White Zombie

[Cyril Tourneur]

Madeline: Driver, who were those men we saw?
Coach Driver: They are not men, madame. They are dead bodies!


Overview
Director:
Victor Halperin
Writers:
Garnett Weston (dialogue)
Garnett Weston (story)
Release Date:
4 August 1932 (USA) more
Genre:
Horror more
Tagline:
The Dead Walk Among Us! more
Plot:
A young man turns to a witch doctor to lure the woman he loves away from her fiance, but instead turns her into a zombie slave.

Bela Lugosi ... 'Murder' Legendre
Madge Bellamy ... Madeleine Short Parker
Joseph Cawthorn ... Dr. Bruner (missionary)
Robert Frazer ... Charles Beaumont
John Harron ... Neil Parker
Brandon Hurst ... Silver (the butler)
George Burr Macannan ... Von Gelder (a zombie) (as George Burr MacAnnan)
Frederick Peters ... Chauvin (a zombie)
Annette Stone ... Maid
John Printz ... Ledot (the witch doctor zombie)
Dan Crimmins ... Pierre (witch doctor)
Claude Morgan ... Zombie
John Fergusson ... Zombie
Velma Gresham ... Maid
Hans Joby ... Chauvin (a zombie) (as John S. Peters)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

White Zombie (1932) is an American horror film, first released on August 4, 1932. It was the first film to feature zombies.

The film was produced independently by minor silent film makers Edward Halperin and Victor Halperin, from a script by Garnett Weston. Victor Halperin directed, and the film was distributed by United Artists.

Sherman S. Krellberg financed most of the production of the film through his Amusement Securities Corporation, using the film rights as collateral. When the Halperins were unable to repay the loan in a timely manner, Krellberg took over the rights and, after its initial run was finished, periodically reissued the film through minor distributors, the last time being in 1972.

White Zombie is among the most-renowned horror films of the early sound era. Its legacy includes a namesake rock band, an extensive published critical analysis by Gary Don Rhodes, many VHS and DVD versions owing to its public-domain status, and considerable debate among film historians regarding its degree of virtue.

Many factors contribute to White Zombie's enduring cult film status:

* It is the first film dealing with zombies, a popular horror film subject of the last forty years.
* It was independently-produced and not a product of a major studio like Universal, which made most of the best-known early horror films.
* The director quit midway in filming and Lugosi got the chance to direct some scenes of the film. This according to his son as he commented in the documentary 100 Years of Horror. Lugosi had wished he could have done much more.
* A 1990’s laser-disc restoration by The Roan Group (in turn released on DVD) followed many years of poor-quality, choppy transfers circulated on television and videotape, a result of the film’s public-domain status; any company could release the film commercially without regard to quality, and they did.
* Its use of sophisticated camera, lighting, and sound techniques was pioneering for the genre.
* It features a full musical score, albeit composed of secondary source material; contemporary horrors Dracula and Frankenstein did not.
* Its elaborate sets, rented from Universal, and striking painted background images belie its independent status and help make it more comparable to a studio film than subsequent independent horror films would be.
* It stars Béla Lugosi in one of his top performances, in a unique and visually-striking makeup.
* Jack Pierce, Universal's resident makeup genius who created the landmark face designs for the Frankenstein Monster, the Mummy, and later the Wolf Man, was the makeup artist for the film.
* It marks the first of many independent-film choices for Lugosi following his success in Universal's Dracula, a tendency that is generally cited for diminishing his status in the industry and is a popular Lugosi-discussion topic.
* The quality of its performances is the subject of much debate, with some horror-film historians blaming the romantic leads in part for their overall ambivalence toward the film, but others crediting the disparate acting styles as contributing to the film's strange, dream-like quality.
* Unlike most other popular horror films, White Zombie's cast is made up almost entirely of actors who today are not popularly-known for other performances; this feature helps to spotlight Lugosi, the most notable exception, and add to the film's other-worldliness.
* It contains a multitude of singularly-memorable moments, including:
o A frightful scene showing zombies working in the sugar mill owned by Lugosi's character.
o The foot-to-head introductory pan of the zombie played by Frederick Peters, one of the genre’s scariest-looking characters.
o The famous "flub" of horror-favorite Brandon Hurst holding his nose as he’s being thrown to a watery death.
o Actor-musician Clarence Muse’s description of zombies, a rare instance in early films, especially horror films, in which an African-American was provided an opportunity to deliver lines in a non-stereotypical manner.
o The early close-up of Lugosi’s eyes that travels across a wide shot and settles on the head of the actor.
o Lugosi’s did-he-really-say-that line, "I’ve taken a fancy to you, monsieur".
o The film’s most famous line, "For you, my, friend, they are the angels of death!".

White Zombie (1932) - Public Domain

[Odalisque]

I first saw this film when visiting Des Lewis (he'd recorded it from the television). Now, I own it on DVD. A very strange movie. It says this on the back of the DVD box:

The Halperin brothers made White Zombie in just 11 days back in 1932, with $50,000 and sets left behind from Universal's Dracula and Frankenstein. Keeping dialogue to a minimum, they wisely let cameraman Arthur Martinelli cut loose on this odd fairy tale, avoiding the stagy, static feel that pervades most early talkies. White Zombie doesn't tell us a story when it can show us one. One of the most visually interesting horror films ever made.

Of course, it should be one of the more, not one of the most...

The movie inspired a story written jointly by Des and me shortly after watching the film. I can't remember the title, though. Des -- any idea? Nor do I know whether it was ever published.

[trieffiewiles]

An entertaining little midnight flick, no matter when you watch, it feels like it should be 2 in the morning when it is over. Also a 'pop' band that I will always miss.

[the_havoc_man]

Could anyone recommend a good dvd version of this. I am still deciding which is the best version to get? thanks.

[Odalisque]

Quote Originally Posted by the_havoc_man

Could anyone recommend a good dvd version of this. I am still deciding which is the best version to get? thanks.

My copy was released by a company called Dark Vision in their Fright Night series. It seems good enough to me. It's region free (so it says) but is formatted for PAL and thus would probably not play on an NTSC television.

[Odalisque]

My copy has this cover... except that the writing is in English.



Grand Classique = Cult Classics.
Les Morts-Vivants = White Zombie.

And the writing above "Fright Night" is just not there on my copy.

[the_havoc_man]

Thanks for the information you too. I still have to do more research on amazon or IMDB.com.

[Cyril Tourneur]

Poison Turns Man into a Real Zombie


The story begins in 1962, in Haiti. A man called Clairvius Narcisse was sold to a zombie master by his brothers, because Clairvius refused to sell his share of the family land. Soon after Clairvius "officially" died, and was buried. However, he had been later secretly unburied, and was actually working as a zombie slave on a sugar plantation with many other zombies. In 1964, his zombie master died, and he wandered across the island in a psychotic daze for the next 16 years. The drugs that made him psychotic were gradually wearing off. In 1980, he accidentally stumbled across his long-lost sister in a market place, and recognized her. She didn’t recognise him, but he identified himself to her by telling her early childhood experiences that only he could possibly know.

Zombie (Great Moments in Science, ABC Science)

[Daisy]

I see that the ethnobiologist Wade Davis is mentioned in the "Great Moments in Science" link. Davis’s The Serpent and the Rainbow (pub. 1985) is a study of zombification in theory and practice, so to speak. A popular and critical success, the book inspired Wes Craven’s 1988 film, The Serpent and the Rainbow, which features some hair-raisingly frightening scenes.

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