White Zombie - 1932 - P.F.F.

I have never been shy to say that I am a huge fan of silent horror movies as well as films from the ’30s and ’40s. This film is, by far, my favorite from that era of films. This film is considered to be the first feature-length zombie movie. Make-up effects were a bit more primitive than by today’s standards, so the zombies looks were a bit different. It was usually shabby and disheveled clothing and because this was a black and white film, there was usually the powdering down of the face and limbs and darkening around the eyes. Now, I will go on record as saying, that these zombies are not quite the same as you would see on “The Walking Dead” or even “Night of the Living Dead”, but I will let you figure out the difference.

This film is beautiful even in black and white. There is a simplistic beauty that most films from this era had because usually they did not have a huge budget and they were not burdened with the special effects setups that a lot of films have nowadays. Case in point, the film was shot in 11 days, whereas, nowadays it can take up to a year to film a movie. Now part of the reason that the shooting on this film went so quick could simply be that much of the shooting was done on a renting Universal Studios set. Sets, props, and furniture from such classics as “The Cat and the Canary’ (1927), ‘Frankenstein’ (1931) and, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (1923) can be spotted by eagle-eyed film fans. As for fans of beautiful classical music, you will not be disappointed either. There are classical selections from Mussorgsky, Borch, and Reisenfeld, as well as snippets from H. Maurice Jacquet, Leo Kempinski, Franz Liszt, and Richard Wagner as well. The music, use of lighting and shadow, and the very few camera tricks or special editing that is used makes the movie beautiful and haunting. No one could have played the role of Legendre better than the iconic Bela Lugosi. And the beautiful Madge Bellamy as our beautiful heroine. The cast plays off each other beautifully and each does a wonderful in their respective roles. Yes, the film is campy at times and sometimes the dialogue makes you scratch your head and go ‘huh”, but all in all it is an amazing little film.

A couple of little fun facts about the film, things I always love to share. It is rumored that Bela Lugosi regretted taking the role for only 800.00 due to the success of the film at the box office. Now there is an old story that says that at one point 5000.00 was deposited into his account as compensation for his work on the film, but during interviews when asked about this particular rumor, he would scratch his palm and ask where the money was. Though it is also rumored that he turned down a percentage of the film's box office in favor of a flat salary. But, because of the success of the box office of the film, according to friends, he felt he was underpaid for his work. Especially coming on the heels of the very successful 1931 classic, “Dracula”. Another interesting tidbit is that Rob Zombie actually named his first band after this film. The film itself was thought to be lost for quite a long time. It was not until it was rediscovered in the 1960s did it see the light of day again. Film distributor Frank Storace wanted to produce a restored version of the film and ended up in a court battle with the estate of the copyright owner of the film, Stanley Krellberg, due to Storace desiring to have access to the original footage of the film. It eventually ended up that Storace gave up the court battle and did not win access to his original footage.

Alright, so let’s talk about the casting that made this movie so amazing. Of course, You have to start with Bela Lugosi or as most people in the United States know him, Count Dracula. Bela’s story is actually quite tragic in many ways. He was born in Hungary (now Romania) and during his younger years, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant and was wounded three times. The man was a well recognized and distinguished stage actor in his native country and ended up as a drug-addicted pauper in Hollywood. Now, this is largely thanks to Hollywood being brought about due to his most famous role. His stage career in 1901 and started appearing in films around the time of World War I, he ended up fleeing to Germany in 1919 due to the left-wing political activity, (organizing an actors union). He ended up emigrating to the US in 1920 and was a character actor until 1927 when he was cast as Count Dracula in the 1927 stage adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel. The play ran for three years and lead to the film by Tod Browning in 1931, a film that made Lugosi a household name for his portrayal of one of the screen’s greatest personifications of evil. 1931 was also the year that he became a US citizen. One of the most tragic parts of his career is that his reputation started on a rather fast downward slide because he was so willing to take any role or script that came his way. Because of this, he played many pathetic parodies of his greatest role, in low budget, low-grade shockers. He ended his career working with the man who is considered by many, if not all, true fans of cinema as the worst director of all time, Edward D. Wood Jr.

A very sad irony of the man and his career came in 1994 when Martin Landau won an Oscar for portraying Lugosi in the film “Ed Wood’ while the real Lugosi never even came close to receiving one. Besides the iconic role of Dracula and the role in our film, Lugosi had roles in such films as “The Black Cat’ (1934), “Mark of the Vampire” (1935), “Son of Frankenstein” (1939), the 1941 adaptation of “The Black Cat”, “Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein’ (1948), and his last film “The Black Sheep’ (1956). Bela passed away on August 16, 1956, of a heart attack. True to the rumors, he was laid to rest in his full Dracula costume, including the cape.

Our next star to discuss is the beautiful Madge Bellamy who portrayed the beautiful and innocent Madeline. With her large, expressive eyes and tiny stature, she was a perfect pick for the delicate and gentle Madeline. Madge’s star rose to fame in the silent film era where she had the perfect look for that style of the film. She had roles in such films as “The Riddle; Woman” (1920), “Lorna Doone’ (1922), “The White Sin” (1924), and “Havoc” (1925). While she is a wonderful actress, I, honestly, feel she fell into the trap that most silent film stars fell into. They were amazing in silent films, but once they tried to make the transition to “talkies’, they fell flat as their voices were not made to be heard, or they were so uncomfortable being in films where dialogue was a necessity that their acting was stilted and no longer flowed with the ease it did when they were in their films of choice. For roughly the next decade she had roles in a small number of low budget films like “Gordon of Ghost City’ (1933), ‘Metropolitan” (1935), and “Under Your Spell (1936) By 1936, her career was basically at an end and she started to fade from the memories of most film fans. Though she would make headlines in 1943 when she shot her lover A. Stanford Murphy after he jilted her to marry someone else. She would have a role in one more film “Northwest Trail” (1945). Madge was called home on January 23, 1990, when she passed away from heart failure. A fun thing to note, in a time when such things were not openly acknowledged, she considered herself “an atheist, vegetarian and leftist.”

As I have said, this is a great film. There is no nudity, there are a few scenes where Madeline is in her “underwear” as she changes clothes, but they are modest. There is no real violence by today’s standards, the worst is some fights, but no blood and no real scares. It is a panda friendly film, as are most films from that era as there is little to nothing in those films that would scare anyone. This is one of those films that I tell people should be on your must-watch list if you are looking to learn more about the early days of horror cinema. There are mistakes in this film, there is a section where there is a glitch in the film as it looks as though a small section of the film was lost or damaged and they basically spliced the two ends of the film together. But all in all, the film is very well done, and well-acted for the era it was filmed in. It is a classic that has stood the test of time and laid the groundwork for so many of the films that came after.

1 of 5 - There is a scene where Madeline is in her underwear, preparing to dress, extremely tame by today’s standards, but would have been a bit scandalous in the 30s