Bowery at Midnight - review

1942 (USA)

2015 The Film Detective DVD R(0)

Contains spoilers.

  

Bowery at Midnight is a dark film and I'm not just referring to the multitude of night-time outdoor, and basement scenes that combined with the grainy monochrome print make it hard to discern exactly what's going on. Bowery at Midnight is a dark film with psychopaths, double lives, indiscriminate murder, and we've not even got on to the resurrection of the dead. It's also not often I make the case that I'm not entirely sure what the zombies bring to the film other than a mechanism to turn the rather bleak ending into something altogether more cheer-some for those leaving the theatre.

Bela Lugosi may have received the bulk of his fame / infamy from his portrayal of Count Dracula both on stage in the late 20's and then in its big screen namesake in 1931, and then later when Ed Wood rather infamously pulled him from his drug induced oblivion in the late 50's. During the 30s and 40s when avoiding being typecast he starred in many unique films demonstrating both his unrecognised versatility and without question his star talent. In Bowery at Midnight Lugosi plays Professor Brenner by day; an erudite confident psychology professor with doting wife and nice house. By night he assumes the role of Karl Wagner, a philanthropic soup kitchen owner, known for his unconditional kindness and no-questions policy. What his wife, students and those unfortunates he helps aren't aware of, is he's also a double crossing, jewellery robbing, sociopath who takes a huge perverse pleasure in destroying people's lives; and Lugosi is terrifyingly convincing.

Writer Gerald Schnitzer and director Wallace Fox have fashioned quite the intriguing, intelligent, coherent and yet deeply disturbing story of deception, murder and mayhem. Lugosi as Wagner uses the soup kitchen to spot vulnerable young men who might be open to highly illegal but immensely profitable night time skulduggery. Then once the deed is done, with their skills no longer required he, or his right hand man, then kill the fellow leaving him at the scene; not just as one would think, as a way of decreasing the split, but as is revealed subtly over the movie, because he enjoys it too. As he tires, or begins to distrust his lieutenant, they too are replaced and then with the blood still warm he heads home, as Brenner, to his wife (Anna Hope) with gifts and apologies for being up all night researching his next book.

While I've been rather disparaging of the zombie element of the film, taken in isolation I'm rather taken with how Fox has presented them. Dr Brooks (Lew Kelly), a written-off old quack as well as caretaker of both sides of the soup kitchen has seemingly dedicated his spare time to bringing the dead back to life. It's medicine and science and there's no voodoo or magic which is something in itself given the year it was penned. They're also a hard one to define as they're never the focus appearing only as background to the basement action scenes. They're back from the dead, so alive and not undead, but up until the final scene, which I'll come to, they do appear docile and compliant, and not exactly cognisant or the way they were before. Then there's the way Brooks keeps them locked in a room below the basement, refers to them as his pets, and when they're called upon they're unreservedly violent, tearing, metaphorically, into Wagner as the net closes in on his crime spree. The final scene I mentioned? Well to take the edge off a story where the perpetrator does finally get his just deserves, but on reflection has ruined a lot of people's lives by killing an awful lot of loved ones, Fox ends with the resurrected back as their old selves, as if nothing's happened. It's a contradictory couple of minutes I didn't much care for; totally out of place coming as it does, straight after the savage zombie beat down that really should have ended proceedings.

Bowery at Midnight is first and foremost a crime-drama, a suspense driven thriller; and a rather successful one. What it isn't is a horror, supernatural or otherwise, and it's certainly not a zombie film. If anything the resurrected victims of Brook's nefarious schemes are the one element that threatens to break the coherence, in danger of turning a truly dark, subtle, intelligent, and utterly engaging exploration of one man's detached morality, into a bit of farce. Not only is the throwaway idea of an old doctor on his own discovering a way to resurrect the dead incredulous, but more importantly, it tries to remove consequence and impact from the death and destruction graphically witnessed. Bowery at Midnight has moments that are truly evil and raw, Lugosi's performance as an over confident and out of control serial killer is remarkable, and I really don't want to see its resonance minimised for the sake of some silly resurrections and a happy ending. This all being said, and maybe because I'm conditioned to see corpses walking about, I was able to distance myself from the distractions and marvel at what the film does do right, which is an awful lot. A remarkable piece of war time cinema I'll certainly be returning to - 7/10.

