Dead Men Walk

You'll have to look long and hard to find a favorable review of PRC's "Dead Men Walk". However, I think the film has long been condemned unfairly. Granted, its not a classic, but some obvious continuity gaffes aside, it compares favorably I think, with many such similar vehicles turned out by the bigger studios.

The story is a low budget variation of the Dracula theme with the good twin/evil twin plot thrown in. It begins with the funeral of evil twin Elwyn Clayton (George Zucco) who is interred in the family crypt. Good twin Dr. Lloyd Clayton (Zucco again) was apparently responsible for his brother's death. Hunchback Zolarr (Dwight Frye) rescues Elwyn's coffin from its tomb and moves it to an old graveyard where Elywn emerges as a vampire. The vampire then reveals himself to his brother and swears his revenge by slowly draining the life from Lloyd's young ward Gayle (Mary Carlisle). With the help of Mary's beau Dr. David Bentley (Nedrick Young), Lloyd battles his evil twin to their final showdown.

Director Sam Newfield does what he can with a small budget. The misty graveyard and shadowy nights are done as well as could be expected. The film is also aided by the casting of George Zucco in the lead. Zucco was always better than his material and deserved a better fate. As an added touch there is Dwight Frye in one of his last roles as the hunchback, a role patterned after his "Renfield" in 1931's "Dracula". Also. look for PRC's resident comic sidekick Al "Fuzzy" St. John as the citizen who finds one of the vampire's victims and Forrest Taylor who does the prologue.

Better than its reputation.

This is a neat little picture. Period. Sure it has an incredibly low budget. Yep, it is dark and grainy. It sure does creak in some places too. But it has a couple of fine performances by George Zucco as twin brothers. One brother has killed his evil twin to rid the town of his malevolence. The dead brother returns, with the aid of a much older and very tired looking Dwight Frye, as a vampire out to avenge his death and destroy anything that matters to his brother. Zucco does fine in both roles. He makes probably the most urbane vampire in film. The budget really hurts as the vampire just fades out and in, but it also adds to the charm of this little studio film. Frye also does a decent job returning to a much more subdued Renfield-type role. The other actors are not that bad, and the story actually had me interested till the end. Fern Kemmett in particular gave a nice performance as a superstitious woman. Some shots in the film are very atmospheric. There is a great scene in a cemetery, and the finale was orchestrated quite well. The two Zuccos fight in flames as Dwight cries from under a very heavy marble altar. Great Stuff!

Put me down in agreement with the reviewers here who enjoyed this film. No, it's certainly not remotely great and I have seen much better vampire flicks, but the terrific Zucco, decent writing, and competent acting from the rest of the cast make it slightly better than average.

In regard to Zucco, I have seen him in many films and he never fails to do a good job, regardless of what he has to work with. In this movie, he's the glue that holds this plot together from beginning to end. The way he makes the two brothers distinctive is to be lauded. Privately, he might have hated this genre of movie, but you wouldn't have known it from the gusto that he gives his dual role.

It's always good to see Dwight Frye, even though this wasn't his best performance. He played countless crazy or weird characters throughout his career, yet they usually differed due to his unique characterization he gave to each role.

Some here have complained about the sound and other defects in the quality of the film, which isn't fair since the vast majority of us have seen this film only from public domain copies. For example, the copies of "It's a Wonderful Life" that I saw as a kid weren't half the quality of the actual master that we now see around the holidays. Until a worthy copy shows up, I'll refrain making a judgment on that aspect of "Dead Men Walk."

All in all, the movie is entertaining. If you like horror movies from that era, you probably wont be disappointed.

George Zucco, whom I had never heard of until now, stars as a kindly doctor and his evil twin brother who is hell-bent on Satan worship, and having a hunchback assistant (because you need that). His Satan-worship even seems to make him immune to death! You might not find some aspects of the film to be original. I mean, a hunchback? And the good twin and bad twin dichotomy? Nothing new there (though newer in 1943 than today). So put this one on the pile with all those other films...

But wait! Whoever provided the imagery really cared about the scenes they wanted to show. The opening is one of the more powerful scenes you'll find in a film of its era. A book called "History of Vampires" burns slowly in a fireplace (forshadowing the later destruction of the occult book collection) while a super-imposed face speaks to us from beyond the grave.

Yes, you'll have to be tolerant of older films with no color and the less technologically advanced filming procedures. If not, you might be snoozing in a matter of minutes. But true fans of the old days will enjoy this one and all the way to the end you may not be able to guess which brother - if either one - will survive this epic battle of good versus evil.

Whenever I watch an old black and white horror movie, I always try to watch it in context of the time period. Some old movies seem kind of stupid 50 or 60 years later, but were actually pretty good at the time.

This is not one of them. Dead Men Walk is as pointless and boring a movie as I have ever seen. Besides the expected sub-par cinematography (couldn't anyone turn on a lamp, for god's sake?) and horrendous acting, the story itself was idiotic and the fact that 40 minutes of the 62-minute movie was devoted solely to keeping Elwyn the vampire away from his niece just makes it more idiotic.

I understand George Zucco had a reputation as a horror/mystery movie guy but he was the most un-frightening vampire I have ever come across in a movie. Dead Men Walk makes Return of the Vampire (1941) with Bela Lugosi seem like high art.

After watching Dead Men Walk, I had to watch Horror of Dracula with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing to remind myself that there are still come great vampire movies to see.