Mystery Science Theater 3000: THE BRUTE MAN
April 26, 2017 12:26 PM - Season 7, Episode 2 - Subscribe
"Towering NEW Terror! No woman safe from his crushing arms..." A guy with acromegaly is kiling people, but when he takes refuge from the police in a blind girl's house he finds himself moved to help her. He goes and steals to pay for an operation that could cure her, but also kills people because I guess old habits die hard. The police punch his ticket, but for some reason she gets the operation anyway. With short The Chicken of Tomorrow: The hazy future promises advances in the raising of chickens. Science marches on! Poor Rondo Hatton died shortly after this movie was made, from the very acromegaly that established him as "The Creeper." Although the short is great, this is one of the worse episodes of Season Seven unfortunately. Host segments are interesting though, with Pearl's date having to face off with a surprisingly protective Dr. Forrester. YouTube (1h31m) Premiered February 10, 1996.
Episode 702 THE BRUTE MAN
Satellite News - Mighty Jack's Episode Review - War of the Colossal Fan Guide
Short: The Chicken of Tomorrow
Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt - Wikipedia
IMDB (1948, 2.5 stars)
"Advances in chicken and egg farming."
Directed by Jack Arnold. Starring Lowell Thomas.
Movie: The Brute Man
Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt - Rotten Tomatoes (Critics N/A, Viewers 11%) - Wikipedia
IMDB (1946, 3.8 stars)
"A facially deformed and mentally unhinged man wreaks his revenge on those who deformed him with a series of brutal murders."
Directed by Jean Yarbrough. Written by Dwight V. Babcock, George Bricker and M. Coates Webster. Starring Rondo Hatton as Hal Moffat aka "The Creeper," Tom Neal as Clifford Scott and Jan Wiley as Virginia Rogers Scott.
Notes:
Satellite News notes, if you go looking for The Chicken of Tomorrow in other sources, there's another similar short floating around with the same name, and even reusing some of the same footage, but is still a different short.
Mighty Jack's page tells us that star Rondo Hatton, the Brute Man himself, died shortly after the movie was made. Daddy-O notes he had acromegaly brought on by chemical warfare in World War I which disfigured his face. It gave him a career playing The Creeper in a series of movies, but it also eventually brought about his death. Daddy-O also notes that, these days, the disease can be cured if stopped early enough, and that such a cured sufferer was Paul Benedict, Mr. Bentley from The Jeffersons.
Watch for the reference to KTMA-23, the UHF channel where MST got its start!
Episode 702 THE BRUTE MAN
Satellite News - Mighty Jack's Episode Review - War of the Colossal Fan Guide
Short: The Chicken of Tomorrow
Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt - Wikipedia
IMDB (1948, 2.5 stars)
"Advances in chicken and egg farming."
Directed by Jack Arnold. Starring Lowell Thomas.
Movie: The Brute Man
Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt - Rotten Tomatoes (Critics N/A, Viewers 11%) - Wikipedia
IMDB (1946, 3.8 stars)
"A facially deformed and mentally unhinged man wreaks his revenge on those who deformed him with a series of brutal murders."
Directed by Jean Yarbrough. Written by Dwight V. Babcock, George Bricker and M. Coates Webster. Starring Rondo Hatton as Hal Moffat aka "The Creeper," Tom Neal as Clifford Scott and Jan Wiley as Virginia Rogers Scott.
Notes:
Satellite News notes, if you go looking for The Chicken of Tomorrow in other sources, there's another similar short floating around with the same name, and even reusing some of the same footage, but is still a different short.
Mighty Jack's page tells us that star Rondo Hatton, the Brute Man himself, died shortly after the movie was made. Daddy-O notes he had acromegaly brought on by chemical warfare in World War I which disfigured his face. It gave him a career playing The Creeper in a series of movies, but it also eventually brought about his death. Daddy-O also notes that, these days, the disease can be cured if stopped early enough, and that such a cured sufferer was Paul Benedict, Mr. Bentley from The Jeffersons.
Watch for the reference to KTMA-23, the UHF channel where MST got its start!
My kids love this short.
posted by Chrysostom at 2:43 PM on April 26, 2017
posted by Chrysostom at 2:43 PM on April 26, 2017
This is my favorite short by far.
posted by stoneandstar at 2:45 PM on April 26, 2017
posted by stoneandstar at 2:45 PM on April 26, 2017
This is the movie where Mike loses it in the theater, cracking up at the old man shopkeeper yelling venomously at his employee. Such an honest display of laughter from Mike. I watch for it every time.
posted by Servo5678 at 2:47 PM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Servo5678 at 2:47 PM on April 26, 2017 [2 favorites]
"Creeper, creeper, creeper... you give me the creeps!"
posted by JHarris at 5:36 PM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by JHarris at 5:36 PM on April 26, 2017 [1 favorite]
FWIW, the idea that acromegaly could be induced by exposure to chemical weapons is highly, highly dubious, and appears to have been an invention of the studio. Perhaps to make him more sympathetic to audiences? (Far) more likely is that it was a pre-existing condition that began to express physical symptoms in adulthood, as is typical for the disease.
posted by Naberius at 7:17 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Naberius at 7:17 AM on April 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Aaaa? In writing the post I went by the Wikipedia article, if it is incorrect then so will be the post, sorry about that.
posted by JHarris at 12:56 PM on April 27, 2017
posted by JHarris at 12:56 PM on April 27, 2017
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Thursday (4/26):
7 PM Eastern/4 PM Pacific: 1103 THE TIME TRAVELERS
9 PM Eastern/6 PM Pacific:702 THE BRUTE MAN
10:30 PM Easterm/7:30 Pacific: Intermission
11 PM Eastern/8 PM Pacific: Season 11 episode to be determined, possibly 1103 again, maybe 1101 REPTILICUS for those who missed our showing before. We'll ask those assembled which they prefer.
That's a lot of riffing! If you can't make the whole show, feel free to drop by for just part of it. (Indeed, issues with people not being able to attend earlier or later times are why there's so much show, so that more people can attend at least a bit of it!)
If there are technical issues, our fallback is to watch 702 at the cytu.be page, at https://cytu.be/r/Metafilter_MST3KClub. If for some reason you can't watch the rabb.it showing (like maybe browser issues), I'll have 702 cycling there.
posted by JHarris at 12:36 PM on April 26, 2017