Edward
Bartender
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Over the weekend, I dipped into a large pile of zombie b-movies which I have acquired over the past few years:
Die you zombie bastards! has its charm, if a bit too sub-Troma for my tastes in general.
Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 - cracking stuff - classic, 80s Romero-pastiche.
The real discovey, though, was Zombies on Broadway, a 1945 comedy, with a cameo by Bela Lugosi. The leads, Wally Brown and Alan Carney, were apparently Vaudeville stars whom the studio paired together in an attempt to create a competitor for Abbot and Costello. It's a gentle period comedy - few belly laughs, but I found it a thoroughly entertaining romp. The wardrobe is simply to die for - all mid 40s db suits an wide brimmed, high crowned fedoras. The nightclub boss's hoods look like live action realisations of the Ant Hill Mob (in a good way). Female lead Anne Jeffries is stunning, and Lugosi's cameo playing a hammed-up parody of his own type-cast is cracking. Incidently, for something that was really only ever intended to be a bit of fluff, its take on the zombie creature is actually much closer to the original legend than the canon which has been established since (and largely by) Romero's 1969 Night of the Living Dead.
Die you zombie bastards! has its charm, if a bit too sub-Troma for my tastes in general.
Zombie Flesh Eaters 2 - cracking stuff - classic, 80s Romero-pastiche.
The real discovey, though, was Zombies on Broadway, a 1945 comedy, with a cameo by Bela Lugosi. The leads, Wally Brown and Alan Carney, were apparently Vaudeville stars whom the studio paired together in an attempt to create a competitor for Abbot and Costello. It's a gentle period comedy - few belly laughs, but I found it a thoroughly entertaining romp. The wardrobe is simply to die for - all mid 40s db suits an wide brimmed, high crowned fedoras. The nightclub boss's hoods look like live action realisations of the Ant Hill Mob (in a good way). Female lead Anne Jeffries is stunning, and Lugosi's cameo playing a hammed-up parody of his own type-cast is cracking. Incidently, for something that was really only ever intended to be a bit of fluff, its take on the zombie creature is actually much closer to the original legend than the canon which has been established since (and largely by) Romero's 1969 Night of the Living Dead.