Steven@WTD.

Plan 9 From Outer Space - review

1959 (USA)

2012 Legend Film Blu-ray R(All)

Contains mild spoilers.

Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space comes with such a weight of nostalgia / infamy / reputation and anti-hype to really be above objective criticism. There's no doubting it's a bad film; a truly awful cinematic experience that deservedly languished in obscurity for two decades before being thrown once more into the limelight in 1980 when Michael Medved and Harry Medved happened to champion it as the worse film ever made. Overnight its mediocrity became something to celebrate and it became more than just a film, more than the sum of its parts; and possibly forever un-reviewable in any normative way.

As the subject of in-depth cinematic analysis, and even a fantastic film directed by Tim Burton, I can only repeat what a thousand other reviewers have said. The acting, the dialogue, the special effects, the story, the way in which it's all so haphazardly thrown together in the most amateurish and insulting to the viewer manner it's easily, as a film, as bad as made out. Yet as an entertaining spectacle to watch with friends these very qualities make it highly watch-able and dare I say it, delightfully light and somewhat self-satirical. Whether consciously, subconsciously or most likely neither, Ed Wood has somehow fashioned a parody of all things 1950s sci-fi, Mccarthyism and b-movie and it's genuinely hard to believe he and all those involved didn't know precisely what they were doing and weren't in on the joke.

Some very human looking aliens who travel the cosmos in awkward looking spinning silver saucers have focused their attention on us Earth folk believing they need to interfere in our affairs before we harness the power of sunlight and create doomsday weaponry that could destroy the entire universe. Having being spurned by Earth authorities (I'm guessing 8 times) their Ruler (John Breckinridge) has agreed to Plan 9; a last ditch and somewhat slightly more aggressive approach that entails resurrecting the Earth's dead and having them march on the worlds capitals.

There are three zombies. The first, in the credits as Vampire Girl Vampira, (Maila Nurmi) is a long nailed Elvira-esque goth. The second, her grieving, much older husband who passed away a day later, is both the same repeated stock footage of Bela Legosi (taken from some filming he'd done three years earlier on a different project) or Tom Mason, who was uncredited and spends the entire film with a black cape draped across his face. The third, and most interesting where we're concerned is the late Inspector Dan Clay (Tor Johnson), a towering brute of a man who stomps and staggers around, arms out stretched, eyes vacant with all the hallmarks of the voodoo zombies of stage and screen from the previous forty years, yet a full five before Richard Matheson removed religion from the pot. Before I give Ed Wood too much credit in the zombie story though, in truth it's perhaps more Frankenstein, than instinctual, soul-depleted Romero gut munchers. Still, credit where credit is due; there is a whack to the head at one point and while they are under ray gun control (which is never really explained) there is a moment the gun fails and the zombie, just for a moment does act a bit dangerously out of control.

The epitome of bad b-movie film making. A paranoid rambling incoherent shambles of a film it's watchable precisely because one is always fascinated by the car-crash. As a film it's utter garbage, a 1/10, yet as an experience it's highly agreeable and worthy of 7 or 8/10. Part of the zombie story? Undoubtedly and perhaps not given as much credit as it's due. Final thoughts? Bafflingly brilliant, captivatingly bonkers and cinematically special, Plan 9 From Outer Space is a bad film but perhaps not the worst I've reviewed. Put up against such drivel as KFZ or many of the Asylum's attempts it's at least earnest, honest and most importantly entertaining. Ed Wood was hack but he was keen and invested in what he was doing, and people are still watching his films some sixty years on which I'll wager we won't be doing in their case. "Future events such as these will affect you in the future", indeed; 8/10.

