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…in which agents of the US government searching for a missing admiral stumble across the operative of – *cough, cough* – an unidentified European nation, who uses a combination of voodoo and hypnotism to create zombies and exert mind control.
A horror-comedy in which “horror” takes a seat right up the back, this film is chiefly a vehicle for the, uh, idiosyncratic comedy stylings of Mantan Moreland.
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Liz Kingsley is the insane genius behind And You Call Yourself a Scientist!
#1 by Luke Blanchard on May 16, 2015 - 6:40 pm
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Regarding Washington’s position on the war and movies, I would guess by the time KING OF THE ZOMBIES came out things had changed. Wikipedia tells me Lend-Lease was signed into law in Mar. 1941.
Of pre-Pearl Harbor US films I’ve run into, Hitchcock’s FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT was released Aug. 1940, ESCAPE with Robert Taylor Nov. 1940, Fritz Lang’s MAN HUNT Jun. 1941, and ALL THROUGH THE NIGHT with Humphrey Bogart Dec. 1941.
#2 by supersonic man on May 18, 2015 - 1:00 pm
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I’d only ever seen Mantan Moreland in the opening of Spider Baby. I was struck by how Jack Hill in the commentary said that once civil rights came along, performers like Moreland basically could not get any work anymore — no one was willing to forget what they’d been known for.
It’s good to hear that the script in this one treated his character as positively as it did.
#3 by lyzard on May 25, 2015 - 7:25 pm
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Luke—it was a strange situation, because there were certainly a lot of mixed messages being sent. The studios themselves were in a panic over the loss of international business, and the Hays Office was bitterly divided on the subject (except for a solid stance against anything seen as “pro-Jewish”), and forced a lot of screenplays to be rewritten and/or toned down. On the other hand there was tacit encouragement emanating from the White House.
But then Germany and Italy banned American films in August 1940, and that’s when the prevailing attitude shifted—though honestly a lot of what followed feels as much like “Nyah, nyah, nyah” as a genuine political statement.
Even by 1941 (but pre-Pearl Harbor), Monogram might have felt they weren’t in a position to take an overt stand, and so compromised with an “Austrian refugee” speaking “unidentifiable blather”. (The question of what Dr Sangre is a refugee from is never really addressed.)
Supes—yes, it was one of those sad situations where the wrong people end up getting punished. Though in Moreland’s case, he developed serious health issues during the 60s that interfered with his capacity to work regularly.
#4 by El Santo on May 26, 2015 - 2:35 pm
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“The question of what Dr. Sangre is a refugee from is never really addressed.”
I assumed he was posing as a refugee from the Anschluss. Surely there must have been some significant body of Austrians who were unhappy enough at the prospect of being folded into Nazi Germany to flee the country.
#5 by El Santo on May 26, 2015 - 3:32 pm
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Incidentally, regarding the “unidentifiable blather,” it never occurred to me to seek any specific explanation for Bill’s inability to recognize spoken German. After all, I’m sure you’ve heard the old joke: If a person who speaks two languages is bilingual, and a person who speaks many languages is multilingual, what do you call someone who speaks only one language? American.
#6 by lyzard on May 26, 2015 - 6:18 pm
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The combination of, “C’mon, we all know what the Austrians were fleeing from” and, “But what the heck language is that?” seems a bit contradictory, though I suppose it’s possible that the audience was supposed to recognise the blather and so be tipped off before the main characters as to the nature of what they were flying into. (Which doesn’t exactly improve our opinion of their intelligence.)
#7 by RogerBW on June 1, 2015 - 9:42 am
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Doc Savage does a similar thing – his enemies even in 1941 are from “a certain aggressive European nation”, and only become actual Germans later on. And Lend-Lease was very carefully set up so as not to violate the strict letter of neutrality; huge amounts of domestic politics there.
One can’t help remembering that a lot of the German and Austrian refugees were Jewish. Of course, Doctor Sangre would hardly pose as one of them.
As for the personal lives of spies, well, I live in the country that has MI6. Philby, Blunt, Burgess, Maclean…
That French poster looks as if it ought to be for “La Reine des Zombies”.
#8 by lyzard on June 5, 2015 - 6:13 pm
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Yeah, but I’m pretty sure that whatever else they did, Messrs Philby, Blunt, Burgess and Maclean at least did not discuss their business with their servants…their business of any kind. 🙂
A lot of the advertising art for this film makes Mrs Sangre disproportionately important, following on from White Zombie‘s implication that zombie-ism is much worse when it happens to a white woman, as opposed to a black man.