We Can’t All Be Bela Lugosi

Saturday night I continued my quest for cheesy horror with a double feature starring George Zucco. I had never heard of him, but the DVD box describes him as “marvelously theatrical,” and Leonard Maltin says he “effortlessly steals the show” in our second feature (Leonard Maltin’s 2011 Movie Guide, Signet, 2010). Who am I to argue with Leonard Maltin?

I don’t know that I need to give my usual spoiler alert, because I’m not sure I followed either movie with any accuracy. Our copies were so bad most of the dialog was difficult to understand, especially since we had two fans running. I do love a horror movie on a hot summer night.

In Dead Men Walk (1943), Zucca plays a dual role of a good twin and a bad twin, both doctors (actors just love to play dual roles and/or writers and directors just love identical twins; I may have to write a whole blog post on the phenomenon). The evil twin is dead as the movie begins, but that’s OK, because, as the they tell us in the title, dead men walk. There is a creepy prologue of a disembodied head double exposured over flame telling us… I’m not sure what. That was some of the dialogue I missed.

As the movie progresses, we learn that the good twin killed the evil twin. I personally could have used a little more information on this plot point. Good twin says it was self-defense. Evil twin says it was an ill-fated attempt to save the daughter/niece (that is, daughter of evil, niece of good).

Oh, and let’s talk about that niece for a minute. Of course, there is usually a beautiful young woman in these things, most often in deadly peril at some point. She must be sweet and vulnerable. Any additional personality is strictly optional. Come to think of it, that can be true for movie males, too, only without the sweet and vulnerable parts. The niece is mainly concerned with her young man, also a doctor. She seems completely unaware of her father’s nefarious activities and, I must point out, not particularly grief-stricken at his passing, although that may have been the fault of the lousy print. I mean, I didn’t hear everything she said. What I did hear, they didn’t give her the snappiest dialogue. I sure wish this movie had had an intrepid girl reporter, but that’s beside the point.

Bad Brother’s funeral is disrupted by a crazy old lady (no, not me) saying it is a desecration to have such an evil one in the church. She’s been nuts ever since her granddaughter was brutally murdered. Any guesses who was responsible? Well, you’re going to have to guess, because we never find out anything else about that subplot. I was grateful I heard that much.

Soon Big Brother returns, making all kinds of threats. Not surprisingly, only Good Brother gets to see him. I suppose with more budget they could have made a trippy movie where you find out at the end they are BOTH THE SAME PERSON. No such subtlety for this flick, which was really fine with me, because those trippy ones make my head hurt.

Bad Brother is a kind of a vampire. He intends to turn his daughter into one, too, but apparently this takes a lot of bites. At night she has mysterious dreams. By day she appears to be wasting away from an unknown disease. At one point her young man insists she be given a blood transfusion. She at once is better, which clues in nobody but the audience that vampires are at work. Oh, and crazy old lady, who brings her a crucifix, which helps. I’ll never understand why people in vampire movies don’t set up a perimeter of crucifixes all around the house and sleep well at night.

Zucca does a pretty good job playing two parts. I did remark at one point, thought, that it was the most professorial-looking vampire I had ever seen. That was just a cute remark, though, because he managed to be scary as well. And, after all, we can’t all be Bela Lugosi.

Things get interesting when the excitable townspeople begin to believe that Good Brother is in fact the murderer. It gets scary as events reach their dramatic conclusion. I shan’t tell you what that is, because I don’t warn you against watching this movie. In fact, if you do watch it, perhaps you could clue me in on a few of the plot points I missed due to my bad sound system. Did the niece know of her father’s evil nature? What all did that disembodied head say during the introduction? What was Bad Brother’s henchman’s name?

As usual, my review is becoming longer than the silly movie. This one runs 65 minutes, giving us plenty of time for our second feature, which I will talk about tomorrow. Stay tuned.