I actually watched a restored HD and colourised version of this film which I'm not sure was necessarily the best way to fully immerse myself. Still, it was clean, crisp and didn't look as dated as it is. I'll note, the Blu-ray is region free too.

Steven@WTD.

Zombies (Loonies) on Broadway - review

1945 (USA)

On 2009 Karloff & Lugosi Horror Collection DVD R(1) with The Walking Dead, Frankenstein(1970) & You'll Find Out.

Contains mild spoilers.

For a low budget 1945 horror comedy b-movie with sets, actors and characters aped directly from I Walked With a Zombie and Revenge of the Zombies, a puerile derivative mad scientist story and the poor man's Albert and Costello (Brown and Carney) Zombies on Broadway is surprisingly charming, funny and hard not to like. The key to this success I feel is the fact at no time while watching did I remotely come close to taking any of it seriously, and I think that's exactly what directors Gordon Dines and Gordon M. Douglas wanted.

Zombies on Broadway or Loonies on Broadway as it was called in the UK, if anything is a light hearted slapstick parody of the aforementioned more serious attempts at rehashing the colonial mad scientist / Haitian voodoo story. Comedy wasn't necessarily new; King of the Zombies and Revenge of the Zombies had Mantan Moreland to provide comic relief but the story and characters were still played straight. Zombies on Broadway is full on unabashed farce from beginning to end.

Ace Miller (Sheldon Leonard), nightclub owner and ex-gangster has hired Jerry Miles (Wally Brown) and Mike Strager (Alan Carney), two bumbling press agents to promote the opening of his new club The Zombie Hut. The problem for Ace is the two idiots have gone ahead publicising tat there will be a real live zombie (a contradiction in terms?) present and the talcum powdered actor they've hired won't cut it. Cue, Jerry and Mike taking a trip to a museum where they're told about Professor Paul Renault (Béla Lugosi), a prominent zombie expert now living on St. Sebastian in the Canary Islands, Ace putting them at gun point on the first banana boat and the two guys having quite the madcap escapade.

The story is nothing we've not already seen. Professor Renault is of course the evil mad scientist working on perfecting the zombie formula, the two oafs stumble around upsetting the islanders asking too many questions and somewhere along the way they get a dame, a broad, a canary, I mean a girl (Anne Jeffreys as Jean La Danse) to help. There's a naivety and innocence in Seventy year old b-movie films you just don't see any more. Wrong hands are held, people black-up and pretend they're voodoo dancers, monkeys slam drawers into peoples knees, and a minute doesn't go by without a joke that relies on one person (Mike) seeing something (a zombie) only for it to be gone before someone else (Jerry) can corroborate. Yes I did say people black-up; naive innocence remember. It's light heated, fun and hard not to laugh along with Brown and Carney's silliness. Even Béla Lugosi can't resist getting in on the action with a slapstick fights and some quite daft dialogue.

Darby Jones reprises his role as head zombie (Calaga) from I Walked With a Zombie. Professor Renault explains how he took him from the locals not long after arriving on the island, some twenty years ago and how in all that time his deceased body hasn't deteriorated one bit. Calaga was a product of local Voodoo and magic and an island native and Renault's aim is to reproduce this island's zombification but with science and western methodology. It's never explained why he wants to learn the secret of zombies; there's no girl to be saved or world to be conquered; he's an evil scientist parody and it doesn't really matter. What we do know, is he's close to perfecting his formula and all he needs if a few more specimens to test on; which is fortunate as two guys are about to come knocking.

Reanult's zombification comes in a syringe in liquid form. Once injected, the heart stops, and a person is put in a state of suspended animation unable  to feel pain and under the total control of another's thoughts and suggestions. Unlike Calaga, who seems to share some psychic bond with his master (although this doesn't appear to be absolute), the zombies made with Reanult's formula seem to be controllable by the person making the most noise. Oh, and like he said, it's also not perfect and only lasts a few days; after which, one can be revived, by say, seeing a pretty dancer in a revealing costume and everything's back to normal, pulse and all.

