Zombies on Broadway Film Review

You might expect this to be a Monogram film considering the subject and the low budget but it is from RKO who did a series of six films with comedian partners Wally Brown and Alan Carney. Never heard of them? My guess is that neither has anyone else living or dead. They are a second rate Abbott and Costello but even second rate A&C can have a few good moments and this does from time to time. Not so much them but the monkey is pretty funny and the villain is great. As always.

Our two boys play Jerry and Mike, two press agents working for Sheldon Leonard who is opening a nightclub called the Zombie Club. In handbills dumped on the city of New York from an airplane they promise that a real live zombie will make an appearance. You have a real zombie Sheldon asks them. Sure and they pull over a black man in white face and say this is our zombie. He suggests they do better with a real zombie or you are dead and sends them to San Sebastian where voodoo is still being practiced and a mysterious Professor Renault is doing zombie experiments. He turns out to be a madman who wants to turn living beings into zombies. Who else could play him but Bela Lugosi in insane mode. He is wonderful gazing at his test tubes like a beautiful woman. The monkey that shows up uninvited and Lugosi have a great routine with a chest of drawers in which Lugosi is on the losing end.

He has a real zombie on hand that he stole from the native voodoo who do voodoo like they do and has him under his control. Even if you have never seen this film, you will have seen this zombie. His image is famous - no not from here but from the film I Walk with Zombies - the tall thin black man with the crazy eyes. He looks just the same here and considering that RKO made both films that is not too surprising. His name is Darby Jones and he also played a zombie in King of the Zombies. Tough getting stereotyped as a zombie. Even in a comedy he is kind of scary. So lots of hijinks running around and a few musical numbers and a blonde they run across, Anne Jeffreys who can carry a tune and was Tess Truehart in two of those Dick Tracy's. This was just enjoyable enough to make me try another one of their films.