Revenge of the Zombies (1943)

 

Director: Steve Sekely

Screenplay: Edmond Kelso and Van Norcross

Cast: John Carradine as Dr. Max Heinrich von Altermann; Gale Storm as Jennifer Rand; Robert Lowery as Larry Adams; Mantan Moreland as Jeff Jackson; Veda Ann Borg as Lila von Altermann; Barry Macollum as Dr. Harvey Keating; Mauritz Hugo as Scott Warrington; Madame Sul-Te-Wan as Mammy Beulah; James Baskett as Lazarus; Sybil Lewis as Rosella

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #249

 

Nothing of what I've seen came out no bottle!

"Presented in HorrorScope", least in the public domain DVD release I saw, I can proudly include a Monogram Pictures Corporation film into my reviews even if, after all these years, I only learned much later this is meant to be a sequel, to King of the Zombies (1941), if with only a tentative connection and only two returning actors. The legendary studio even got a credit from Jean-Luc Godard at the end of his debut Breathless (1960), their productions varying from crime pictures to horror movies. Moody is thankfully a word I can use here as much as for a crime film, revisited this film fresher eyes than previous times before. Even a public domain copy like the one I have grown accustomed to is still gaining a new atmosphere upon revisiting it. Also worth raising is how this is a nineteen forties film which is, yes, about zombies. This is specifically the Haitian zombie lore, where in real life, people were drugged in a way presumed dead, to be dug up and become forced labour for those who paid for their "zombification". Obviously, alongside some issues to talk of, this is cultural appropriation and is part of the greater issue with how films appropriated Haitian beliefs, and the likes of Voodoo practice, in negative forms. It is also fascinating to know that, when George A. Romero created a fictional form of the zombie which would dominate what that word meant in the modern day, once beforehand, you would have to reach out to this form which, even if used in troubling appropriation, was actually based on real history.

In this case, admittedly, these zombies are now bulletproof, which is not a common aspect of this earlier lore, and it is a surprise to revisit the film and hear a piece of dialogue know, almost predating those modern Romero influenced zombies, that these zombies are entirely as powerful as they are due to their brains controlling them. The man creating these ones is Dr. Max Heinrich von Altermann (John Carradine), a Nazi scientist undercover in the swamps near Louisiana wanting to create a new race of super men as soldiers. The brother of Ottoman's wife, Lila von Altermann (Veda Ann Borg), has abruptly died, comes to the manor with help, eventually between them learning what von Altermann has been doing alongside the fact Lila is now a zombie as well. This is squarely of its time, mid World War II, their b-movies as much as Hollywood also was involved in the American war effort. Beyond this however, this is purely a pulp narrative, lower budget and just close to an hour long, part of the many churned out by Monogram and others. These later films from the forties for me yet feel different even from the Universal movies of the thirties, a form of pulpy genre filmmaking which is creeping ever closer to the b-movies of the fifties onwards, its own era of genre filmmaking, alongside the others made by Monogram and those that fell in the public domain like Revenge of the Zombies, that has its own culture for me.

There is one issue that is entirely of this older period of cinema however, and always has been something for me to contend with for Revenge of the Zombies, and that is how the African American cast is depicted. Ironically, the two actors who returned from King of the Zombies are among this side of the cast, Mantan Moreland replaying a character named Jeff Jackson, who is the driver for the leads, and Madame Sul-Te-Wan playing another character, a maid in von Altermann's house with an extensive knowledge of zombie techniques. This is a film with a larger African-American cast for such a small film, but all playing staff at von Altermann's house or Moreland's Jee being a driver. Truthfully, the biggest issue for me is with Mantan Moreland and his character, as he slides into a stereotype common in these older films of comedic black characters whose comedy, including being scared easily, was deemed insulting to African Americans¹. Spike Lee, when he covered these archetypes alongside other racist iconography from the United States' past in Bamboozled (2000), explicitly referred "Mantan" in reusing his first name in that film, and when these types of roles were deemed as more and more inappropriate, unfortunately a double edged tragedy came about alongside these problematic images existing in the first place, in how actors like Mantan Moreland worked far less. Going from a lot of roles in the forties, and barely appearing in films in the fifties onwards, I realise this remembering how he has a small cameo in Jack Hill's Spider Baby (1967), and how in the background to his casting, as a postman unfortunately caught up in the homicidal family he knocks on the door of, including Moreland being out of work as the most prominent detail. Even if he kept making films into the seventies to his death, unfortunately his own career was likely marred by these roles in his career as a buffoon¹.