Brown and Carney are no Abbot and Costello or Laurel and Hardy but they play their exaggerated silly charters well and the banter is always perfectly timed and natural. Béla Lugosi steals every scene he's in, though this isn't as many as would normally justify top billing (though after his eyes alone getting a cover mention on Revolt of the Zombies, I don't know why I'm so surprised), and he's ever so nearly beaten by quite the comedy monkey that takes over half way through. Over-all it's hard not really like this silly little film; it's inoffensive, innocent and good natured, and well shot, well-paced and never dull; 7/10.

Steven@WTD.

Revolt of the Zombies - review

1936 (USA)

2008 Sunflower Pictures DVD R(2)

Contains spoilers.

I quite enjoyed White Zombie; it's eerie atmosphere and competent story were highly evocative of an age now long forgotten and it will always get my sincere respect and admiration for the part it played in establishing the cinematic zombie. It wasn't without its faults however, though they were mostly born from being a low budget horror produced when film making was still in its childhood, and I did cut it much slack. Being second, Revolt of the Zombies, the unofficial sequel to White Zombie and produced and directed by the same Halperin Brothers (Victor and Edward) has a problem before we even start.

From the off I knew the sixty-five minutes were going to be a bit of an ordeal. The film is in the public domain now so I knew my print was likely to be a bit on the rough side and if I say I found myself scrambling for the remote to look for subtitles that weren't there, you'll get an idea just how bad it was. It turns out this was the least of its troubles though. Revolt of the Zombies takes all the faults of White Zombie; hammy acting, a bit of a convoluted plot line with too much emphasis on getting the girl, and one dimensional characterisation, and amplifies them, while all the time relinquishing everything it actually did well. The story in White Zombie may have been a bit involved, shall we say, but the puerile and cheesy mess which is Revolt of the Zombies makes it look positively intelligent by comparison. 

It's World War 1 and an expedition of Allied representatives are in Angkor Wat (Cambodia) where they believe they'll be able to find the secret to making zombies and destroy it as there's no room for black arts and the occult in the civilised mass slaughter of millions, that was the great war. One of the expedition experts, Armand Louque (Dean Jagger) falls in love with the daughter of one of the trips benefactors, Claire Duval (Dorothy Stone - not the other way round as the cover would have you believe) and she accepts his hand of marriage. Claire however really loves Clifford Grayson (Robert Noland) and at the first sign of requited affection she ditches Armand and offers her betrothal to the new man. Armand decides he's not happy about all this so he sets off to discover the secret by himself, amasses an army of zombies and enslaves the whole area and everyone he knows. That's pretty much your lot. It's convoluted, vacuous and a simpletons love triangle soap opera, with some zombies leveraged in.

A series of unfortunate deaths and accidents on site, that were really caused by the wily conniving Gen. Mazovia (Roy D'Arcy) forces the premature removal of the team from Angkor, but sensing himself close to discovering the secret, Armand returns. It's magic and ancient mysticism but it's not voodoo nor the Caribbean. The secret it turns out is, well, we don't really find out and it's all a bit confusing and messy, though it would appear a gong is involved in some way. A few chemicals, a bit of smoke and some wafting in the general direction of Armand's servant is a bit of mixed success, but in an eureka moments he works out it's Bela Lugosi's eyes directly taken from the 1932 film, that is needed to get the job done. It's never explained, doesn't make any sense, but when ever Armand wants to take control of another person, up come the eyes, bong goes the gong, and the camera returns to an all new automaton.

The will-less zombie slaves are still very much alive, though there's an early scene demonstrating the incredible destructive power a regiment of them could have as they seemingly stride into battle invulnerable to bullets, they can still talk, responding to instructions from their master and they ultimately can get 'better' once the master relinquishes his telepathic mind control. There's a lot going on, telepathy, the ability to take control of another remotely and alive but without will, but able to be shot (though this was just the one scene). None of it is particularly convincing, none of it is even remotely plausible and in many ways it all feels a bit shoe-horned in.

