* If he looks familiar to you, it's because he played Hercules, the Strong Man, in Tod Browning's Freaks (1932 / trailer), a movie all readers of a wasted life have surely already seen. Not often found in horror movies, despite his suavely distrustful presence, Henry Victor flits by in the background of Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942), which is hardly a horror movie, and had all his scenes cut from the moody masterpiece that is Karl Freund's The Mummy (1932).
Trailer to
King of the Zombies:
The rather contrived narrative, typical of its time, involves a transport plane crash-landing on a mysterious island somewhere between Puerto Rico and Cuba. The three passengers — pilot James "Mac" McCarthy (Dick Purcell [6 Aug 1905 – 10 Apr 1944]*), manly Bill Summers (John Archer [8 May 1915 – 3 Dec 1999] of William Castle's I Saw What You Did [1965 / trailer], She Devil [1957 / trailer], Destination Moon [1950 / trailer], City of Missing Girls [1941/ full movie] and Bowery at Midnight [1942 / full movie]), and his valet Jefferson Jackson (Mantan Moreland [3 Sept 1902 – 28 Sept 1973]) — take refuge at the mansion of the suave Dr. Miklos Sangre (Victor) and his walking but comatose wife Alyce (the completely unknown Patricia Stacey). As Jackson is continually confronted by zombies, disbelieving Mac and Bill slowly become convinced all is not kosher with the good Dr. Sangre. Soon, Mac is under Sangre's spell and it is up to Bill and Jackson to save the world... or at least put a stop to the nefarious plans of the doctor, who is actually a (German-speaking) foreign spy using the power of voodoo (and zombies) to see his nefarious plans through!
* Dick Purcell is the first man to have ever played Captain America on film, in the four-hour Republic serial Captain America (1944) and the subsequent short-form movie release (trailer). The most expensive serial Republic ever made, it is also the first theatrical release involving a future Marvel Comics character (at the time, however, Captain America was published by Atlas Comics). "[Dick Purcell] died a few weeks after filming was completed; he collapsed in the locker room at a Los Angeles country club. In the opinion of film historian Raymond Stedman, the strain of filming Captain America had been too much for his heart. [Wikipedia]"
To be honest, we popped this baby into our DVD player by accident: our plan was to watch the so-called sequel to White Zombie (1932), Victor Halperin's Revolt of the Zombies (1936 / trailer), but thanks to our carelessness we ended up watching this thing — and we were more than happily surprised by what is a surprisingly entertaining movie.
Which isn't to say that King of the Zombies is a good movie, for not only does the movie have some big flaws but it is, often, extremely grating to contemporary sensibilities. It is the kind of film that cannot kill its figures of identification: at the end, one character is said to be recuperating in the hospital, despite being shot multiple times at point-blank range. The resolution is also oddly forced and disbelievable, involving Dr. Sangre's sudden inability to control his zombies, and the somewhat predictable narrative is a rather clumsy amalgamation of horror and espionage. And, yes, the proceeds are liberally seasoned with comedy, occasionally in the form of the dialog or a visual joke like that of the movie's less-romantic-interest than damsel-in-distress, the attractive Barbara Winslow (Joan Woodbury [17 Dec 1915 – 22 Feb 1989] of The Living Ghost [1942 / trailer] and The Time Travelers [1964 / trailer]), getting caught as she sneaks a glass of brandy in the library. (Hah Hah! — Not really.)
The main form of humor of the movie is its bane, however, as it is of the sort that is very hard to stomach today, above all the politically incorrect (and racist) wide-eyed d**kie stereotype as essayed by wide-eyed specialist Mantan Moreland.* And while Moreland never truly sinks to the level of some other Black comedians of the day, like Stepin Fetchit (30 May 1902 – 19 Nov 1985), he basically is the continuous supplier of the laughs in his words and actions, much of which transcends just verging on cringe-worthy. But if Moreland is the running joke and jokester of the movie, at least he often manages to play his stereotype with a certain panache and comes across as the most likable male in the movie.