Mantan Moreland is providing the broadest of roles here, which adds a greater shame as he has a good comedic timing. His character is a case of a patronising role, not necessarily in the character here by himself, but in how the roles from this time from actors including him how common these portrayals were proved a concern. The film in general though, even as pure pulp, proved more complicated in terms of all the other depictions even if by pure accident.  Yes, the black actors here are playing a driver or maid, yet paradoxically none of them are demeaned and, whilst in the background to the main narrative, everyone gets a prominent moment even in a film just nearing only an hour. No one is on von Altermann's side either. The youngest maid there hates working there, his own driver has been turned into a zombie slave, to lead the other zombies, and Madame Sul-Te-Wan despite being the stereotype of the older black woman with occult knowledge is not on his side either, in fact helping the protagonists with the mechanics of how the zombiefication works and watching as, to von Altermann's surprise, his own wife despite being turned into a zombie has a will of her own.

Even factoring the actors themselves complicate this as, to consider them as working individuals, you have figures who stand out with greater meaning whether their roles are seen as problematic or not. Madame Sul-Te-Wan is a really good example I only learnt of through this film: to go on a slight tangent, she is a fascinating figure, working since the 1910s in cinema, including D.W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation (1915), with even her pseudonym (born Nellie Crawford) as much of note both as a way to market herself and as a mark of confidence to avoid being patronised. In her era, already a theatre actress before cinema and working for decades, she was held with great regard as an actress by African American viewers back in this era². Particularly with roles which can be seen as problematic in older cinema, such as how African Americans were depicted, black actors who took these roles raise a complexity as one is reminded they themselves were working figures, Sul-Te-Wan well regarded in spite of likely having to take on roles like in Revenge of the Zombies a lot. Look no further, for a surprise example for me too, as James Baskett, who plays von Altermann's zombified driver Lazarus and is virtually unrecognisable, with his shock of white hair, to playing Uncle Remus in the contentious Disney film Song of the South (1946), the epoch of this era of cinema and difficult issues of how portrayals and archetypes have to be dealt with.

If anything, from once being jarred by the film's portrayals, it is entirely Moreland's exaggerated comedic performance, as he is scared by everything, instead that is still an issue returning to the film that is still an issue. It also cannot be helped but be read into, because it is not even subtext whether accidental or not, that this is a horror film about a Nazi scientist turning people, his zombies cast with people of multiple ethnicities, into subservient drones stripped of their humanity. Even if this has stereotypes to consider, they are not as prominent and as bad as they could be, whilst here in the middle of World War II, we thankfully have a reminder even in ridiculous pulp to always the Nazis were villains and will always make perfect villains for that reason.

A film like this, breezy to sit through, is not a masterpiece. Made with limited locations, quickly paced and simple, these are the sort of movies if you watched a few of that could become an obsession for a viewer in terms appreciating their mood and style of storytelling with the exception of key titles of well regard. Even how films from this period have a very specific type of orchestral score have become the little traits that cause them to grow in greater interest for me, even though this may not even be considered a great film from Monogram Pictures' dalliances with horror cinema. As much of this review's positivity is this having been one of the first I had a real acquaintance with, seen a few times thanks to the wonders of public domain DVDs, especially when this shared the disc (befitting earlier references to George Romero) with Night of the Living Dead (1968). The pair together, even if likely slapped together as two "zombie" films, was befitting, as Romero's film was seen as a huge moment in horror cinema, not only in terms of a sub-genre which would dominate even the mainstream, and led to countless films being churned out, but being viewed as a stark reflection of the times politically even as a horror film first. The older film in comparison, though built in with real history as pulp archetypes fight a Nazi, is a warm blanket in comparison, but with both of worth, now returning to Revenge of the Zombies I can see myself diving further into this area of horror cinema now with delight.

 

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1) A more detailed biography on Mantan Moreland can be found here.

2) A more detailed biography on Madame Sul-Te-Wans, which I partially drew on but barely scratched, can be found here.