I've generally enjoyed my forays back to 30s and 40s, recognising the inherent limitations of film making of the time and immersing myself in its accents, language and ideologies, however repugnant by modern standards. Revolt of the Zombies faults however transcend time. Languid pacing, a blathering narrative, extremely poor set design and shot direction is just some of the criticisms I feel could be levelled at it, but more than this, the film is just tedious and obvious. The love story is shallow and uninteresting, the story far fetched and poorly conceived and the zombies a bit of a superfluous mixed bag of ideas. Not a good film, 30s or not and it just goes to show that zombie stinkers were established as part of the scene right back when it all started, 3/10.

Steven@WTD.

White Zombie - review

1932 (USA)

2010 included on Ultimate Horror Classics SD Blu-ray R(All)

Contains spoilers.

If George Romero's Night of the Living Dead is the granddaddy of zombie films then White Zombie, a 1932 American independent horror film directed and produced by brothers Victor Halperin and Edward Halperin, and regarded as the first feature length zombie movie must be the great-granddaddy. Whilst over the top story and extremely hammy acting certainly justifies much of the criticism this film has received, this Haitian tale of the dead being dug up and brought back as a mindless shambling undead is of great importance to the zombie aficionado.

On arriving in Haiti Madeleine Short Parker reunites with her fiancé Neil Parker (John Harron) and agree to take up the generous hospitality of wealthy plantation owner Charles Beaumont (Robert Frazer) who has not only agreed to host their wedding but has also offered Charles a future position as his agent in America. Unbeknown to Neil however, Charles has grown besotted with Madeleine on their sea journey to the island and is willing to do anything to secure her affections.

So Charles does what all good desperate over the top and hammy wealthy expats would and turns to local white English speaking voodoo master Murder Legendre played the inimitable Béla Lugosi and offers anything in return for help. Legendre gives Charles a poison and the offer to raise her from the grave where she will have forgotten Neil and will be his to worship and control.

After dying in Neil's arms during their wedding dinner, Neil turns to liquor and is haunted by ghostly visions of her. After discovering her body has been removed from her tomb, he calls on Dr. Bruner (Joseph Cawthorn), a missionary of thirty years who previously warned Neil to be wary of Charles, and who now offers an insight into what has really befallen Madeleine. Dr. Bruner explains that Neil's been hoodwinked; that Madeleine is more than likely still alive and that she was administered a drug that made her appear dead so that she could at a later time be revived by nefarious Legendre in his palace in the land of the Living Dead.

'With these zombie eyes he made her powerless and with this zombie grip he made her perform his every desire.' The zombies of White Zombie are always totally under the will of their voodoo master. Combining chemicals, mind control and voodoo magic Legendre has amassed an army of zombies which he uses to run his sugar mill and to provide personal protection. As with Romero's Dead trilogy, as well as horror from the narrative one can also see influence and echoes of the time the film was made. Produced during the Great Depression at a time of severe job shortages caused partly by the industrial revolution and automation started by Ford, the zombies of White Zombie can be seen to reflect the very real fear people had that not only were jobs being taken away through machinery and automation, but that workers were facing a future where they had no choice but to become mindless low paid production line slaves.

Whilst dead-eyed, mute and risen from the grave there's a real contention that the zombies of White Zombie aren't actually that dead, and therefore aren't really zombies. Revealed but not confirmed, the zombies of voodoo master Legendre have been raised from an induced catatonic state to an hypnotic one through a strange mix of voodoo magic and mind control. Arguably Madeleine's recovery after Legendre's demise attests this proposition, but it's not that straight forward. During the climax to the film, as Legendre commands his horde to attack Neil and Dr. Bruner, Neil clearly delivers what would normally be fatal shots to the attackers body to no effect. With the heady mix of hypnotic suggestion and magic this doesn't prove they're shambling undead corpses but it all adds to the ambiguity, and is clearly a magical moment where part of zombie mythology was born.

