Made in an era, where the word 'zombie', meant, the fear of being turned into a mindless, slave automaton, against one's will, rather than the rampaging, bloodthirsty reanimated corpse that wants to consume human flesh. I found this comedy directed by Gordon Douglas, about two American men, Jerry Miles (Wally Brown) and Mike Strager (Alan Carney), tasked in finding a real-life Voodoo zombie for a Haiti-themed nightclub in New York to be six feet under, below-average, both in storytelling and in presentation. Without spoiling the movie, too much, while, I wouldn't call this movie, the worst comedy horror B-film, RKO ever produce. I can say, it's nowhere near the best. I found the writing by Lawrence Kimble, Robert Faber, Charles Newman and Robert E. Kent to be, very bad, even for 1940's standards. First off, the plot makes little sense, even for a comedy. First off, who builds a night-club in NYC, based on dark magical practices of the Voodoo religion? I can see, New Orleans, maybe, doing that, but New York City. It's so out of place. It's like constructing a discothèque with an Aztec sacrifice table in downtown, Chicago. It's just doesn't fit. Also, why does a NYC club, need a real-life zombie in the first place? It's like if Luxor in Las Vegas, just decide to have real-life smelly curse mummies in its casinos. It's just doesn't work. Another thing, wrong about this film, is the fact, that I have really have no clue, why they felt to turn the sequel to great 1943's scary movie 'I Walked with a Zombie', into a comedy, so soon after the movie, released. It's like, instead of making 1935's 'Bride of Frankenstein', they choose to make 1948's 'Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein'. It just doesn't work, because fans of the first movie, will hate it, for making the monster, they fear, into a laughing stock. The tongue-in-cheek attitude would ruin, the gritty, dark image that the original filmmakers were trying to do. I felt that, is what happen, here! In the first movie, actor, Darby Jones's unnamed zombie was somewhat scary. However, in this movie, they make him, into a bug-eye joke. At least, with the other fictional movie monsters, they didn't make, fun of them, until years later, when the limelight of fear starting to fade. Even with that, the film is still unfunny. The devious straight man and the dimwitted comic shtick from Brown & Carney just didn't landed for me. There wasn't much, clever word play, or snappy dialogue for Brown & Carney to work with. How was they supposed to impersonate Bud Abbott & Lou Costello without much witty interchange. These goofy hokey buffoons, seems to be, missing the key ingredient that makes Abbott & Costello famous. Even the pratfalls, weren't that impressive, as many of the stunt works were too unrealistic for any of them to look real. While, Brown & Carney impersonating of the comedy duo, Abbott & Costello was nowhere as annoying as Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis lookalike performers, Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, from 1952's "The Boys from Brooklyn" AKA "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla". I just found, the acting from them, to be, a little less memorable than the 1952 movie with a similar premise. However, I did think, Bela Lugosi's acting in this, was lot better than "The Boys from Brooklyn". In that movie, it seem like Lugosi didn't give a crap about being typecast, yet again as another mad scientist. At least, here, Bela is trying to take it, serious, as Professor Paul Renault, a man trying to create a mind control serum, even if he's hardly in it. He hasn't yet, destroy his movie career due to his drug addiction to morphine and methadone. So, that is a plus. And to be fair, while this performance is not as good, as 1932's 'White Zombie', I have to say, it's one of Bela's stronger later outings. Also, that, isn't the only thing, good, about this movie; I also found the musical numbers with singer/dancer, Anne Jeffery to be ever-so lovely, even if she was throwing knives, during her set. She was one tough cookie; beautiful, poised and vivacious. Another, great musical number came from the calypso singer, Sir Lancelot, who sung a variation of the song, he sang in on Val Lewton's classic, 1943's movie, 'I Walked with a Zombie'. While, it's not as good as the original. It was pretty catchy. Nevertheless, I kinda upsetting by racist minstrel show, feel of the movie. It was hard to watch, the African-American performers act like dim-witted, lazy, superstitious buffoons. It's equally as cringe-worthy, when Carney felt to do, a comedy act, in black-face. I really didn't like how minorities were made to look like servers and lesser beings to the other races. Another reason, why I really didn't like this movie, is how cheap, the production was. It was pretty jarring to see, them chipping away on re-used sets from 1943's film 'The Ghost Ship' & the RKO's Tarzan movies. Overall: I have to say, this 'night of the jiving dead' movie was just way, too stupid for my taste to really like. In the end, I just can't recommended watching it. It's better off, staying in the dirt nap, where it belongs.
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