Darby Jones, Bela Lugosi in Zombies on Broadway
Karloff & Lugosi Horror Classics: Boris Karloff Disc
Matters do not improve much over on Bela Lugosi's disc. Horror enthusiasts will likely experience a gargantuan case of buyer's remorse during the first scenes of You'll Find Out (1940). What they'll find out is that this movie is a vehicle not for Bela Lugosi, but for comedian/bandleader Kay Kyser and his Kollege of Musical Knowledge band, featuring Ginny Simms, Sully Mason and Ish Kabibble (who appears to have been the visual inspiration for Jim Carrey's Lloyd character in Dumb and Dumber).
Kyser and company's style of comedy has, shall we say, not aged well, but this is partially atoned for by the casting of not only Lugosi, but also Karloff and a surprisingly dapper Peter Lorre. The three play con artists in a conspiracy to bilk a superstitious heiress out of her fortune and eliminate a niece who stands to inherit the loot. They might succeed, too, if not for a certain meddling big-band novelty act…
You'll Find Out does contain a genuinely spooky séance scene, featuring an early use of "talk box" technology (made famous decades later by Peter Frampton and his "talking guitar"). More of this sort of thing, plus larger roles for Lugosi, Karloff and Lorre, might have resulted in a minor horror classic. As it is, this one just barely rises above "historical curiosity" status.
I'm not sure I can muster even that much enthusiasm for Zombies on Broadway (1945). While the title is admittedly impossible to live up to, this is just another goofy comedy, this time starring the forgotten team of Alan Carney and Wally Brown as two press agents who promise a gangster that they can produce a real zombie for the opening of his new nightclub — and thus travel to the Virgin Islands to find one.
There are some fine short musical numbers, and this To Have and Have Not fan enjoyed the 1940s' Caribbean setting. On the other hand, there are too many endless scenes of the two leads wandering around in the jungle, and their poor man's Abbott-and-Costello routine wears out its welcome very quickly. Worst of all, Lugosi has only about 10 minutes of screen time, less even than Darby Jones, here reprising a role from RKO's earlier I Walked With a Zombie.
I must say that Zombies on Broadway is an odd and not terribly satisfying choice for inclusion in a Lugosi-themed set, especially considering the number of his films out there that have never seen a proper DVD release. (The Paramount release Island of Lost Souls is just the first one that comes to mind.)
I can't quite recommend the "Boris Karloff & Bela Lugosi Horror Classics," at least not to horror fans. Try to see The Walking Dead, but the rest of the movies on offer, particularly on the Lugosi disc, are better as examples of the typical Hollywood product of its Golden Age than anything that genre fans would care about — and there's something shady about Warner's attempt to market it as though it were the latter. Poor Bela — dead for 50 years and he still can't get a fair shake!
© Dan Erdman
Darby Jones looks scary enough.