* In truth, Moreland often played the same wide-eyed kind of character in his "race films" meant for Black audiences, but by the mid-fifties his shtick was out of date and pretty much gone from the screen, and his career thus suffered. His last truly notable role is as the first person seen to depart this world in Spider Baby or, the Maddest Story Ever Told (1967 / trailer), but he had an occasional charity role in flicks like Watermelon Man (1970 / trailer) and The Young Nurses (1973 / trailer, with Dick Miller).
Much of the narrative of King of the Zombies is split into upstairs (where the White folk be) and downstairs (where the Black folk be), which pretty much echoes the social separation of skin color expected of the time. Oddly, while Moreland's Jackson may be a wide-eyed stereotype — he so dumb he can't realize that he hasn't been turned into a zombie — he is also one of the main characters of the movie, if not the one you hope makes it. (Bill might be the "hero", but he's also a mansplaining bore, while the second lead White guy, the pilot Mac, easily has less screentime than Jackson and is there primarily to function as the dues ex machina during the movie's climactic showdown.)
The people that inhabit the downstairs, and the stuff that transpires there, count amongst the most interesting aspects of the movie, as not only is that where the zombies hang out but where the living characters are the most appealing. The beautiful and sassy Black maid Samantha (Marguerite Whitten [3 Feb 1913 – 25 Dec 1990]* of Mystery in Swing [1940 / trailer]), for example, has some real chemistry with Moreland, as well as one of the best verbal gags when she starts talking about her last boyfriend. Momba the Butler (Leigh Whipper [29 Oct 1876 – 26 July 1975] of Of Mice and Men [1939 / trailer]) does a nice turn as the condescending butler and voodoo master, while Madame Sul-Te-Wan** (7 Mar 1873 – 1 Feb 1959), of Black Moon (1934 / full movie) and Maid of Salem (1937 / full film) is more than believable as Tahama, the Cook and High Priestess.
* Whitten's known, limited career seems to have been predominately in "race films" or spent playing the uncredited "Maid". She appeared together with Moreland in seven of her currently credited 14 films.
** An unfamiliar name and face nowadays, she was born Nellie Crawford in Louisville, Kentucky, and her parents, Cleon De Londa and Silas Crawford, were both former slaves. The first African-American actress to sign a film contract, her career was one of an often employed (and uncredited) character actress and she is (barely) seen in movies ranging from D.W. Griffith's overtly racist The Birth of a Nation (1915 / full film) and Intolerance (1916 / trailer) to King Kong (1933 / trailer) and onward to her last, Tarzan and the Trappers (1960 / full movie). ("It's one of the great ironies in film history that the first Black woman to be hired as a stock player in Hollywood would feature in perhaps the most baldly racist movie [The Birth of a Nation] Hollywood ever produced [...]. One can guess Madame Sul-Te-Wan's attitude about the kind of roles mainstream Hollywood offered Black women at the time was probably similar to that of her counterpart Hattie McDaniel, who famously said, 'I'd rather play a maid and make $700 a week than be a maid for $7.' [Legacy]") That's Madame Sul-Te-Wan below, long before she made King of the Zombies.
Not that we noticed it as exceptional, but the music of King of the Zombies, composed by Edward Kay (27 Nov 1898 – 22 Dec 1973), was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Music (Music Score of a Dramatic Picture).
Full movie —
King of the Zombies:
The success of King of the Zombies led to a sequel five years later titled the Revenge of the Zombies (1946 / trailer below), directed by Steve Sekely (25 Feb 1899 – 9 Mar 1979), a Hungarian refuge director whose best known film is probably the original Day of the Triffids (1962 / trailer). For Revenge, instead of trying for something new, unknown scriptwriter Van Norcross joined forces with Edmond Kelso to tweak the latter's script for the first film. (The new plot more or less involves two White guys and a Black servant in a strange house where a mad scientist with a zombie wife is working for Nazi Germany.) Again, Bela Lugosi was meant to play the lead but couldn't, ultimately being replaced by John Carradine (5 Feb 1906 – 27 Nov 1988).
Revenge of the Zombies (1946)
A public-service message from a wasted life:
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