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Saturday, August 25, 2018

KING OF THE ZOMBIES (1941)

Don’t be fooled by the remote, tropical island setting, this is still your standard Haunted House/Mad Doctor comic thriller. All done in the slow, silly, dumbed-down micro-budget house style of Monogram Pictures. And actually, kinda fun . . . if you’re in the mood. A pair of pilots and a valet (indispensable black comedian Mantan Moreland), on the hunt for a missing Admiral, follow a radio signal and crash land on a mysterious island. But where’s the radio transmitter? Where’s the Admiral? They’re welcomed by local hypnotist/doctor Henry Victor (making like Bela Lugosi), his sleepy wife & female ‘guest,’ house staff and . . . what did we leave out . . . oh yes, ZOMBIES. Yikes! The thrills are modest in the extreme, but Moreland gets lots of comic elbow room, a girl to flirt with, shares top-billing and stretches beyond the stereotypical ‘Darkie Humor’ he was often regulated to. He still pops his eyes, of course, but the general comic persona is more in line with Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson or even Flip Wilson than other ‘black’ comic relief of the era. Put on your period glasses to enjoy.

LINK: Beware subfusc Public Domain DVD editions. Instead, this remarkably clean, shiny print on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xs4ApsGryPo

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