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Monday, October 15, 2018

THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST (1945)

Screenwriting debut for the legendary Leigh Brackett, right before THE BIG SLEEP/’46 and various classic Howard Hawks projects before ending her career with an early draft of THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK/’80. It’s a modest Voodoo meets The Undead story for Republic Pictures, strongly influenced by Val Lewton's poetic horror series @ RKO (CAT PEOPLE/’42; I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE/’43), but kept from hitting its potential by a tiny budget & unimaginative direction by Western specialist Lesley Selander. Atmosphere is sorely lacking (especially in some spic-n-span interiors), but it’s still a pretty fair watch. Character actor John Abbott, normally around to add Euro-flavor as town mayor, valet or forger, is not only UNDEAD, he’s also UNHAPPY! Stuck in an African port town and starting to look suspicious to the Natives after a series of blood-draining local murders. Hiding his true identity, he joins trader Charles Gordon on a hunt to find the responsible party (even though he’s the responsible party!), and winds up falling for the man’s fiancé (Peggy Stewart) who may just be the woman to spend eternal undead time with. No actual blood sucking, but much Native tom-tom drum-beating to pass the latest news from village to village. So specific, they must be using Western Union logs. With a fresher angle than most of these things, and lasting less than an hour, Brackett mavens won’t want to miss it.

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Abbott must be the most sympathetic bloodsucker before Anne Rice’s INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE in ‘94.

DOUBLE-BILL: Can’t go far wrong with those Val Lawton titles, especially the one’s directed by Jacques Tourneur like CAT PEOPLE and ZOMBIE (see above).

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