. What he succeeds in doing is creating a bunch of mindless zombies. His minion Lobo (Tor Johnson) and his assistant Dr. Sharon Gilchrist (Marilyn Buferd) assist him. An associate, Dr. Loren Wright (Roy Gordon) refers patients to Conway ensuring an ample supply of guinea pigs.
The latest guinea pig is Grace Thomas (Allison Hayes). She is seeking treatment for depression. Normally Wright brings subjects with no living relatives. This time, however, Grace has a father. Wright says he plans on making it look like Grace committed suicide. Conway shows Wright his most recent experiment, Harry Jedrow (Harry Fleer). Jedrow is alive, but basically a zombie. Wright tells Conway that Jedrow’s sister showed up. Conway is furious. None of his patients are suppose to have relatives of any kind.
That night, Lobo finds a man slinking around the grounds. He is Frank Scott (Myron Healey). Conway figures out that Scott is an escaped convict. Conway offers him a refuge if he will assist him in his experiments. Conway must either agree or get turned in to the police. He agrees, but is repulsed by what Conway is doing.
The next day Frank meets not only Grace but the other residents of the clinic. Danny Green (Arthur Batanides) and Natalie Andries (Sally Todd). Each one is supposedly being treated for normal issues. Conway, however, has other plans for all of them, including Frank.
“The Unearthly” was released in 1957 and was directed by Boris Petroff. It was nice to see Carradine in an honest to goodness role. Usually he’s a bit part-er. This time he’s front and center mad scientist. Much ado is made concerning Tor’s character Lobo. It is stressed that it is a different character than the Lobo in Ed Wood’s “Bride of the Monster” and “Night of the Ghouls”. I could see right off that the lumbering-zombie-faced-giant in “The Unearthly” is much different than the lumbering-zombie-faced-giant in “Bride” and “Night”. This one can talk. “Time-fo’-go-ta-bed.” – Lobo. It’s awe inspiring.
It’s not really a great movie and not a horrible movie. The premise of experimenting with glands was a prominent plot devise in the 40’s and 50’s. Also mad scientist, devoted female assistant to mad scientist and devoted moron side kick to mad scientist. There were pros and cons on the make-up for the botched operations. I thought that too was average for the genre of the time. One thing that made no sense was the name of the movie. There’s nothing paranormal or alien about it. It is your basic mad scientist movie but I felt a ‘cooler’ title would have been more appropriate.
There is a little twist to it which I liked. Plus I actually got a couple chuckles out of it. You also got quite a bit of horror star for your money. Not only John Carradine and Tor Johnson but Allison Hayes as well. That’s not too bad for a movie with only seven main characters in it.