Mon 23 Mar 2015
A Movie Review by Jonathan Lewis: WHITE ZOMBIE (1932).
Posted by Steve under Horror movies , Reviews[9] Comments
WHITE ZOMBIE. United Artists, 1932. Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorn, Robert Frazer, John Harron, Brandon Hurst, George Burr MacAnnan. Director: Victor Halperin.
I recently had the opportunity to attend a screening of White Zombie at the Billy Wilder Theater here in Los Angeles. Presented as part of the UCLA Festival of Restoration, the low budget production is a zombie story, a fairy tale, and a fever dream wrapped into one idiosyncratic, but thoroughly watchable, celluloid package.
Directed by Victor Halperin, White Zombie isn’t nearly as lavish as Dracula, nor is it as philosophically rich as The Wolf Man. But it is a lot better than many of the later Poverty Row productions in which Lugosi starred in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
Although it was cheaply made with some incredibly clunky moments of both acting and dialogue, the film has its atmospheric charms and benefits from an exquisitely mischievous performance by Lugosi. In this post-Dracula outing, he portrays Murder Legendre, a white Haitian plantation owner and a master of voodoo who puts the enchanting Madeleine Short Parker (Madge Bellamy) under his spell. That is, until her white knight husband storms Legendre’s fortress to rescue his one true love from the evil madman’s clutches!
It’s silly, magical fun.
March 24th, 2015 at 3:23 am
A perennial Halloween favorite around here, with its fairy-tale imagery and full-blooded theatrics. Very perceptive comments!
March 24th, 2015 at 12:42 pm
Here’s a link to the lineup of movies and other events for this year’s still ongoing UCLA Festival of Preservation:
https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2015/03/05/ucla-festival-preservation
Note that one of the films that’s already been shown is THE DRUMS OF JEOPARDY, starring Warner Oland:
https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/events/2015/03/22/crime-doctor-crespi-drums-jeopardy
which I reviewed here:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=29263
Note my final paragraph:
“One could only wish for a better print than the one from Alpha Video that I watched, in terms of both picture and sound quality, but who’s going to spend money in restoring an old forgotten movie such as this one, no matter how fun it is to watch?”
Looks like I was wrong on this one, and I’m delighted.
March 24th, 2015 at 1:18 pm
I’m very fond of those early 30s horror movies. Lugosi’s DRACULA is directed very flatly, but that lack of editing gives it a dreamlike feel, and it’s the same here. And I love the melodramatic lines. When the hero asks what the zombies are, Lugosi answers “For you, my friend, they are the Angels of Death!”
March 24th, 2015 at 2:13 pm
This one has a very pulp like, almost WEIRD TALES feel to it and a splendid sense of impending doom and almost Woolrichian fatalism. I’ve never seen a really good print, and would love to, though even the lesser prints seem to add a layer to the film.
It made a greater impression on me than DRACULA, and some of the imagery, especially at the end, has a hypnotic dream like quality mindful of CALIGARI, NOSFERATU, DER MUDE TOD, and VAMPYR. It may be one of the best really low budget cheapies ever made.
I’ve always felt DRACULA was the weakest of the four major Universal monster debuts (FRANKENSTEIN, THE MUMMY, THE WOLFMAN)because of its stage origins and the play like air of the film. Lugosi and Dwight Frye inject a wonderful edge of hysteria and melodrama in the opening, but then the play strays from the book turning it into a drawing room horror epic.
If you have seen the Hispanic version it is much livelier despite sorely missing the presence of Lugosi.
Unlike Karloff or Chaney, Lugosi never really got any good roles outside of horror.
March 24th, 2015 at 2:18 pm
I think in terms of atmosphere, my favorite early horror is THE MUMMY, but in terms of plot and meaning, it’s definitely THE WOLF MAN.
WHITE ZOMBIE is indeed more like VAMPYR than DRACULA
March 24th, 2015 at 4:05 pm
THE MUMMY (1932) has always seemed to me like one of the Great Romantic Movies.
March 24th, 2015 at 7:39 pm
THE MUMMY is one of my favourites. On one level Karloff’s character is a romantic hero, but there is something terrifyingly implacable about him. A lot of the remakes of DRACULA (including the Coppola version) are actually rehashing this movie rather than either the book or the original Lugosi movie. It also has one of the most unnerving moments in any horror movie ancient or modern “He went for a little walk…you should have seen his face!”
March 26th, 2015 at 8:30 pm
The Coppola is very faithful to the structure of the book, but in making Dracula a tragic romantic hero it misses the Stoker’s great revelation, vampirism as a uniquely apt metaphor for syphilis.
It’s tough to make a Byronic hero of the personification of venereal disease.
I think most fans of the Universal films agree Karl Freund’s THE MUMMY is the best of the lot. While I agree Karloff’s Kharis is written as a romantic hero, he is also written as a man love has made a monster of.
Whatever, that opening when the mummy emerges is one of the most effective spine chilling scenes in any horror film. I imagine most kids who saw that scene slept with the lights on that night.
October 31st, 2020 at 3:46 pm
[…] had previously watched and reviewed for this blog. United Artists’ White Zombie (1932), reviewed here, and Universal’s Werewolf of London (1935), reviewed […]