Voodoo Man (1944)

 

Director: William Beaudine

Screenplay: Robert Charles

Cast: Bela Lugosi as Dr. Marlowe; John Carradine as Toby; George Zucco as Nicholas; Wanda McKay as Betty; Louise Currie as Sally; Michael Ames as Ralph; Ellen Hall as Mrs. Marlowe; Henry Hall as Sheriff; Dan White as Deputy Elmer

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #253

 

I have a good mind to report you to the Chamber of Commerce!

Another Monogram Films production, though they were more a distributor of this than its producer, but here we also can talk of Bela Lugosi. His life, and in mind to when this film was made, does admittedly cause me to feel sad. This will be a fun review, but it should be considered this is close to when he started making whatever films he could to make the bills, the tragedy of not only the man who played Dracula ending in the position he did, but an acclaimed theatre and film actor in his homeland of Hungary who did so to his death in the late fifties. And yet even here in Voodoo Man, a very silly film, Bela does stand out. It softens this thought, and the mood, that this fun film still has Lugosi stand out. That and being to refer to this being a William Beaudine film.

Beaudine for me was dubbed "One Shot", christened to him by the Michael and Harry Medved with their book The Golden Turkey Awards. The man is arguably more than his notoriety - he was working from the 1910s to the late sixties, over countless genres between The Bowery Boys film series to the notorious Mom and Dad (1945), an exploitation sex education film. What likely did not help Beaudine over the years, and was how I first heard of him, were the notoriously "bad" films in his career in the horror genre. Beaudine helmed Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952), which is at the point Lugosi was in the midst of the era of a drug addiction and having to get work for money, and whilst I look to them with interest to see again, my younger self did not appreciate The Ape Man (1943), also with Lugosi, or Beaudine's last film Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966). His is the type of career undermined by merely picking at it rather than seeing how large it was, over a hundred credits, and whether a large percentage of them were good or not, Beaudine was still a man who worked and had a life, whether working on obscure Disney films, exploitation sex hygiene movies, or here with the horror genre.

Voodoo Man, as one of these titles, is unabashedly goofy. With a nearby gas station to his home in cahoots, Bela Lugosi and his associates, including John Carradine and George Zucco, are abducting women off the highway and using the voodoo rituals of "Roombuna" to transfer the souls/consciousnesses of the victims into his young dead wife to resurrect her again. Multiple attempts have failed when we get into the narrative, which means mindless female zombies have to be kept locked up, and Hollywood screenwriter Ralph (Michael Ames) finds himself stumbling into this when the bridesmaid of his upcoming wedding is the latest victim. As a film ending with a note onscreen asking the audience to buy war saving stamps and bond notes, this is of another era onscreen, mid World War II, a type of horror cinema including its cast which has its own legacy and its own ticks. One, admittedly, is questionable cultural appropriation of Haitian and Voodoo beliefs, likely made up here, with white people using for evil means. That is definitely something to raise an eyebrow on.

Admittedly this is summed up with George Zucco, who played Professor Moriarty in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) with Basil Rathbone, in silly "tribal" makeup, and a very confused looking John Carradine playing bongos in a set full of deliciously exaggerated skull ornaments, so the problem is more having to use another's "other" culture and calling the film "Voodoo" Man, not the idea of the film being about occult arts to resurrect a noticeably younger wife. Aside from that, nothing is really problematic here at all, in terms of how it has aged, instead entirely innocuous. It has definitely aged in how stiffer this is from, say, Revenge of the Zombies (1943), also from Monogram Pictures. Yet the most rewarding thing about the film is that it feels as if it knows this, and almost has an air of parody of itself, least a banality creeping into what is meant to be a horror film which is intentionally funny.

I think of the perpetually annoyed Sheriff and his deputy Elmer for example - the former once had an easy job, whilst Elmer talks of his wife constantly shouting at him for always being at work - and see how the film has a banal matter-of-factness to admire. Our main lead Ralph, ultimately useless when he has to come to the rescue in the finale, only gets involved at first due to forgetting to have the station attendant fill his gas tank when he drives off, having the audacity to threaten to go back and punch the attention for taking his money. Throughout this, the movie feels like a comedy, even to the point, predating meta-horror of decades later, especially into the nineties, where the film ends with a script for a film also Voodoo Man being finished and someone suggesting Bela Lugosi should be the star in dialogue.

Even for an ultimately cheesy film, this tone helps so much. It is also, taken seriously, from an era where you could bolster them with recognisable and prolific actors who were capable hands onscreen. It says a lot of John Carradine for example, in his diversity, that he could go from being a debonair and calm Nazi scientist in Revenge of the Zombie, to here playing Toby, a simpleton obsessed with "pretty women", his fawning over the zombies thankfully never becoming further creepier than it is, and leading to one escaping from the glass pods they are stored in. And Lugosi even in context of this historical time, when his career was declining, is always compelling, even tragic here as a man whose love for his wife sadly has led him to what he should not be doing. His performance does carry over some emotional weight to this, even if in the end this is a silly movie, and that is something of a testament to him as a charismatic figure and his acting skills, the reason actors like him, especially in genres viewed as disreputable, gained cult audiences over the years after. Voodoo Man is a ridiculous movie, but for these various reasons, it was a pleasure to see, and as I sample more of this era, their simplistic natures, working around limited sets and clichés, become jumping boards to appreciate the people in front and behind the cameras trying to squeeze out the material in an entertaining way even if for a pay check.