Zombies on Broadway

1945's "Zombies on Broadway" marked the first of three titles under Bela Lugosi's new RKO contract, his first teaming opposite the studio's answer to Abbott and Costello, tall and thin Wally Brown with short and pudgy Alan Carney. Like the later "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla," he reigns in a studio jungle conducting sinister experiments, here a zombie master unlike Murder Legendre from "White Zombie," attempting scientific means to produce zombies using a special serum of his own making. Brown and Carney play their regular characters of Jerry Miles and Mike Strager, working as publicity agents for a new club owned by gangster Ace Miller (Sheldon Leonard), but in promising a genuine zombie for The Zombie Hut they are forced to journey to the Caribbean island of San Sebastian to seek out Lugosi's Dr. Paul Renault, on the advice of museum curator Hopkins (Ian Wolfe). Renault would rather the world believe him dead, delighted to test his new serum on Mike, kidnapped from his bed by actual zombie Kolaga (Darby Jones). Jones and unbilled calypso singer Sir Lancelot repeat their roles from Val Lewton's "I Walked with a Zombie," five zombie masks called for by makeup artist Maurice Seiderman, little more than bulging pop eyes for an effect both comic and creepy, Lugosi confined almost entirely to the film's second half with only 10 minutes screen time. He actually gets a chuckle when assistant Joseph (Joseph Vitale) tells Miles and Strager that Dr. Renault is merely studying a banana blight, but the doctor insists it is coconuts: "oh, Joseph is color blind!" The antics of Brown and Carney offer some amusement but the material for surefire laughs just isn't there, later reunited with Bela for a much better comedy, "Genius at Work," offering a larger part for Lugosi and a last pairing with master screen villain Lionel Atwill (only a few weeks after completing this mad scientist fiasco, he would be cast as Joseph in Val Lewton's Boris Karloff vehicle "The Body Snatcher").

Brown and Carney were not too bad. They were better than some of the comments make them out to be. They couldn't touch Abbott and Costello, but I have seen far worse from more famous duos. I would have liked to have seen them with better writers. Just a note that Brown and Carney were reunited briefly in the 1961 film "the Absent Minded Professor". This is an OK comedy for those who like old fashioned comedy like I do. The thing that disappoints is that the title itself gives rise to images of zombies invading a Busby Berkley type musical or an army of zombies pursuing fleeing New Yorkers through the theater district. I was imagining the scene from Golddiggers of 1933 with Ginger Rogers singing "We're in the money" being invaded not by the cops but by zombies. Sadly, we get none of that. If you can get past the title then you will find an amusing little film. I would like to see George Romero remake it.

With a cast including ALAN CARNEY, WALLY BROWN, ANNE JEFFREYS, SHELDON LEONARD and BELA LUGOSI, RKO made an amusing programmer (lower half of double bills) using the zombie theme for laughs.

Sheldon Leonard is an ex-gangster putting up money for a nightclub called The Zombie Hut and promising to present an authentic zombie on opening night. Brown and Carney promise Leonard that they'll come up with a real zombie in time for the Broadway opening of the club.

The story moves from the nightclub to the island of San Sebastian where a weird scientist called Dr. Renault has mysteriously disappeared. On the island, the tone of the film veers between comedy and fright with amusing results--and the team of Carney and Brown seems to be using the kind of material Abbott and Costello found at Universal. The gags are sometimes a misfire but the slapstick situations are fun. Attractive ANNE JEFFREYS is a night-club singer who also gets involved with the zombies when she and the boys go looking for them.

All of the sight gags are reminiscent of A&C at their zaniest. Lugosi plays it straight as the doctor who believes in putting people under "suspended animation" for scientific purposes.

The zombie they return with is a surprise twist. It's all played strictly for laughs and, silly as it is, it works.

Although the comedy team of Wally Brown and Alan Carney never threatened Laurel&Hardy, Abbott&Costello, or the Ritz Brothers in popularity, the team which was cobbled together at RKO were amusing in several films they did in the early Forties. This film is particularly goofy in an almost Monty Pythonesque way.

Brown and Carney are a pair of press agents who are charged with publicizing the opening of Sheldon Leonard's nightclub which is named The Zombie Club. And the boys promise a real undead person for the opening.

Now normally these guys hiring someone to impersonate a zombie might go over with most folks. But Sheldon Leonard who's been the target of gossip columnist Louis Jean Heydt isn't having any. The boys are charged with finding and bringing back a real live zombie, and don't tell me that that is an oxymoron.

A tip from eccentric scientist Ian Wolfe sends Brown and Carney to the Virgin Islands where another scientist Bela Lugosi is doing experiments creating zombies. Now of course Lugosi is not only sinister, but he makes Wolfe look like Jonas Salk. The boys also meet up with Anne Jeffreys and the three of them have all kinds of fun with Lugosi and his zombies.

Nothing great about Zombies On Broadway, but it's a goofy fun type film and one to enjoy on a rainy afternoon.

It's very obvious when you watch this film that RKO was trying to rip off the Abbott and Costello formula. This was due to the incredible success of Abbott and Costello and because RKO's BEST comedy team at the time was the Ritz Brothers--who were about as funny as listening to dial tone on a telephone. While the two leads (Wally Brown and Alan Carney) are NOT all that reminiscent of Bud and Lou in acting and talent, the writing is often dead on the mark (a bad pun, I know). Many times during the movie, I found myself remembering very, very similar dialog and situations in several Abbott and Costello films. And, of all those films, I think this one is closest in style (but certainly not in quality) to ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN.

The duo is assisted in their attempt to overcome mediocrity by teaming them with Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist (I know this role must have really been a major stretch for Bela's talents). While Lugosi is fun in the film, he really doesn't have all that much to do--a bit of a waste of his talents. Also, Anne Jeffreys is the female lead in the film. Oddly, BOTH Jeffreys AND Lugosi were re-teamed just a year later with Brown and Carney in GENIUS AT WORK--you'd have thought that given the very limited success of THIS film they would have tried something different.

So did the attempt to copy the originals succeed? Well, yes and no. Yes, because the film was a diverting and mildly entertaining film--just like a real Abbott and Costello movie. But, a resounding NO because the duo did very few films together and now in the 21st century they are all but forgotten--just an odd little footnote in history. I guess this just goes to show you that "there ain't nothing like the real thing, baby".