A quick mention of the Blu-ray compilation I picked this up on. Obviously using free out of copyright unmastered print, the presentation is ropey full of noise and bad sound. I've read that there are better DVD prints even ones including extras including interviews with Béla Lugosi but it's still very watchable and probably what I was expecting from a film from 1932.

White Zombie is an important film establishing much of the canon that others went on to follow and refine. The slow, shambling, dead-eyed creatures impervious to body shots, might never have been actually dead, but this film is too integral to the myth that I'm going to give them a free pass. Whilst the acting is not particularly good, the characters one dimensional and the plot a bit hammy and over the top, it's not actually that bad a film with a coherent plot and entertaining story. The cinematography and direction gives the film a melodramatic and eerie atmosphere, and watching some 80 years on one gets a real anthropologists look into a world now long gone. Still possessing a magic that will make the zombie connoisseur smile White Zombie is comprehensively recommended, 8/10.

Steven@WTD.

Coming up - blog

A quick note about what I have coming up next.

I'm waiting for a few films to be delivered but I do have 28 days later, which garners some resistance  as to whether it can actually be called a zombie film, we will see, and the 2010 remake of John Carpenter's The Crazies, again maybe not a zombie film!? My aim is get a 28 days later review on the site tonight or tomorrow.

I have Pontypool, Rec 1, Rec 2, Zombieland, Zombie Strippers and most importantly Night of the Living Dead 1968 and Dawn of the Dead 1978 either waiting to be dispatched or on their way. As I said in my introduction, Romero's 1978 Dawn of the Dead was a firm favourite when I was younger and probably takes a lot of responsibility for why I'm doing all this, but I want to review Night of the Living Dead first so I can put the second in context. I believe I've seen the Romero movie that's regarded as starting it all off but really don't recall it at all, so I'm excited to get stuck in.

I shall also mention that despite having watched The Walking Dead seasons 1 and 2 when they aired on TV I plan to watch them again these before I review them here. It'll be useful to do a refresh especially as I've now read the graphic novel by Tony Moore and Robert Kirkman, and to be quite frank it's also a really good excuse to watch this fantastic series again. 

This morning I've also purchased Ultimate Horror Classics, a Blu-Ray SD compilation of 18 horror classics from the 30s through to the 60s. Most importantly this contains White Zombie, a film from 1932 starring Béla Lugosi and widely accredited as being the first true zombie movie. I'm also excited as it also contains The Last Man on Earth, a 1964  adaptation of the 1954 Richard Matheson novel I Am Legend, which you'll probably know as the 2007 Will Smith blockbuster. What is interesting about this is the novel originally had the sole survivor Dr Morgan Price pitted against vampires, albeit much slower more zombie like vampires. By 2007 the protagonists were for all intents and purposes just zombies and it's intriguing to see how the earlier film fits in, especially as Matheson had some involvement with the writing of it.

A full list of the films is: 1. THE GHOUL (1933) 2. WHITE ZOMBIE (1932) 3. THE VAMPIRE BAT (1933) 4. THE PHANTOM SHIP (1936) 5. DR. MANIAC - THE MAN WHO CHANGED HIS MIND (1936) 6. KING OF THE ZOMBIES (1941) 7. CHAMBER OF HORRORS (1941) 8. THE DEAD EYES OF LONDON (1940) 9. CRIMES AT THE DARK HOUSE (1940) 10. THE HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959) 11. THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964) 12. MANIA - FLEASH AND THE FIENDS (1959) 13. THE CITY OF THE DEAD (1960) 14. CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962) 15. SWEENEY TODD (1934) 16. THE HOUNDS OF ZAROFF (1932) 17. SVENGALI (1931) 18. THE TERROR (1963). 

Anyway, if you've stumbled upon this blog I hope you can see there's some interesting (hopefully) stuff coming up and you'll stick with me while the content is thin on the ground. I only plan on promoting once I feel there's enough for readers to get their teeth into. WTD.